Pet of the Week: Timmy!

Zoe Stanton-Savitz

Timmy is a Domestic Short-haired cat living in The Hyatt with cat parents Hannah Wendel ‘24 and Zeta Hurley ‘24. 

Wendel adopted Timmy in September of this year from The Mount Vernon Animal Shelter. Their connection was fate, Wendel says, because Timmy’s name is the same as a teddy bear inherited from Wendel’s mother that they have owned since they were a toddler. 

Wendel postulates that Timmy is about five or six but because he was rescued from a shelter, guesses about his age range between three and eight years old.

“He’s had quite a journey,” Wendel says. 

They explain that Timmy was admitted to Mount Vernon Animal Shelter in August after he terrorized two cats belonging to a man living in Westchester who had been feeding him sporadically. Then, when Timmy was living in the shelter he was “bullying other cats for food,” according to Wendel. “Timmy is very food motivated.” 

Meanwhile, at the shelter, the animal attendants noticed that there was something wrong with his mouth.

“He was a messy eater,” Wendel explains. “He would eat a lot but most of it would fall out and they noticed he couldn’t really open his mouth.”

After taking Timmy to a veterinarian, Timmy was determined to require oral surgery. Wendel says that vets theorize that Timmy was hit by a car dislodging and breaking his back teeth which then healed incorrectly.

“So I came into this adoption knowing he was extra special,” Wendel says. 

Two weeks ago, all of Timmy’s teeth were removed except for four and he is still in recovery. For the four days following the surgery, Wendel and Hurley administered what Wendel calls “kitty narcotics” to help with Timmy’s pain.

“With him playing and eating and licking himself, he’s regaining strength slowly,” Wendel says. “He has a lot more energy and he’s cleaning himself successfully.”

Wendel says that before the surgery, Timmy was very irritable and had trouble relaxing fully. 

“Now he’s fully relaxing,” Wendel says. “Now he’s curling up into a little ball in a way that I’ve never seen him do before.”

As he recovers, Timmy spends his days sunbathing, cleaning himself, and playing inside an expandable cat tunnel.

“Sometimes he likes to go in there for privacy,” Wendel says. “Just to collect his thoughts.”

Additionally, Timmy constantly conspires about how to acquire extra food. According to Wendel, he recently learned how to open the refrigerator. He’s so food driven, in fact, that Wendel and Hurley had to place their trash can on a high shelf in the shower, the only place high enough that Timmy could not jump to reach. 

“I call him my little trash goblin,” Wendel says. “He’ll go face first into a trash can and pull things out.”

Timmy meows with cooing noises that sound more like a bird call.

“Zeta and I theorize that he was raised by birds,” Wendel explains. “He does seem like a bird in spirit.”

Wendel says that they’re favorite thing about Timmy is his expressiveness.

“He has so many looks,” they say. “You can really tell what he’s thinking and feeling based on his looks.”

 Wendel thinks that Timmy has some schemes and speculates that he teams up with the other pets in The Hyatt

“He’s such a weird guy,” Wendel says. “He’s such a unique character that you can’t be all that sad around him.”

Timmy looks forward to a road trip to Vermont during Thanksgiving break.