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Life:

June 1999 - Forever (we hope)

Holiday:

"Good Day" is celebrated every January 15 marking the period after love jail where Chupy started to be good

Parents:

Ericka and George

Nicknames:

Chupy, Chewpee, Chew-P, Chewper, Chupybear, The Chups, Chupertino, goop eye, chicken eye, the Chupicorn

Favorites:

Chupy mice, the Fortress of Chupitude, hiding, biting, being licked by George, perching, skeedaddling, taking food into his lair, hoarding, sniffing fingers, and secret petting from Ericka when no one is looking.

Dislikes:

Living outside covered in fleas, pet carriers, being held, not being allowed to hide, living in daylight, having goop in his eye, and having goop cleaned out of his eye.

Bio:

Together with his sisters Kittyface and Macauly, Chupalay left the outdoors and his feral parents behind to come live in Kittyland with Ericka. As a kitten he was the most tolerant of Ericka's attention, but as he grew older he learned to be the sneakiest hiding skeedaddler of them all. If Chups had it his way he would live under the bed or couch and only venture out for eating, striking at his enemies, and occasional petting.

This is how Chups' life went until December of 2005 when Ericka took it into her own hands to teach the Chups how to be good. After watching many shows where people trained wild animals or retrained crazy domestic pets she developed a plan for retraining the Chups. Once she caught the Chups she kept him in a large dog crate to get him accustomed to human interaction and make sure he was getting enough food. Over a week she fed him, cleaned out his goop eyes, pet him, and surrounded him with her smells. The Chups was at first very angry at this arrangement. He spent a lot time hissing and sleeping in his litter box rather than sleeping in the nice kitty bed that smelled like Ericka. He even managed to escape once, shredding Ericka's delicate arms and wrists. Luckily Dave and Ericka were smart enough to close off his previous hiding places, so there was no place for him to escape to.

Chupy made great strides after this and even learned to enjoy being pet and scritchy scratched. He purred many times for both Ericka and Dave's attentions. After a week or two in the crate, which was known as "Chupy jail," Chupy and Ericka moved into a tent together in the living room. While Chupy was pleased to have more room to run around in, he was not pleased to share it with Ericka. It was at this time even greater strides were made. Chupy decided it wasn't "cool" to try to hurt Ericka anymore and he sat with her while she read novels and watched TV. After another week or too, it was easy to see that while Chupy was still improving, the progress had slowed and Chupy seemed very scared to hear the sounds of the other cats outside the tent. Ericka had decided that enough progress had been made because she couldn't stand to see her new little friend so upset.

When Chupy was released back into the "wild" he spent the first day hiding again, but by day two he was on the couch and on the bed requesting petting, he was eating better, and looking great because his goop eyes were all cleared up. He's far from being a normal cat, but for the Chups the progress has been amazing. He's now eating regularly and is much more aware and healthy, there are only a few traces left of the scaredy, creamy haired, emaciated Chups from the past. We have high hopes for the Chups, but there's only so much that modern science can accomplish.