ABOUT THE TEAM
We are a two humans and two cats team from the beautiful Vancouver, BC, Canada. Nemo on the left, aka “The Brain” or “San Fangsisco” (a long story), supervises in spirit from over the rainbow bridge. TinTin on the right, aka “Pinky”, supervises all productions with sleepy eyes always from just a few feet away.
ABOUT THE CAT BUTT
The “Cat Butt” is dedicated to an amazing soul we named Nemo. The design is inspired by a picture of Nemo walking away in his favourite toy tunnel. All Cat Butts are designed and hand made from scratch by the two humans in a smoke-free cat-roaming home studio.
There wouldn’t be a 2 Forks Design without Nemo. 10% the proceeds of all Cat Butt products will be donated to a volunteer-run no-kill cat shelter to help the FIV+ and FeLV cats in their special facility (Katie’s Place Animal Shelter in Maple Ridge, BC
ABOUT NEMO
Nemo was diagnosed with FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) exactly one month after we adopted him from the Vancouver SPCA on December 4th, 2005. Within that month he suffered through high fever, dehydration, and seizures. Nothing slowed him down, though. In that same month, he also learned at least ten voice commands, which included going into his carrier, sitting, jumping on/off, shaking “hands”, and walking through a homemade tunnel. In the next four and a half years he travelled with us in an RV, walked in the meadows and campgrounds in the Canadian Rockies, and strolled through a snow-covered beach in the Pacific Rim National Park.
He remained strong and healthy after the initial month until cancer finally claimed his life in 2010. He was an old, wise soul who emitted tremendous healing power. He was well-adjusted, intelligent, confident, loyal, fearless, and yet extremely affectionate. The bond we developed in just a short few weeks and the trust he had in us always amazed us. We realize that there will never be another cat like Nemo but it comforts us to know that he is out there healing someone who needs him more than we do.
This is a video I made for Nemo’s first year “Gotchaversary”. I apologize for the poor quality. It was shot with an old, simple camera!
ABOUT TINTIN
TinTin is a beautiful, sweet and unpretentious young soul. It’s hard to imagine when we saw him at the shelter in 2009 he was a mess. He had a leaky nose, bad case of chin acne, and his eyes were red and swollen with lots of discharge. Turned out that he had entropion (ingrown eyelids). His eyes were infected and extremely painful.
We brought him home, cleaned up his chin acne and had surgery done to his eyes. Look how beautiful he is now! He is the type of sweet cat that just melts your heart. Affectionate, loving, mellow, well-adjusted and shy but calm. Even though he must be at least 7-8 years old he still thinks he is a kitten and he looks like one!
Looking at TinTin’s pictures now it’s hard to imagine he has had entropion surgeries done (multiple times! Poor boy). Entropion, also known as ingrown eyelid, is an extremely painful condition (imagine having an eyelash in your eye). It causes irritation and scratches to the front surface of the eye, leading to corneal ulceration, or corneal perforation.
Entropion repair surgery is a simple procedure often done by a family vet. It is simple yet it requires experience for it to be done properly as the vet needs to know how much of the eyelid skin to pull back. The kind people at the shelter at Katie’s Place Animal Shelter, where TinTin came from, tried to repair his eyes with a surgery done by their vet but it did not work. When we adopted him his eyes were still red and inflamed. His lower eyelids were still visibly touching his cornea. The poor boy kept his eyes closed as much as possible as it caused the least discomfort that way. We took him to a veterinary ophthalmology clinic and had the entropion repair surgery done by an eye specialist. After the surgery, we asked the doctor if he needed pain killers. She said no, that the pain he was dealing with now from the sutures was nothing comparing to what he had to endure before on a daily basis. That poor, sweet boy!
For the next few days he was ecstatic! He played and jumped and ran into walls with his “cone of shame” everywhere! He looked out the windows whenever he could and he never looked back since!
WHAT ELSE?
Follow us on Instagram to see exclusive daily photos and videos of TinTin and Nemo (yes, even Nemo!) From time to time you will also get a surprise visit from “The Gang”–our neighbourhood cats Ozzie, Kirby and Sam.
