Female Ocelot

5/22/96 - 7/30/2021

7/30/2021 Purr-fection Died Last Night

If ever there was someone who wrung every drop out of life, it was Purr-fection Ocelot. She passed away last night at the age of 25 and in doing so had lived three years past any ocelot I could ever remember. Right up until the end, she was the deadliest cat on the property with an uncanny ability to lure just about any wandering raccoon, possum, rat, squirrel or bird into her cat-a-tat for their date with destiny. She was one of those cats, who despite her frequent “fast food” choices, as our vets called her off menu selections, who was almost never ill. When she vomited and then quit eating on July 27th she was brought into the hospital for closer observation and medication. We knew she was near the end and called the vet to come help ease her over to the other side, but she decided when it was time to leave the night before. Purr-fection was as perfect an ocelot as ever lived, in every way. She was the last of her species here at Big Cat Rescue and will be greatly missed. You can post tributes in the comments section of her bio page here.

Previous Notes on Purr-fection Ocelot

2/7/18 Purr-Fection has been growling at keepers and not eating well for the past few days so Dr. Justin did diagnostics and found she has a broken toe and two bad teeth. He pulled the teeth and has put her on cage rest for the toe.

PURRfection, and her twin brother PURRsistance, were born at the sanctuary before it was known that no privately held exotic cats would ever be able to help preserve the species due to the inability to tract them back to the wild.

She is the epitome of the perfect looking ocelot, which explains her name. Her markings are extraordinary and demonstrate why this species was almost hunted out of existence for its fur. She is much more timid than any of the other ocelots at Big Cat Rescue.

While some of our ocelots were born here prior to 1998 we quit breeding ocelots when we learned that there are no release programs for exotic cats. They can never be free. They should never be born for life in cages.

Funny Story - Jan 2018

When it gets cold we plug up one of her dens so she has a heated bed. She protested her den being heated and went to her other den that is not heated. So, fearing she would be cold, the keepers put a bunch of clean hay in there for her. LOL, that silly old girl then protested the hay and went back to the other den. Keepers are cheering because they wanted her in the heated den anyway.

Learn more about Ocelots:

https://bigcatrescue.org/ocelot-facts/

Videos of Purr-Fection’s Visit with the Vet

https://www.facebook.com/bigcatrescue/videos/10155121413491957/

Purr-fection Ocelot is 21 years old and has been just amazingly healthy but she's stopped eating, so Dr. Justin Boorstein and Big Cat Rescuers are doing diagnostics to find out why. Most exotic cats only live to be 10 or 12, so Purr-fection is the equivalent of being over 100 years old, if she were a purr-son.

Purr-fection