Tuxedo “Tux” Muller passed away surrounded by family and under the tender care of Gardiner Animal Hospital on September 27, 2026.

Tux was a wonderful, loving cat who came up our driveway in July, 2010. He looked like a kitten, but the doctor said that he was a year old. My other cat, Vincent, although six years old, accepted Tux from the beginning which could be one reason Tux kept coming back, despite not being fed at first. I also think the fact that I talked to him was also very reassuring. You see, Tux had a perfectly good home up the hill from us, but I did not know that then.

A year after Tux decided to stay with us, I went to a party and was talking to the neighbor up the hill. He mentioned that he had a black and white cat who disappeared last summer.

“Oh no!” I said, “I think I have him.”

I told him the story and asked if I could keep him and the neighbor said yes.

For the next 17 years Tux and I were inseparable. We went to New Jersey for part of five winters, we hiked up our hill thousands of times, we sat on the big rock by the brook every day and we slept and ate together. In 2020 we moved to New Paltz to an apartment.

I felt very sorry for Tux not being able to go right out the door as he was used to, but he seemed ok as long as we were there. Then one day I did let him out. He came back this first time, but the next day he didn’t come back by dark. I spent eight hours walking around the apartments and into the woods calling him. Nothing. At 5:30 a.m. (it was April) I walked around again and there he was huddled by a house. I got my boy back and from then on, for the next five years, he walked on a leash outside.

He was 12 the first time I put a leash on him. He didn’t mind because it attached to his flea collar. He would not tolerate a harness.

During those years we visited folks in the nursing home once a week and strolled around the complex. People got to know him and loved him.

Tux began to have some gagging incidents and had pancreatitis and a hypothyroid. I changed his food many times, let him eat grass and put thyroid medicine on his ear, but it only worked for a time and finally he got so thin and stopped eating. I didn’t want to put him through any more vet visits that so the worst day of all came, but I know that I made the right call. Many people wait too long instead of thinking of the pet.

Tux was my dear companion every day and I miss him terribly. I could never thank him enough for what he did for me.

God bless his dear little soul.