If you are not an animal lover you may read this and think I am a silly, crazy cat woman. If you have never loved an animal and had them love you back, you are so missing out on the one of the joys of life. If you have loved an animal you will understand.  Today I had to take my third cat this year to the vet to be euthanized and it still doesn’t get any easier. The first two I knew it was coming eventually because they were getting up in the years. This one was a total surprise. He came to us at our previous home 7 years ago, ragged and thin and starving and begging for food. He had the prettiest face and big eyes and was tenacious by sticking around for a month. His personality was good and he made the cut to be part of the family. As we always said he wasn’t ready for prime time at all and had to be taught a lot. He didn’t know how to play, he snapped at us all the time and to be able to stay living with us I had to have him declawed because he became overly excited during play time and embedded both sets of front claws into Toms face. He was lucky he was cute. This picture was taken about a month ago when we figured out something was wrong. At this point he weighed 13 pounds down from almost 17 in July.

Here he is,on one of his favorite places to lay. The vet figured out that there was something wrong with his kidneys and he was having his kidneys flushed and they made everything work for a while but I could never get him to eat on his own again. I would give him food through a syringe. All this just gave us time to be with him. When I brought him home a month ago I am so glad I let him stay outside the first night. It was still warm and he loved it. He just sat and looked out and walked around the house with a lot of wobbling. He then jumped into his favorite chair to sleep and watch the house through the night. It always seemed like he was guarding the house, because he wouldn’t stay out during the day. If he would hear a noise during the day, he would walk around the house growling till everything was to his satisfaction. He was like our guard dog. I am sure he would be totally insulted by that insinuation. Sebastian was next in line to take over the reins from Stonewall, our cat that was euthanized in early October.  He and Stonewall had a love/hate relationship.  Sometimes the fur would just fly because one or the other did something only they knew.  Mealtime always had a brief altercation while waiting for their food.  Maybe Sebastian missed this because he wouldn’t come to meals quickly after Stonewall wasn’t around.

Stonewall is the yellow cat. He was 16 years old and was bossy. He kept everyone in line and thought he owned me. He would jump on Sebastian if I paid any attention to him. He would sleep on my pillow each night up until the last two weeks of his life. He usually didn’t let any other cat sleep on our bed except him. We knew he was slowing down when we would find another cat on the bed in the morning. He had kidney problems also but that isn’t unusual for a cat his age. I was gone for a week in September and my calls home would inform me that Stonewall was not coming out of the closet and he wasn’t eating much.  When I got back he was very excited and slept on my pillow for half the night.  He didn’t after that and it just went downhill after that.  Maybe the stress of my being gone accelerated the illness.

Smoke is the grey cat (make sense doesn’t it). He was euthanized in February and right here is my post about him. Sophie is everywhere, loves everybody and is happy all the time. Two other cats I have are Lily and Pavel. Pavel came last March right after Smoke was gone. He heard there was an opening and applied. Actually he came begging for food on a very cold day. He made the cut and is a member of our family. I hope that I do not have to write any of these for a long, long time. I believe that animals go to Heaven because God made them and they have so much unconditional love to give. Hopefully they are all meeting up and Stonewall is yelling and rolling around with Sebastian and Smoke will get a cheap shot in when they are done. They are missed!