Cutie & Ella

Cutie is near the end of the road, I am afraid. She turned twenty-eight last December so it's not a shock, but it's still a very tough decision. She hasn't been eating. I found some stuff made specifically for older cats with kidney troubles that she would eat, and she started regaining a small amount of weight back and I could see some of the life come back into her eyes for a while. But now she won't even eat that. I could force-feed her liquid nutrients, but that is certainly not the life she wants to live, and she hates it when I do that. I am going to have to make that tough decision very soon, and it will hurt.

 

Hard for me to write about this, but I can remember going through this with my Chipper, and I know how heartbreaking and so hard of a decision this is.
Sometimes, we have to love enough to let them go, even though it breaks our own hearts terribly.
Sending prayers, Ken.

 

It's done, and I am so incredibly sad. That girl has been a part of my family for more than a third of my life. She has had a good, long life. After she quit eating her regular food, I gave her another few weeks by feeding her supplements in gravy. She put a small amount of weight back on, and got some life back in her eyes, and was feeling well enough to walk around the yard, and so on. But when it got to where I would have to feed her with a syringe, it was time to end it because she absolutely hated that, and it would have simply extended things a week or so. Rather than fighting with her in her last days, she went peacefully. God, am going to miss her.

 

Cutie rarely played with toys. She used them as props, much in the way that another cat might bring me a dead mouse or a bird. She would bring me a toy and, in return, she would ask for something. Sometimes, we would get up in the morning to find a line of toys leading from our bed, which she had been bringing up through the night, trying to get me to get up out of bed. Here is a photo taken from one of my wildlife cameras that I set up on the stairs.

 

She's buried next to her sister, Lydia. I've been spending the past few hours washing all the cat beds, cleaning the litter boxes, vacuuming the rug in my office and so on. I think it might be easier for Ella not to have constant reminders, plus there is the fact that Cutie didn't smell so good the past couple of days. I don't think Ella will be affected anyhow, other than perhaps some confusion. When Lydia died, it wasn't clear that Cutie even noticed her absence, although when we lost Bird and Obadiah, both Cutie and Lydia were acting very strange, as if they had nothing left to live for. Ella changed that because she gave both Cutie and Lydia something to live for, which was getting rid of Ella.

 

I don't know. Any cat that I get at this point will probably outlive me. We're going to wait and see how Ella handles being an only cat. Some cats do well with that, while others like having someone to play and fight with. We could take in an older cat but if she happens to be an alpha female, I'd hate to bring conflict into Ella's life. Plus, I like being able to feed a cat well from the beginning because that's how I can create a really healthy cat. Of course, I didn't start feeding Cutie and Lydia well until they were eight years old or so. I didn't understand or appreciate the importance of it until I began working for Blue Buffalo. Now I know that, while it means spending four times more for the same amount of food, they don't eat as much of it, given that premium foods have more nutrition per ounce, and veterinary bills are minimal, except when they get into fights, or really old.

A couple of things that I do that a lot of people disagree with is that I don't vaccinate them, except for a rabies shot (and I am uncertain about that), and I let them go outdoors during the day. Of course, the people who think that I am wrong about these things consider a cat to be old at fifteen and have never raised at cat into its twenties, while I have raised four cats into their twenties. A veterinarian was treating me as if I were the most irresponsible person he had ever met when I told him that my cats go outdoors during the day and that I refused to have them vaccinated, yet his own cats died between fifteen and eighteen.

I suppose you could keep your child safe if you never let her go outdoors, but what kind of a life would that be? That depends on where you live, of course. I didn't let my cats outside when I was living in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and if I lived in any big city, I wouldn't let my cats outdoors.

 

They've all had the rabies vaccine, although I'd rather not even do that. I said that was the only one they get. We had a rabid raccoon here in Millinocket this spring so it does happen.