So, on the way into work this morning I took one of my cats, an 11 year old female who had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in her mouth, to the vet to be put to sleep. While loading her into the back seat of my truck I was lucky enough to step on some dog crap, no, I don’t have a dog.
And yes, I cried at the vets. Weird how animals can effect you. I never cried when my died dad, and I watched him die in hospice care. Of course at that point I thought him dying was probably for the best.
I will miss this cat. She was our lap cat, a bit of a pain in the ass, but in the evenings she would look for a lap to sleep on.
The biggest cosmic joke is the short lives of pets. So much love, and such a short time with them.
My commiseration doesn’t ease your pain, @Scuzz, but I have a nearly identical experience, both with my father (died in hospice, no tears) and with my cat (put down at the vet with renal failure, tears for days). It’s okay to be sad. I found the best way to get over the grief was to immediately go out and find a new cat.
Sorry for your loss. When my quaker parrot Scooby died I was holding her. I was inconsolable for weeks. A grown man hysterically crying every night. We do so love our pets.
Something I’ve noticed before, though: when a cat is gone from the household, the other pets do grieve, but then they sometimes tend to “take over the duties” of the missing one. One of yours might just discover it likes being a lap cat now that the lap is available.
You’re right about lap cats. Many is the night I dozed off in my chair and woke to find a nice warm friend napping it out with me. There’s something about being sought out for companionship and shared comfort that is endearing.
And yes men cry at these times. I think the one that got me was about three cats ago, Gidget. She was especially smart. Whenever she’d go to the vet she’d howl the whole way there in the carrier. But she’d been sick a while and we had done all we could. I was giving her IVs. She knew it was time to go. My wife drove, no carrier needed. No howling. I just held her the whole way. Really she was helping us do what needed to be done, more than the other way around.
Our critters teach us a lot about life and love and loss. Talk about unconditional love - I’ll never approach what a single loved pet can give and my lifespan has been considerably longer.
I’m glad you have other Katz who need you too. Maybe they won’t get in your lap, but they’ll understand it and be happy if you get down on the floor and play a little extra. They miss your feline friend too !
My dog probably has 4-5 years left. I will sorely miss her when she’s gone. We want to travel then so no pets for at least a few years. Then maybe one more dog that might outlast me.
A couple came to my neighborhood to visit from California. This was about a week or so ago. They brought with them, in a car, a Great Pyrenees doggo named Bella. Bella went missing New Years day. The fireworks spooked her.
She had been gone since then. As well it has been rainy and fucking cold since then. We have a local Facebook page and everyone has been looking for her. Signs up. The whole nine yards.
On one hand a lot of us were hoping that she was at least with a good family. A dog from another state wouldn’t have the scent markers to find her way home. We didn’t want to consider the other hand.
So about 15 minutes ago there was a post. Someone had seen a big white dog under a car nearby. The dog would not come out from under the car. The people who saw her also saw the posts on the page. And they called the couple to come over. When they did Bella came out from under the car, a happy but dirty doggo.
Last post is that Bella had a meal and is now getting a bath. They have to leave for Cali in a few hours to get home in time for jobs.
Some might call it a miracle. This once I will call it that as well.
Bon voyage Bella and family. We are so fucking happy for you.
I lost a cat taking her to the vet when I was a kid (don’t worry; the story has a happy ending). She was a Siamese, didn’t really like anyone but my mother and me, and violently objected to visiting the vet.
Anyway, she escaped us this one time and we had no idea where she went. It wasn’t really all that far from my house but it was a fairly rural area, and she made it off to the woods.
Well, reader, I was despondent. I loved that cat. So, in a flash of inspiration, my mom made a tape recording of the only sound that would usually send her running for us, the can opener. She did love to eat. And we took a tape player out to the woods every day for I think three months or so before we finally gave up.
OK so I mentioned a happy ending, and we did finally find her. We had also put out flyers and someone who worked the grounds at our local golf course found my cat, living in a barn where they kept all the lawn equipment. We went down and there she was. Came right to us. And she lived to the fine old cat age of 19. But that was some stroke of luck for a number of reasons, one being that the golf course was across a highway from the vet.
I lost a cat in similar circumstances. Dad was gonna take me and the cat, Harley, to my school for some kinda shots they were offering for free there. But we didn’t have a cat carrier so we just put a laundry hamper on top of another one. And then put him in the back of dad’s Jeep Wrangler. With the top down. So after a twenty minute very windy, noisy, scary drive, we get to school and Harley is losing his goddamn mind. And then it gets even worse cuz all over the parking lot are everyone else’s pets, including a ton of barking dogs. As we disassemble the hampers and grab Harley, he freaks out, scratches the fuck out of dad, and catcrobats his way out of the open Jeep and out of the school parking lot and down the road. Never saw him again… Sigh.
Pet stories? We had a golden lab when I was kid. Back then most people didn’t get their animals fixed. Also, back then, dogs running wild weren’t that unusual.
We kept my dog, Loki, fenced. However, when he got the scent of a bitch in heat there was no containing him. He could leap any fence. He could force his way through any slightly open door. We even tried electrifying the fence, but it didn’t work – probably just made his johnson stiffer. He would roam far and he would roam wide, and he would, eventually, get laid. He was kinda my hero.
Funniest time was when a neighbor lady was having an outdoor tea party for a bunch of ladies in the summer. Loki got out and I guess a female dog was out, and they hooked up in the neighbor’s yard in front of all the ladies in their fancy dresses and put on an XXX show. Sadly, I didn’t see it, but the neighbor’s son came over and knocked on my door to describe it, barely able to get the story out he was laughing so hard. He actually doubled over with laughter. He was sure it was the greatest thing he would ever see.
Then my dog Loki came trotting up, looking satisfied but panting, and trotted into the house and found the nearest air-conditioning register and laid down over it and fell fast asleep. Like I said, kinda my hero.
If there is an after-life there better be dogs in it. I want to hang out with Loki again, swap some stories, though he’ll have the best ones.
Every once in awhile local news has an interesting story… also, I would never touch something that looks like that without making sure it wasn’t live. I can’t believe she took it out of the shed.
So apparently my dad, he’s 62, has decided he wants to retire in September with his girlfriend, not sure how old she is, but she also plans on not working. He’s purchased a manufactured home to put on his ocean lot in WA. He’s calculated all this out for a bargain price of requiring $200 dollars a month from his oldest daughters, my little sister just barely scraped enough to get an apartment and started school again, so he’s not asking anything from her. I am sure his girlfriend’s kids are not being asked for anything because that’s just how these things work out. And by asking, I mean he came close to asking my other sister what day of the month she could send the check.
I got all this second hand because the only thing I got yesterday was a text asking me what I thought of a floor-plan for one of these homes to which I said, it looks cute.
So I’m almost done getting my store-bought teeth finished. Lots to do once they’re done. Lots of practicing; talking, chewing. Just getting used to the hardware in the mouth. I have seen the future. And it bites.
Yeah I have a few family that got their last pulled and new ones put in… suddenly they enjoy full extended family meals again. I hope you fully enjoy them.
