![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The death of a cat
Apr. 22nd, 2017 05:58 pmLosing a pet is hard for everyone but Tony's death hit me pretty hard. I first met Tony when he was still one of my mother's cats. He was standoffish, very much unlike my mother's female cat who was and still is very affectionate. Perhaps that's what I liked about Tony. His aloofness. He was much more neurotic a cat than Jesssie, the other cat, my mom treated Tony with more yelling than Jessie.
When my mother died we adopted the pair of them. Tony and Jessie. Tony was always harder to approach, very much more frightened than Jessie; even hissing at me when we came to bring them to their new home. It took Tony much longer to adopt us than it did for Jessie, but his purr and affection when he finally did adopt us was no less welcome. One night he simply jumped up on the bed and
starting purring. Sure, he just wanted his breakfast but we loved it anyway.
I admit I spoiled him rotten. He would look up at me with those brown eyes (They weren't actually brown) and ask me with a little meep for a treat and yes, he had me trained to give him a treat. Sometimes he would put his paw on my knee and ask for more. Did I have any resistance to his pleas? Nope. He was a spoiled rotten little boy.
He and Nanook our much younger calico were great playmates. He'd chase her, she'd chase him back; Sometimes even in the day time rather than the wee hours of the night. He was a jumper and
killed the red dot many times on the wall and floor.
He'd come over and rub his face on my laptop and allow me to start stroking his head. Sometimes. It always had to be his idea, unlike Jessie. Then he'd tentatively put a paw on my stomach
think about it, then settle on my tummy to be stroked while he purred.
We knew for a long time that he had a dodgy heart. What is better for a pet? Especially an older animal? Should we have allowed the heart specialists to test him in the vet hospital for a week?
Surgery? At 13 years old? No. That's selfish. It's hard to talk to a cat and ask. We were warned that he could simply drop dead of a heart attack but what happened instead was aortic thromboembolism. We wondered where he was for breakfast and finally heard him in the
basement crying as both his rear legs had gone limp. A blood clot. I was hopeful something could be done, perhaps a week of waiting and some meds to treat. Our hopes were dashed by the vet, it was time to let him go.
Maybe what made it much harder was losing Tony the same month my mother had died (April) two years ago. A link lost to my mother. He was a great cat.
When my mother died we adopted the pair of them. Tony and Jessie. Tony was always harder to approach, very much more frightened than Jessie; even hissing at me when we came to bring them to their new home. It took Tony much longer to adopt us than it did for Jessie, but his purr and affection when he finally did adopt us was no less welcome. One night he simply jumped up on the bed and
starting purring. Sure, he just wanted his breakfast but we loved it anyway.
I admit I spoiled him rotten. He would look up at me with those brown eyes (They weren't actually brown) and ask me with a little meep for a treat and yes, he had me trained to give him a treat. Sometimes he would put his paw on my knee and ask for more. Did I have any resistance to his pleas? Nope. He was a spoiled rotten little boy.
He and Nanook our much younger calico were great playmates. He'd chase her, she'd chase him back; Sometimes even in the day time rather than the wee hours of the night. He was a jumper and
killed the red dot many times on the wall and floor.
He'd come over and rub his face on my laptop and allow me to start stroking his head. Sometimes. It always had to be his idea, unlike Jessie. Then he'd tentatively put a paw on my stomach
think about it, then settle on my tummy to be stroked while he purred.
We knew for a long time that he had a dodgy heart. What is better for a pet? Especially an older animal? Should we have allowed the heart specialists to test him in the vet hospital for a week?
Surgery? At 13 years old? No. That's selfish. It's hard to talk to a cat and ask. We were warned that he could simply drop dead of a heart attack but what happened instead was aortic thromboembolism. We wondered where he was for breakfast and finally heard him in the
basement crying as both his rear legs had gone limp. A blood clot. I was hopeful something could be done, perhaps a week of waiting and some meds to treat. Our hopes were dashed by the vet, it was time to let him go.
Maybe what made it much harder was losing Tony the same month my mother had died (April) two years ago. A link lost to my mother. He was a great cat.
