A Good Day For Goldilocks

       More good news from the cat front!  About three weeks ago, I trapped a little orange female, about four months old, up at the Mesa. Because she didn't seem completely feral, I tried to find a foster home for her among the Feline Network volunteers. When I couldn't find anyone, I set her up in the spare bathroom here at my house. Within a very short time, she was sitting on my lap, purring, and lapping up the KMR (kitten milk replacement) that I gave her as a special treat.

        But there was still the problem of what to do with her. Nobody had room in the foster homes and I'm going away over the Thanksgiving holiday. My wonderful petsitter, Anna Stuart, would be coming in twice a day, but that still didn't seem like enough attention for a cat only just getting used to dealing with humans.

        Then Anna called and said she'd found the little girl, whom I've been calling Goldilocks, a home. A wonderful, animal-loving woman had been looking for an orange female--and solid orange girls are hard to find. Most orange cats are actually male. Today was the Big Day for Goldilocks. Anna came and took her away in a carrier, along with a toy mouse and a can of KMR to remind her of her foster home. I know she will do great in her new situation as she wants nothing more than to sit in her person's lap all day and that is what Anna says this lady is looking for.

       I wish Goldilocks could understand how lucky she is. The Mesa is not a good place for cats during the best of times, and we've just come through a weekend of torrential rain and cold. In all likelihood, Goldilocks will have a long, happy life in a home where she is valued and loved. I wish all animals everywhere could have homes like that, but it still makes my heart sing to know that Goldilocks has found hers.

Re: Good News For One Feral

 

     So often rescue work with animals is filled with sad situations, so I rejoice when something goes unequivocally right!

      For literally months now, I have been trying to trap a small calico female who is the litter mate to two orange kittens I trapped ages ago. (They are semi-tame and are living with Christine, the founder of Feline Network). But this calico female always eluded me and, in the meantime, she has grown to the age where before long she'll be having kittens and making a bad situation much worse. Not only that, but this cat makes her hideway in an opening at the back of a small house in AG. The opening leads to

an area of plumbing fixtures of some type and an old bathtub, where she takes refuge. The owner of the house is adamant about not wanting the cat in that space. As soon as I trap her, the plan has been that I am to tell the homeowner and he will board up the entrance to the only shelter this little cat has ever known.

     So all this time that I've been trying to trap her, I've also been agonizing about what am I going to do with her. Normal procedure would have me return her to where I got her, but at that point she would have lost her 'home' and the property owner is not interested in feeding her. So I admit that, while I've continued to trap there, I've not been too unhappy when I continue to fail to catch the cat--since I leave out food for her and she has her makeshift shelter.

     Late last week, though, through a series of coincidences, I made contact with a woman who runs a feral cat sanctuary north of Atascadero. She was willing to take some semi-feral cats from Feline Network, but the person fostering the cats in question changed her mind for various reasons and that deal fell through. Then this morning--after so many attempts--I caught the calico! Immediately  I called the wonderful woman who runs the feral habitat. I will be meeting her up in Santa Marguerita this afternoon with the calico cat, now spayed with her shots, in a carrier to go to her new home at the habitat. It is a large, enclosed area where ferals live out their lives in peace. She will have ample shelter, food, and safety from predators--three options totally unavailable to her in her former circumstances.
      I am so grateful to the Universe for making this possible, for the timing that had the little cat walk into the trap at the one moment  when a new opportunity had actually opened up for her future. Thank God, she will never go hungry and she will have plenty of warm, hay-filled enclosures in which to cuddle with other cats. She will never have kittens, and predators, human or animal, will not bother her. At the moment, as she sits in the carrier on my porch recovering from her spaying procedure, I am sure she does not consider herself fortunate and would love nothing better than to go back to the only home she has ever known. If only she knew the bigger picture!

      I wonder how often I--how often all of us--are like the little cat, unaware of the bigger picture and oblivious to our incredible good fortune!

Re: On Grieving the Loss of Animals

     Recently I wrote about the loss of my 15-year-old cat Twinky, who died at home, with the help of her veterinarian, on October 25. Since Twinky's body was obviously failing, I guess I had thought the pain of losing her would somehow be mitigated by the relief of knowing she would not experience suffering. I'm thankful she had a peaceful and pain-free death, but that knowledge has done little to blunt the grief I feel at her loss.

      Twinky always sat at the end of the sofa in my living room. Every time I come in the front door, my eyes automatically go to the sofa--which is empty now--and I am reminded once again that she's gone. Every morning for the last four years I (or the petsitter if I was out of town) gave Twinky her medicine for high blood pressure; every month of so, I would call up the lab in Paso Robles and order another bottle of her meds. Now every day in which that familiar ritual is no longer enacted is another day in which she grows farther away from me. At "treat time" in the evenings, Twinky--who was blind--would be the first to appear in the kitchen, waiting expectantly for her portion of wet food. When I tossed out dry treats to the other cats, I would tuck two or three under Twinky's paw, so she could immediately find them.  At night, as soon as I got into bed and called her, Twinky would jump down off her spot on the sofa, come into the bedroom, hop up on the bed and stretch out against my back, with her head and paws in my hair. I still can't get used to sleeping on my side, knowing I will never again feel her furry warmth as she snuggles against me or hear the soothing music of her purr. I know that now I can rearrange the furniture with impunity or relocate the food and water bowls if I choose to, because my other cats are sighted. In her later years, Twinky found it difficult to squat and sometimes would end up peeing over the side of the litter box onto the floor. I got her a couple of special boxes with high sides and -- just in case--- placed them on top of a tarp covered with plastic trash bags so even if she missed, it was easy to clean up the spill. I took those away the other day--my other cats don't need them.

      Twinky always enjoyed going out into the fenced backyard, but sometimes she indicated she wanted to go out into the front yard by standing at the front door, looking expectant. I'd let her go outside, but always go out with her, since the front yard isn't fenced and she could easily wander out into the street. I was careful to never leave the side gate open, since she could have gone from the safety of the backyard out into the front unsupervised. Now the gate can be open all the time--it doesn't matter.

     When she was sighted, Twinky terrorized the other cats--she was alpha to the core. Even after she lost her sight, she continued to instill fear--I once saw her carefully locate the position of another cat by listening, turn slowly, then lunge with amazing accuracy at her intended prey. On another occasion, I came home to the horrifying sight of Twinky almost at the top of a twelve-foot high cat tree, looking around in some distress as she tried to figure out how to get down. I plucked her into my arms and put her back on the terra firma of the living room rug. To my vast relief, as far as I know, she never ventured up there again.

       I could write on and on reminiscing about Twinky, her adventures, her spirit, her tendency (probably due to her Siamese blood) to grumble and growl over anything that met with her disapproval--and those things were legion!

      But the point of this entry is to say that I have been unprepared for the depth of the grief I feel. It's a lethargy, a profound lack of appetite for dealing with the day to day demands of the world. Twinky shared my life for fifteen years. Now her life is over and a chapter of mine is irrevocably closed.

       In her mortality, of course, I see my own and that of every animal and every person that I love.

       Yet even as I mourn her, I  look across the living room and see the Little Dude cavorting in a paper grocery bag from Trader Joe's. He rolls around, sticks his head out, dives back in, crinkling and crumpling the bag, finding in its brown, oblong interior a toy more fascinating than any PetCo toy or catnip mouse. Everything is new and amazing and wonderful in Little Dude-Land, where Now is the only moment there ever was or will ever be.

       So I grieve for Twinky but I celebrate the gift that is the Little Dude. I wish that I could learn to live with his enthusiasm and only hope that I can die with a fraction of her equanimity and grace.

           

     

     

Remembering Twinky

     Twinky, my beloved cat for fifteen years, passed away at home on Monday, October 25. The vet and vet tech came to the house, and they were wonderful, giving Twinky a shot first to sedate her before the second, final shot, was administered. She died in my arms, wrapped in a blanket. Her body was taken away to  be cremated and returned to me. I had agonized over the decision to end Twinky's life that day. She was still eating, but the fluid in her abdominal cavity--after having been drained once the previous week--was building up again. The vet said that, for it to build up again so fast, the situation inside her must be very bad. So I decided to let Twinky go while she was still relatively comfortable and not in any pain. Would that it could be this simple for humans.

     Twinky was with me through four major relationships, one of them a marriage, and five relocations, four within Colorado and the last one out here to Pismo Beach. She knew the moment I got into bed and would come into the bedroom, jump up on the bed, and sleep nestled up against my hair. Being blind for the last five years didn't daunt her a bit.


Twinky resting on one of her final days




Enjoying the sunshine





Little Dude keeps her company

           I feel that twice I almost lost Twinky and twice God returned her to  me. The first time was when, as her foster mom, I foolishly decided to put her up for adoption, thinking that I should adopt an older cat more in need of a home. When I realized I had made the wrong decision, I hurried down to the Boulder Valley Humane Society, only to find a couple in the process of adopting Twinky. I was devastated. I remember sobbing all the way home in my car, saying "I'm so sorry", both to Twinky and to myself, for having been so oblivious to how much I wanted her in my life.     That was on a Friday. On Monday I called the BVHS to tell them they needed to remind Twinky's new people that she needed to continue her medication for the  infection that had already cost her an eye. To my amazement, the woman said, "But she's still here. The adoption didn't go through." Needless to say, I rushed back to Boulder and adopted Twinky, so grateful that I (and she) had been given a second chance.     The second time I thought I'd lost Twinky was one of the most painful episodes of my life. I was married and my husband and I had decided to spend part of the summer in Michigan, even though we'd just moved into a new home in Mead, CO. The cats were in the habit of going outside, so I insisted to the petsitter that they be allowed to go out, even though they were now in a new neighborhood with an unfamiliar person coming to feed them. That decision was completely misguided and unthinking on my part and I have regretted it bitterly. I would never leave any animal alone in new surroundings now or allow it access to the outdoors for at least a month.     Within a couple of weeks, I found out that Twinky and another of my cats, Puppy, had disappeared. I flew back to CO to search. I started sleeping out on the back steps in case one or both of them came home in the night. I remember waking up and hearing Twinky meow. She was standing right there. Before that moment, whenever I'd heard or read of somebody who'd pinched themselves to see if they were dreaming, I'd thought it sounded silly. How could anyone not know if they were awake or asleep? But at that moment, I honestly wasn't sure. I just remember thinking that if this was a dream, if I woke up and Twinky was not really there, I would die. So I dug my nails into my arm and I picked Twinky up and she was real.     The joy of being reunited with Twinky was, of course, only matched by the guilt and grief I also felt over Puppy, who never came home. I don't know if he and Twinky left together or separately, or if Twinky went with him on some journey that only she was able to return from. But once again, I felt that God had given her back to me.     I have been blessed and privileged to have Twinky in my life. When I walk in the front door, I still find myself looking at the spot on the sofa where she would invariably be sitting. When I call "treat time" I still expect her to be the first to show up. Knowing this will never happen again leaves a great emptiness. The house doesn't feel right without her, and I wonder if the other cats are aware of her absence. She was a beautiful, sweet soul and will be terribly missed.

Birth and Death

        I've been writing about the addition of a new kitty to the family, Little Dude from up on the Mesa, who is about 3 months old now, full of life and energy.

        Sadly, at the same time that a new little one has come into my household, another life--that of my beloved cat Twinky--is fading out. Twinky is about 15 years old now, which the vet said is about the average life expectancy for a cat. She has been through a lot of adventures in her life, and I'll write about that later. But right now, Twinky is dying and it's my job to find the right moment--not too soon, not too late--to help her make her exit from this world.

        Back in August, when she went in for a check-up, the vet noticed she'd lost a couple of pounds. Since Twinky loves to eat and has been on the chunky side for years, this did not seem altogether bad. Except there was no explanation for the weight loss. The vet did an ultra-sound and determined that her spleen looked abnormal, so another test was done, something called a fine needle aspiration, where a few cells are removed from the spleen via an ultra-thin needle. This last test showed cancer.  At the same time, other things were looking bad--like many elder cats, Twinky has kidney and digestive tract issues.

       Twinky is also blind. She lost one eye to infection as a young kitten--that's how I came to be fostering her for the Boulder Valley Humane Society in Boulder, CO--and lost the second eye to glaucoma, caused by undiagnosed high blood pressure about 5 years ago. She's adapted wonderfully to her blindness, gets around the house and the fence-in backyard just fine. But because of her blindness, a trip to the vet is even more stressful and frightening for Twinky than most cats. I did not want to continue with invasive procedures, such as having her spleen removed. Also, I have gone down this road with several cats and two dogs, and I truly did not think removal of the spleen would save Twink's life or prolong it.

      All this was maybe a month ago. Since then, I've been giving Twink whatever she wants in the way of treats and canned food and she has seemed fairly normal, although clearly losing more weight. Then a few days ago, things changed. I noticed her sides seemed to be swelling out and knew, from past experience, that this might mean fluid retention.

      I had a hard decision to make. This morning, early, I'm going to do my best to get Twinky to take a small dose of kitty valium hidden in wet food. I don't know if she'll take it--cats are very sensitive to something in their food--but I will do my best. Then an hour later, I'm doing what I'd hoped I wouldn't have to do--taking her back to the vet to see if they can drain off this extra fluid and make her more comfortable. Due to her blindness, Twink hates and fears trips to the vet more than most cats. I have to weigh the benefits of her seeing the vet versus the stress of making the trip.

      I've been with many animals during their dying process and I will be with Twink up to the end of hers. I've already arranged with the vet to come to the house when the time comes. At least that way Twinky can be in her familiar, comfortable surroundings.

      Watching an animal die, especially one who is so loved, is excruciating. Knowing when the time has come is a heart-wrenching decision.

      I have a friend who once told me she felt she waited too long to let go of one of her animals. Now she says, like a mantra, "Better to be an hour too early than a minute too late." I agree. I don't know if today will be the day--I hope not and I don't think it will, I think Twink will come home. But I really don't know what the vet will say about her condition. If the fluid retention turns out to be blood instead of water, then that would mean something else.

      In the meantime, I can only do my best to make the right decisions on behalf of this wonderful, loving soul.



Twink lounging at home



Perched in a cat tree



Twink, 'the Lioness'