Had to put my good buddy 'down' yesterday.
My cat has been with us for 9 years, and frankly he's been kind of a pain in the backside. Constantly crying for food about an hour before feeding time, throwing up hairballs, and chewing whatever plastic we forgot to lock up. If you pet him for too long or in the 'wrong place' he'd bite your hand HARD. He bullied our other cat at the food bowl or any time we tried to give her attention.
Well, over the past week we noticed his appetite drop to nothing (very out of character for him) and he was meowing all the time for no reason. Yesterday took him to the emergency animal clinic an hour away...and several tests and hundred$ later learned that he had some sort of infection in his chest cavity that was making his breathing difficult. Prognosis for antibiotics not good...needed super-invasive surgery to clean the crud out of his chest.
Well, I just couldn't do it...for financial and humane reasons. I drove back down in the middle of the night to be there with him when they knocked him out. By then he was rasping when he breathed but still had the mojo to purr when I pet him for the last time.
The amazing thing is how much you miss an ornery cat when they are gone. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere about the people that you take for granted every day.
My cat has been with us for 9 years, and frankly he's been kind of a pain in the backside. Constantly crying for food about an hour before feeding time, throwing up hairballs, and chewing whatever plastic we forgot to lock up. If you pet him for too long or in the 'wrong place' he'd bite your hand HARD. He bullied our other cat at the food bowl or any time we tried to give her attention.
Well, over the past week we noticed his appetite drop to nothing (very out of character for him) and he was meowing all the time for no reason. Yesterday took him to the emergency animal clinic an hour away...and several tests and hundred$ later learned that he had some sort of infection in his chest cavity that was making his breathing difficult. Prognosis for antibiotics not good...needed super-invasive surgery to clean the crud out of his chest.
Well, I just couldn't do it...for financial and humane reasons. I drove back down in the middle of the night to be there with him when they knocked him out. By then he was rasping when he breathed but still had the mojo to purr when I pet him for the last time.
The amazing thing is how much you miss an ornery cat when they are gone. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere about the people that you take for granted every day.