Cat demise

feel your pain, though... we're blessed with these companions for only a short while, and it hurts so much when they have to leave.

Other cats of my family have also run away or died since. So, Doc, I am sympathetic. The line of yours that makes me saddest may be the one about watching the cat in the garden while you typed the mail about the necessity of his demise.

It's never fun losing a pet :(

Thankyou everyone.

** realised that as i saw them at the vets, saw them receiving the injection, and i saw how relaxed (duh!) and peaceful they looked, in sharp opposition to the way they had acted in the preceeding 6 weeks or so, my grief was diluted by relief**

Exactly my thoughts when it was done, Ambrose.

**If this is the first pet death yr kids have experienced then expect torrents of tears**

Two guinea pigs have gone before him (one scared to death by a dog - one old age) so it's not the first time, Nick.

**How are you breaking the news to your kids?**

We told them last night that he was on his way out, they got the chance to give him a hug etc. Now they're looking for photos of him.

This made me laugh :

**Unless you get one of those long lifed parrots or tortoises,**

(A long-lifed one or just the ordinary one, sir?)

Thanks again.

Dr.C, You're a good soul. Humanity knows this.

Actually I hadn't realized how unsettling and upsetting it could be to lose a pet who's been around for nearly 15 yrs. Times's wheel turning relentlessly etc. The vet wrote us a nice letter - I think he was quite worried abt us.

I want to see kitten pics!

(I once saved a cat from a grain mill - it had got stuck right at the top of a pile of grain and hurt itself. I had to scale a substantial silo-type-thing, pick my way along the gantry, and carry down the cat, despite being allergic to it and scared of heights. So I don't actually dislike cats - rather I think I resent them for being so cute but making me feel extremely unwell)

xpost

christ, that put a lump in my throat.

Kittens are the darlingest thing in the world, and worth every bit of the grief we eventually get. They are the best evidence there is that life continues.

My wife is devastated, she has never lost a pet before. I have, but that doesn't make it any easier. He really was the best, sweetest cat I ever knew. He died too young. Please take care of and love your pets.

Losing a cat is awful, awful, awful. Kyle, your cat happened to pass away on the second anniversary of Hugo's death. He died in my wife's arms that night. It still haunts us. We got a second cat just over a month after -- he has provided plenty of happy company for us (and, more importantly, for his brother Casper).

Last Sunday I stepped outside to move the car and noticed our neighbor's cat on our porch -- no movement, mouth agape, eyes open. He might've been hit by a car, but we couldn't quite tell since there was no bleeding. (Very possible though since people drive down our 25 mph street at an average clip of 40-45.)

All we can do is love them as much as we can while they're here. Casper annoys the hell out of me when he gets hungry at 5:00 am but I seem to stop short of bristling at him when I remember Hugo.

all my sympathies. as my kitties are getting on in years this becomes something i worry about more and more

:(

tho i'm not sure that if i was a kitty i'd want to hang out in a litterbox in the sky 4eva. lemme poop wherever i want to, this is ~heaven~

lol i picked up the grossest mucous-y kitten stool ever in my dining room this am, it was revolting and i was retching. i will have to remind zuzu that until she makes heaven its the litter box or ELSE.

pic of my boy manny upthread makes me sad. he was so sick there- he wasn't shy, he was the confident type that liked to look you in the eye, not close his own.

I'm so sorry emily. It's ok to just let yourself hurt a little, I think, and remember all the fun times you had with your little guy.

our kitty Grace passed away this evening.... she was ill, but we weren't prepared for something happening this quickly..

We took her to the emergency vets as she wasn't acting herself all day, and it turns out she was suffering from kidney failure, likely caused by the anaesthetic she had last week to remove a cancerous lump on her belly which we found two weeks ago..

Her brother Marley is still here to keep us company, but Grace has left a big hole in our hearts...

http://i.imgur.com/sBdoz.jpg

Sorry to hear, great picture.

thanks.... it's one of my favourite pictures... her looking down from a bookshelf at me lying on the floor taking the photo...

Poor Grace. You have my sympathy.

RIP to my mom's cat Buffy, the last pet who moved in before I moved out after high school. Survived by Spike, even though they didn't seem to like each other despite growing up together.

https://i.imgur.com/Q8JKF1Hl.jpg
(age... 5ish? she made it to 20)

My 3 year old kitty Roger has a bum ticker, which we knew about already; but it has gotten much worse since last time it was checked. He is now in early stages of heart failure.

Fortunately his young kidneys can handle a lot of medication (if I can figure out how to get him to take it). But the prognosis is <1yr, and even with all the loving family and friends who rallied around me yesterday, I feel gutted.

I'm really sorry to hear that. We just lost our cat Oscar, who made it to around 15 before developing some sort of cancer in his sinus. It would have taken thousands to specifically diagnosis him and thousands more to treat him, which would not have added much to his life and would have made us all miserable, so we gave him the best six months we could before his decline and discomfort was too apparent. I couldn't be here for it, which was heartbreaking, but we had someone come out to the house who was apparently very good and sweet and ... like I said, it's heartbreaking. The presence of a pet is a gift. We all miss him a lot, but we've taken the opportunity to start fostering until we're ready/able to adopt again.

my cat chilli died one year ago today after a brief and traumatic illness - still miss her every day.

sorry to hear about roger, bernard - hope whatever time he has left is comfortable. i'm sure he knows how much he is loved

condolences to you too josh. the period of knowing a pet is terminally ailing is awful.

I had to put down a cat a few years ago, an older guy I had taken in and really only owned for a relatively short period of time. Every night for a week or so afterward I would scroll through pictures of him on my phone and I would get to one and just lose it, really heavy bawling which I had not done in years, if ever. And I didn't even really cry when own my dad passed away, which I feel strange about but I suppose it's not unusual to have a more visceral reaction to losing a pet than one's own parent. My current guy is getting up in years, still doing OK, and I hope when the time comes I will handle it about as matter-of-factly as Art Carney in "Harry & Tonto" ("see ya round, kid"), but probably not.

Yeah, I know I could make myself start crying instantly, if I wanted to.

It's quite remarkable, that so many people share this experience, of having to decide a pet's end, and yet, if you have pets that live a long time it's really not something that you have to face that often. I've only had to do it once before, when a previous cat was struggling to breathe and taking her to the vet confirmed her lungs were cancerous, which made the decision a little easier, if still sad. I've read (not that it is any solace in real time), that the decision does get easier, if only in the sense that it becomes easier to accept that keeping a pet alive as long as possible is often something more for us and less for them. But the decision is never easy.

I did come across something that pointed out that just as with humans, pets passing quietly at home in their sleep is something that really doesn't happen that often.

I knew my guy was on his last legs, I figured he was down to months, maybe weeks. I took him in to get that sort of assessment, so I would know how much time I had to spoil him. But the vet said we were down to hours at that point, and that he could give me a bunch of drugs to help get him through the weekend, and make his breathing a little easier. So I decided the time was then. And it's pretty brutal to be in the room when that happens but I'm glad I was there with him, and I hope it helped. To this day I still wrestle with the fact that all the way to the vet's, and while we were in the waiting room I told him over and over "hey bud, it's gonna be OK." God, I felt like such a fraud for months after that, and still kind of do.

trying not to cry on the bus at that post

henry you did make it ok, not in the least fraudulent. Hardest thing is knowing the loving thing to do is to end their suffering and take it on yourself. I still miss my guy Timmy who's been gone longer than he was with me.

I never cried as much as when we were going to put Butch down (we didn't, see my embarrassing story in the 77 cat thread). Just absolutely disgusting blubbering that would only stop for brief moments before starting again. I had a similar situation Henry where I thought we were just taking him to the vet for a quick check up and a "oh, he's simply not eating and walking a little funny because he needs a different food type!". Only to be told he had a blocked urinal tract and kidneys that were shutting down, giving him a day at most to live. We made the call there to put him down (before the vets heroics intervened) and I couldn't even stomach being the person to say it to the vet. I left it to my wife while I carried Butch outside in his carrier blubbering into the carpark. I also told him over and over "it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay", but didn't feel like a fraud because when there's so much pain for them, it is the truth. Matt otm. Sincere condolences Bernard, Josh, Bizarro, Matt and Henry. It is the worst

Thanks you guys. It is immeasurably helpful to put those thoughts into words, and to get yours in return.

oh man

my dude lyle had cardiomyopathy, and for two years i crammed pills down his throat to stave it off, and he absolutely hated it but never once bit me

and then one night seven years ago last month i fed him and he just couldn't do it anymore and we took a cab to the vet and he was gone

i should be an actor because even thinking about him seven years later makes me cry. he would just sit on my chest and rub chins with me. he was the best

:(

I'm sorry, that's truly rough

have you got a new furry friend? We picked up Butch and Bear after little Dimitri passed too soon. We were just meant to get one cat but I couldn't separate two brothers that needed a home. My wife says this exponential increase in cats following a death is not sustainable, but I think she's wrong

All the feelings of guilt and being a fraud and the like which people have described itt I completely relate to, and that's one reason I'm so glad I have lovely friends around to tell me "that's just not true" and console me and pray with me.

I keep flashing back to this one moment, after they had finished all the tests and given me the full bad news. I started thanking the doctors and the students (it's a teaching hospital at the vet school) and then I rambled on about how at least his ailment (subaortic stenosis, which is seen with some prevalence in certain dog breeds, but almost never in cats) is an unusual one, so if they had to give me bad news at least it wasn't the same bad news they had given 100 other people before, there was an opportunity here to learn and -- "Sweetie," my partner gently interrupted me, "You don't need to look for the good in this situation, not now." Of course she was right.

Felt I should share a handsome-boy pic of Timmy - more than 10 years ago, I'm surprised to see.
https://i.imgur.com/KxDORGL.jpeg

i waited a year, because it seemed blasphemous to try to replace him

(my biological father has had a countless series of siamese cats over the last 45 years and named each of them ‘m0zart’ which is so fucked up that i can barely interact with him.)

then i acquired polly, who as a wee calico girl is largely lyle’s opposite. she is very pretty, but also bitey. lyle was my buddy; polly is just my roommate.

and while we were in the waiting room I told him over and over "hey bud, it's gonna be OK." God, I felt like such a fraud for months after that, and still kind of do.

If you'd known it was the last time, you would have communicated this to him in a million ways. It was much better for him that you thought everything would be OK. He would have been reassured. Maybe only a little, but at least a little.

We've had Smidge since she was a kitten. She's seventeen now, the last of our cats (we still have three dogs). She absolutely loves being the only cat in the house. She is by my side all the time, follows me around the house with the dogs, climbs onto my lap with them in the evenings, sits beside me on the kitchen table when I'm eating, puts her head in front of my face when I'm watching TV, smacks the most annoying dog for no reason just because she thinks it's funny (he is terrified of her). She has just developed a little bit of fluid around her heart that's making her breathing effortful, and I'm aware that this is probably the very start of the end. Could be another year, could be two, I don't know. Our other two cats made it to seventeen (kidney disease) and fifteen (cancer), and it was sad to lose them, but this is different.

Cats know love. Sometimes better than humans. We should give them all that we have instore (even if they are bite room-mates <3)

Really sorry to hear that Trishy. Tell her you love her everyday and give her a extra little bit of tuna when you can afford it. I love maximising the little moments of generosity

https://i.postimg.cc/NGX1DctB/Screenshot-20240420-201926-Instagram.jpg

This is Dimitri ("Dimmy Dimebags") who was the sweetest little kitten I ever had. He was so happy with life, and so loving to us. The most trusting cat I've ever known. Everything was good and loving and safe to him, sadly to his demise in the end. I'll spare the details :(

He's alive in that photo for the record hah

Roger passed away last night. He came into the living room where I was unpacking some books (we moved on Saturday) and laid down on his side to watch me, just like he's done a thousand times before. Then he made an awful frightening noise I've never heard, and went limp all over. We brought him to emergency but there was nothing to be done.

Here's a video from happier times, when he was just settling in at the old place back in 2020:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/158S06kIUvx7bmZMnV7uc7tDquQo4wS18/

Ah condolences, what a handsome boy

sympathies

We lost Bibi (named after Andersson, it seems more important to point out these days) in Dec 2018.
Recently I got the offer of a free 12x16" aluminium print from Flickr and I couldn't think of a better subject.
So this imagine this (cropped a little tighter) as an A3 sheet of metal on our mantelpiece:

https://live.staticflickr.com/1802/42212883555_0e67880e83_c.jpg

rip roger and bibi, both v striking beasts

My condolences, it’s really emotionally wrenching to watch an old friend die.

Sorry to hear it bernard. Rip Roger (and Bibi).

Beautiful cats. So sorry to hear

Oh my God, those little white paws. Majestic creatures, both of them. So very sorry for your losses.

Condolences

RIP Roger and Bibi.

I'm so sorry.

Sorry. :(

My cat is 18.5 years old and I'm constantly thinking about her mortality, she is clearly an old lady but also so spry (jumping on the bed, occasionally running around, yelling at me whenever I'm nearby and not petting her, etc).

Thank you everyone for your kind words and memories. It's hard waking up in a world without my best buddy. I'm lucky to have a wonderful supportive partner, family, and friends.

So Long, Roger... he was lucky to have you as family, I see plenty of cats wandering around with no homes

Poor Roger, and poor you. It must be especially tough to lose a long-standing member of the family like that. Bibi was 2, and had only been with us 13 months, and had just started to cosy up to us that autumn (her and Harriet were rescue cats and not human-friendly for a long time).

Was chatting to our 60smthg neighbour the other day; we hadn't seen their aged mog around for a while. Turns out she passed away at 18 a couple of months back. He was devastated. I wonder if Harriet has noticed that she doesn't get hissed at when parading along their garden wall any more.

(Used to be at least six cats on our lane, just the three now I think, and two are in double figures).

Thank you everyone for your kind words and memories. It's hard waking up in a world without my best buddy.

It's so tough. He really sounds like he was a great pal.

Thanks Trishy. How is your Smidge doing? I hope you're being extra good to her.

Michael, I'm so sorry about Bibi. Losing a cat so young is painful; all the ones I had growing up lived to double digits, but Roger was only 4 :( I tried to bargain with God, when I got the prognosis of <1yr, to at least let him make it to his next birthday in October. There's never enough time, we just have to make the most of it.

To Andy's point, I am firmly resolved that, once the immediate grief has passed a bit, the best way I can honor Roger's memory is to resume volunteering at the shelter I got him from.

How is your Smidge doing? I hope you're being extra good to her.

Funny story. She decided to let us go ahead and spend several hundred euros on ultrasounds and an x-ray, and then it turned out there was nothing wrong with her at all. She just stopped panting and got better. Bloody cats.