Tori
Entry originally written at http://www.lovinglyworn.net. Comment here or comment there!
Last weekend was…well, miserable.
It all started Friday night. Jon and I were watching TV. Elly was sitting with him. Shadow was sitting with me. All of a sudden, I smelled this absolutely horrific smell. Jon attributed it to one of the cats using the litterbox recently. I told him that I didn’t hear either one of them go in there, and that it never smells THAT bad. So, he got up and began wandering around, trying to find out where the smell was coming from.
Tori had peed and pooped on one of the cushions in our mini dining room (the little dining room between the kitchen and back door, not our formal dining room).
This was the third cushion that she’d ruined. She had already peed on two of the other ones. Thank goodness they were just tie-on cushions that we bought. Granted, we’re not looking forward to having to pay money to replace them, but if she had done this on the formal dining room chairs, we would have been in trouble. She’d never pooped on one before.
“That’s it.” Jon said. I knew what that meant. It was time for us to throw in the towel. It just wasn’t working out.
Tori adopted us almost two years ago to the day. We were living in our last house, and one night we found her sleeping on our front porch. We figured she had a family that loved her, so we didn’t feed her or really pay attention to her out of hope that she would go home. She didn’t. She kept spending her days and nights on our patio for a good two months before the snow storm hit in January. It was then that we decided that we needed to at least give her some food and some warmth because we didn’t want her to get sick or freeze to death; so we gave her a plate of food each night and opened the garage door a little bit so she could come in and out as she pleased.
It was then that we realized that over half of her back fur was missing. She’d had a horrible flea infestation somewhere along the line and had licked away most of her fur. So, since I’d received a nice compensation check from the 5-week training I’d just completed for my job, we took her to PetSmart, got her shots, and got her some flea meds. Within a month or two her fur was growing back and she was looking healthy again.
We called a local stray shelter and added her to their waiting list because we didn’t really want to take in a third cat, and we figured that someone surely would adopt her.
Eight months later, we bought our current house. We thought and thought about what we should do with her. The stray shelter never called us back to confirm they had an opening. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her behind while we moved. What if someone moved into the house and they didn’t take care of her? What if they were cruel to her? So, we decided to take her with us and bring her inside. She was flea-free by this point and had gotten used to us and to Shadow and Elly (or so we thought). So, we packed her up first and gave her a day in our new house without Elly and Shadow.
Tori never really did adjust to Elly and Shadow. The first few months she spent under our bed. She’d growl at Elly or Shadow if they even so much as walked ten feet past her. While it was frustrating, we chalked it up to typical cat behavior and were sure that with time and patience, she would adjust and even if the three of them wouldn’t be friends, they would at least be able to tolerate each other.
Well, that never happened. Tori was more about her bark than her bite. When we introduced Shadow to Elly three years ago, it took one knock-down, drag-out fight for the two of them to come to terms with each other. They had to figure out where they stood with each other. Then, almost immediately, they became best friends. Tori was never willing to do that. She would just growl, snarl, and run away. Shadow and Elly would try to get her to do something, ANYthing to show them what she was about, but she would just growl, snarl, and hide. Then she would growl and snarl when they would walk across the room, even if they were walking away from her. They couldn’t do anything right as far as she was concerned, and they were starting to get peeved about it.
Then came the peeing. Somewhere along the line, she thought it would be okay to start peeing and pooping in our formal dining room which had carpeting in it (how practical is that?). She was too chicken to even attempt to walk across the living room to the litter box, even though she knew what it was and knew how to use it. It wasn’t until recently that Shadow and Elly had staked out the litter box and wouldn’t let her in it. Tori had a year to use it without hassle. But she wouldn’t even try. By the time summer hit, the formal dining room reeked to high heaven. Nothing we did would get rid of the smell. Eventually Shadow began peeing in there too because he would smell Tori’s pee. There was a lot of pee.
So, eventually Jon started putting her in the downstairs bathroom with the litter box at night before bed. The room has a pocket door, and Tori would let herself out after she’d gone to the bathroom and she would scurry back to her chair in our kitchen dining area.
Eventually the smell got too bad and we couldn’t even stand to be in the room regardless of whether or not it smelled, so we decided to spend the money to get bamboo flooring in there. We both don’t like or understand the concept of carpet in a dining room anyway, but we weren’t exactly thrilled to be spending the money on the flooring that soon after moving in. But there was nothing we could do.
Then we had to shell out MORE money because she had literally soaked the entire right hand strip of carpeting, and the pee had soaked through to the wood sub-flooring. So we had to pay someone to come and cut that piece of wood out and replace it.
Luckily my in-laws had just put this same bamboo flooring in their living room, so they had the equipment and knew what they were doing, so we didn’t have to pay anyone to do that…well, other than paying for pizza or burgers to get everyone through the day. I was, of course, so helpful at six months pregnant.
So, why did we do all of this? Why did we put up with this for so long?
Well, Tori was the master of “one step forward, two steps back”. Just when we would have our fill of the peeing, pooping, and foul mood, she would do something great. For example, when I was dealing with the impending miscarriage back in April, I spent a lot of time at home on the loveseat, resting and crying. Tori would spend the entire day with me on the loveseat, cuddling with me. For some reason, she didn’t care about the other two cats unless they got TOO close. So we would take this sort of thing as a sign that she was adjusting. Every time she would touch noses with Shadow or Elly, we thought things were getting better, that she just needed a little more time. These things always happened just when we were getting to the point of starting to plan where we would take her so that she would find a family that she was more comfortable with.
Then she would, inevitably, do something bad. Again. She’d pee, poop, or be mean to Elly or Shadow. She’d behave like this for days before doing something sweet again when they were around.
I know she loved us. She had no problem with either one of us. She would come and sit with us and cuddle with us. She purred and snuggled. She LOVED being in the kitchen when I would cook. She would sit in there the whole time and would put her paws up on the cabinet tops or stove handle so she could see what I was doing. I always turn on the radio when I cook, and I’d pick her up and dance around with her while the music played. She was my kitchen buddy, and I loved having her there with me. I couldn’t open a drawer in the kitchen without hearing her jump down out of the chair and come in to keep me company.
Tori was truly MY girl. She loved my husband, but for some reason she grew very attached to me very quickly. She loved it when I’d hold her with her belly in the air. She loved cuddling with me. Pets naturally flock to my husband, so to be the preferred adult was, I’ll admit, nice for a change.
Once in awhile, she didn’t seem to care that Shadow or Elly were around. But those times were few and far between compared to how much damage she’s done to the house and how upset Shadow and Elly started to get.
By the time this last incident happened, I could tell Shadow had had just about enough of getting growled and swiped at for no reason at all. He was starting to lash out at her for no reason. While I got very mad at him, I could also understand where he was coming from. He was always Tori’s least favorite. For some reason she just could not tolerate him. Elly treated him similarly back when we first brought him home, but eventually Shadow had enough of that and started the big fight that finally made the growling and hissing stop. He’d been trying to get Tori to fight with him so they could get it over with, but she wouldn’t go for it. We grew so very tired of hearing them fight out there. Tori kept hitting herself on the bottom of the little dining table because she wouldn’t get out of the chair to try to avoid Shadow swiping. I started to worry that she was hurting herself. And I felt horrible about all of the times that Shadow, my snugglebug, would be unfairly targeted.
We spent over a year trying to make this work. We’ve spent hundreds of dollars on cleaners, supplies, labor, and wood. I’ve cried, screamed, thrown things. I’ve begged, pleaded, and tried to bargain with her. A cat. I’ve tried to bargain with a CAT. I’ve always thought that people just weren’t patient enough with their pets. People give them away too easily because they make mistakes or because they bark. People want perfect, silent pets that never goof up and that never need any sort of training. I remember when I went to the shelter to adopt Jules for Mom and Dad, someone else was looking at her when I got there, but once they saw on the info sheet that she is “a talker”, the guy said “Oh. She BARKS! No thank you.” and they left her there, with her tail wagging. I adopted her anyway and she’s the best thing EVER.
But, last Friday, when Jon said that we were done…I knew that he meant it this time. She needs a home where she’s the only cat. She loved us, I know she did…but she wasn’t happy. Nothing we could do would change that.
So, Saturday morning, we put on her pretty purple collar with the bell that she loves, and made the 25 minute drive to the animal shelter. She was such a good girl. She sat in the back seat and looked around. She came up to cuddle with me, which made me cry even more.
I couldn’t go in that building. Jon went in and did the paperwork, then he came out and took her away. I could already tell he had been crying. She meowed and purred when he picked her up. They walked in the building together, Tori in his arms.
Then he came back alone, with her pretty rhinestone leash in his hand.
We both sobbed the entire drive home.
I asked him a million questions. Was it warm in there? Was it clean? Were the people nice to her? Did she look scared? Did they say she was pretty? Did they like her?
The second I got in the house, I took off the last chair cushion - the one she used to spend nearly her entire day on, and asked Jon to go throw it away. It was still covered in her fur. I grabbed her food dish and placement and put them away. Sobbing the entire time.
I can’t help but feel like we gave up on her. Deep in my heart, I know it was the right thing to do. I knew I was being selfish by wanting to keep her around even though she was so obviously unhappy.
I worry about her every night. Is she warm? Is she scared? Is she getting enough food? Are the people there being nice to her?
I used to think that it would be easier to deal with giving a pet away than to deal with a pet dying. But after going through both in four years, I’ve learned that giving a pet away like this is much harder to handle…because I know where she is. I can picture her there. I know how to get to her. I can see her sitting there by herself, wondering when we are going to go bring her home. And I want to bring her home. I’d be willing to pay the money to re-adopt her. I’d do it in a heartbeat.
But I know I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to her. Not when there’s a wonderful family out there that wants a cat just like her. Not when there’s a home where she will be loved and have all of the attention she wants without having to deal with other cats. Tori deserves better.
But I can’t help but wish that that perfect home could be ours.
Her chair is empty now. Every day, at least once, I catch myself looking over there or wandering over there to pet her. She’s not there.
I miss you, Tor-Tor…and I’m sorry.
Last weekend was…well, miserable.
It all started Friday night. Jon and I were watching TV. Elly was sitting with him. Shadow was sitting with me. All of a sudden, I smelled this absolutely horrific smell. Jon attributed it to one of the cats using the litterbox recently. I told him that I didn’t hear either one of them go in there, and that it never smells THAT bad. So, he got up and began wandering around, trying to find out where the smell was coming from.
Tori had peed and pooped on one of the cushions in our mini dining room (the little dining room between the kitchen and back door, not our formal dining room).
This was the third cushion that she’d ruined. She had already peed on two of the other ones. Thank goodness they were just tie-on cushions that we bought. Granted, we’re not looking forward to having to pay money to replace them, but if she had done this on the formal dining room chairs, we would have been in trouble. She’d never pooped on one before.
“That’s it.” Jon said. I knew what that meant. It was time for us to throw in the towel. It just wasn’t working out.
Tori adopted us almost two years ago to the day. We were living in our last house, and one night we found her sleeping on our front porch. We figured she had a family that loved her, so we didn’t feed her or really pay attention to her out of hope that she would go home. She didn’t. She kept spending her days and nights on our patio for a good two months before the snow storm hit in January. It was then that we decided that we needed to at least give her some food and some warmth because we didn’t want her to get sick or freeze to death; so we gave her a plate of food each night and opened the garage door a little bit so she could come in and out as she pleased.
It was then that we realized that over half of her back fur was missing. She’d had a horrible flea infestation somewhere along the line and had licked away most of her fur. So, since I’d received a nice compensation check from the 5-week training I’d just completed for my job, we took her to PetSmart, got her shots, and got her some flea meds. Within a month or two her fur was growing back and she was looking healthy again.
We called a local stray shelter and added her to their waiting list because we didn’t really want to take in a third cat, and we figured that someone surely would adopt her.
Eight months later, we bought our current house. We thought and thought about what we should do with her. The stray shelter never called us back to confirm they had an opening. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her behind while we moved. What if someone moved into the house and they didn’t take care of her? What if they were cruel to her? So, we decided to take her with us and bring her inside. She was flea-free by this point and had gotten used to us and to Shadow and Elly (or so we thought). So, we packed her up first and gave her a day in our new house without Elly and Shadow.
Tori never really did adjust to Elly and Shadow. The first few months she spent under our bed. She’d growl at Elly or Shadow if they even so much as walked ten feet past her. While it was frustrating, we chalked it up to typical cat behavior and were sure that with time and patience, she would adjust and even if the three of them wouldn’t be friends, they would at least be able to tolerate each other.
Well, that never happened. Tori was more about her bark than her bite. When we introduced Shadow to Elly three years ago, it took one knock-down, drag-out fight for the two of them to come to terms with each other. They had to figure out where they stood with each other. Then, almost immediately, they became best friends. Tori was never willing to do that. She would just growl, snarl, and run away. Shadow and Elly would try to get her to do something, ANYthing to show them what she was about, but she would just growl, snarl, and hide. Then she would growl and snarl when they would walk across the room, even if they were walking away from her. They couldn’t do anything right as far as she was concerned, and they were starting to get peeved about it.
Then came the peeing. Somewhere along the line, she thought it would be okay to start peeing and pooping in our formal dining room which had carpeting in it (how practical is that?). She was too chicken to even attempt to walk across the living room to the litter box, even though she knew what it was and knew how to use it. It wasn’t until recently that Shadow and Elly had staked out the litter box and wouldn’t let her in it. Tori had a year to use it without hassle. But she wouldn’t even try. By the time summer hit, the formal dining room reeked to high heaven. Nothing we did would get rid of the smell. Eventually Shadow began peeing in there too because he would smell Tori’s pee. There was a lot of pee.
So, eventually Jon started putting her in the downstairs bathroom with the litter box at night before bed. The room has a pocket door, and Tori would let herself out after she’d gone to the bathroom and she would scurry back to her chair in our kitchen dining area.
Eventually the smell got too bad and we couldn’t even stand to be in the room regardless of whether or not it smelled, so we decided to spend the money to get bamboo flooring in there. We both don’t like or understand the concept of carpet in a dining room anyway, but we weren’t exactly thrilled to be spending the money on the flooring that soon after moving in. But there was nothing we could do.
Then we had to shell out MORE money because she had literally soaked the entire right hand strip of carpeting, and the pee had soaked through to the wood sub-flooring. So we had to pay someone to come and cut that piece of wood out and replace it.
Luckily my in-laws had just put this same bamboo flooring in their living room, so they had the equipment and knew what they were doing, so we didn’t have to pay anyone to do that…well, other than paying for pizza or burgers to get everyone through the day. I was, of course, so helpful at six months pregnant.
So, why did we do all of this? Why did we put up with this for so long?
Well, Tori was the master of “one step forward, two steps back”. Just when we would have our fill of the peeing, pooping, and foul mood, she would do something great. For example, when I was dealing with the impending miscarriage back in April, I spent a lot of time at home on the loveseat, resting and crying. Tori would spend the entire day with me on the loveseat, cuddling with me. For some reason, she didn’t care about the other two cats unless they got TOO close. So we would take this sort of thing as a sign that she was adjusting. Every time she would touch noses with Shadow or Elly, we thought things were getting better, that she just needed a little more time. These things always happened just when we were getting to the point of starting to plan where we would take her so that she would find a family that she was more comfortable with.
Then she would, inevitably, do something bad. Again. She’d pee, poop, or be mean to Elly or Shadow. She’d behave like this for days before doing something sweet again when they were around.
I know she loved us. She had no problem with either one of us. She would come and sit with us and cuddle with us. She purred and snuggled. She LOVED being in the kitchen when I would cook. She would sit in there the whole time and would put her paws up on the cabinet tops or stove handle so she could see what I was doing. I always turn on the radio when I cook, and I’d pick her up and dance around with her while the music played. She was my kitchen buddy, and I loved having her there with me. I couldn’t open a drawer in the kitchen without hearing her jump down out of the chair and come in to keep me company.
Tori was truly MY girl. She loved my husband, but for some reason she grew very attached to me very quickly. She loved it when I’d hold her with her belly in the air. She loved cuddling with me. Pets naturally flock to my husband, so to be the preferred adult was, I’ll admit, nice for a change.
Once in awhile, she didn’t seem to care that Shadow or Elly were around. But those times were few and far between compared to how much damage she’s done to the house and how upset Shadow and Elly started to get.
By the time this last incident happened, I could tell Shadow had had just about enough of getting growled and swiped at for no reason at all. He was starting to lash out at her for no reason. While I got very mad at him, I could also understand where he was coming from. He was always Tori’s least favorite. For some reason she just could not tolerate him. Elly treated him similarly back when we first brought him home, but eventually Shadow had enough of that and started the big fight that finally made the growling and hissing stop. He’d been trying to get Tori to fight with him so they could get it over with, but she wouldn’t go for it. We grew so very tired of hearing them fight out there. Tori kept hitting herself on the bottom of the little dining table because she wouldn’t get out of the chair to try to avoid Shadow swiping. I started to worry that she was hurting herself. And I felt horrible about all of the times that Shadow, my snugglebug, would be unfairly targeted.
We spent over a year trying to make this work. We’ve spent hundreds of dollars on cleaners, supplies, labor, and wood. I’ve cried, screamed, thrown things. I’ve begged, pleaded, and tried to bargain with her. A cat. I’ve tried to bargain with a CAT. I’ve always thought that people just weren’t patient enough with their pets. People give them away too easily because they make mistakes or because they bark. People want perfect, silent pets that never goof up and that never need any sort of training. I remember when I went to the shelter to adopt Jules for Mom and Dad, someone else was looking at her when I got there, but once they saw on the info sheet that she is “a talker”, the guy said “Oh. She BARKS! No thank you.” and they left her there, with her tail wagging. I adopted her anyway and she’s the best thing EVER.
But, last Friday, when Jon said that we were done…I knew that he meant it this time. She needs a home where she’s the only cat. She loved us, I know she did…but she wasn’t happy. Nothing we could do would change that.
So, Saturday morning, we put on her pretty purple collar with the bell that she loves, and made the 25 minute drive to the animal shelter. She was such a good girl. She sat in the back seat and looked around. She came up to cuddle with me, which made me cry even more.
I couldn’t go in that building. Jon went in and did the paperwork, then he came out and took her away. I could already tell he had been crying. She meowed and purred when he picked her up. They walked in the building together, Tori in his arms.
Then he came back alone, with her pretty rhinestone leash in his hand.
We both sobbed the entire drive home.
I asked him a million questions. Was it warm in there? Was it clean? Were the people nice to her? Did she look scared? Did they say she was pretty? Did they like her?
The second I got in the house, I took off the last chair cushion - the one she used to spend nearly her entire day on, and asked Jon to go throw it away. It was still covered in her fur. I grabbed her food dish and placement and put them away. Sobbing the entire time.
I can’t help but feel like we gave up on her. Deep in my heart, I know it was the right thing to do. I knew I was being selfish by wanting to keep her around even though she was so obviously unhappy.
I worry about her every night. Is she warm? Is she scared? Is she getting enough food? Are the people there being nice to her?
I used to think that it would be easier to deal with giving a pet away than to deal with a pet dying. But after going through both in four years, I’ve learned that giving a pet away like this is much harder to handle…because I know where she is. I can picture her there. I know how to get to her. I can see her sitting there by herself, wondering when we are going to go bring her home. And I want to bring her home. I’d be willing to pay the money to re-adopt her. I’d do it in a heartbeat.
But I know I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to her. Not when there’s a wonderful family out there that wants a cat just like her. Not when there’s a home where she will be loved and have all of the attention she wants without having to deal with other cats. Tori deserves better.
But I can’t help but wish that that perfect home could be ours.
Her chair is empty now. Every day, at least once, I catch myself looking over there or wandering over there to pet her. She’s not there.
I miss you, Tor-Tor…and I’m sorry.