Sanfte ruh, Roo
Roo, our outdoor cat, died Tuesday night. He'd been in a slow decline for a couple of years, so this wasn't unexpected. He'd lost a lot of weight, and the last few months he wasn't grooming himself. But he was still sociable and seemed to like company. Andrea was more convinced than I that he wasn't in pain, so we let him continue on.
Sunday afternoon he tried to stroll across the street a couple of times, so we moved him back indoors. We live on a busy corner, and the odds are against anything that small, slow, and oblivious making it across. I'm thinking now that he had someplace secluded in mind to just curl up and fade out.
We don't know his age, but I adopted him from my (then) office-mate almost 10 years ago. He could easily be 15+, so he had a full life.
But we've know this day was coming for a long time, and the last few days we've known it was getting close. Months ago the vet did what she could, and things have just been winding down, with us keeping him as comfortable as we could.
Roo became an outdoor cat when we moved to our house. After anniemal and her BIG (80lb) Poodle Hamish moved into the condo, Roo stopped using the litter box consistently. That got him confined to a bathroom, where we could clean up after him, which must have been miserable for him. (There are limits to what one can live with.) We had a 2nd, more-timid cat who got along fine with Hamish.
Here at the house, with a yard, Roo had a heated house so he was reasonably comfortable, and the outdoors is pretty interesting. But it is also more dangerous, and Roo repeatedly picked up parasites -- probably from eating things he hunted. And he didn't get to have as much interaction with the rest of the household. In bitter cold weather we'd bring him inside for a few days, again confined to a bathroom.
Requiescat in pacem.
Sunday afternoon he tried to stroll across the street a couple of times, so we moved him back indoors. We live on a busy corner, and the odds are against anything that small, slow, and oblivious making it across. I'm thinking now that he had someplace secluded in mind to just curl up and fade out.
We don't know his age, but I adopted him from my (then) office-mate almost 10 years ago. He could easily be 15+, so he had a full life.
But we've know this day was coming for a long time, and the last few days we've known it was getting close. Months ago the vet did what she could, and things have just been winding down, with us keeping him as comfortable as we could.
Roo became an outdoor cat when we moved to our house. After anniemal and her BIG (80lb) Poodle Hamish moved into the condo, Roo stopped using the litter box consistently. That got him confined to a bathroom, where we could clean up after him, which must have been miserable for him. (There are limits to what one can live with.) We had a 2nd, more-timid cat who got along fine with Hamish.
Here at the house, with a yard, Roo had a heated house so he was reasonably comfortable, and the outdoors is pretty interesting. But it is also more dangerous, and Roo repeatedly picked up parasites -- probably from eating things he hunted. And he didn't get to have as much interaction with the rest of the household. In bitter cold weather we'd bring him inside for a few days, again confined to a bathroom.
Requiescat in pacem.