Meet Iriss and Abyss… my heart melted completely. ?
They are adorable! And judging from the outfits they sport, pretty easy going too.
It’s funny, when we get cats like that in our shelter, potential adopters seem to shy away from them. They are sometimes deaf but that doesn’t seem to be the issue. I can’t figure it out. But then, I’m also a sucker for black cats.
^^^WOW! Amazing looking cats.
Sounds like my 14 YO domestic shorthair has kidney disease. We will get the official diagnosis tomorrow, once blood test results are back. He and my husband have “grown old” together (on our coffee table in front of TV normally sit 2 pillows - 1 for the cat and one for my husband’s feet. Sometimes I come down and they are both snoozing). The vet will be able to tell us more once she has his numbers, but he was at one point 17 pounds - yes he was a fat cat - and now he’s only about 9, and I was surprised he was that heavy. He’s not grooming himself, and doesn’t greet us at the top of the stairs when we open our bedroom door in the morning. He looks at us from the bottom instead. It makes me sad.
@1214mom, that was sad to read. Poor baby. Maybe the vet will have some medication or ideas to treat the kidney disease and restore some of his vitality. Hugs.
Oh, @1214mom, that’s sad. Seconding @3girls3cats’s hope that the vet has a workable plan or two. And I hope you can find ways to keep the old guy comfortable in any case. I’m glad he’s still looking for you in the morning.
Thanks, it is sad. I gather he’s at a 2, where 1 is mild disease and 4 is severe, so sounds like he will be with us awhile (yeah! We were really worried. Both my husband and i went to the vet - we normally “fight” about who’s turn it is). For now treatment isn’t too bad and he seems to not be in too much pain (except he throws up often, which is new in the last couple of weeks. We cant remember him EVER throwing up before this).
Fingers crossed for your kitty. Hope the throwing up goes away…
My cat Iggy went into acute kidney failure; the vet managed to save him but his numbers remained high and his official diagnosis became chronic kidney failure. Then next annual appt. his numbers were better and then next kidneys normal. Our vet said he’d heard of that happening but had never actually seen it. Now he had. Just know it can; fingers crossed for luck.
On a different note, I fed a young feral kitten (somewhere between 6 and 9 months old) about three weeks ago. She started showing up for breakfast and dinner and then gone. She never got near. The goal was to eventually get her near enough to take to a shelter. Notice I say she. We had no idea whether or not the kitten was male or female. Week two we figured it out when her tummy started bulging. Yep - pregnant. Tuesday she delivered 5 kittens. A baby having babies. I managed to find where she had them - under a bush in the front yard, overall a terrible location. A friend* helped me get the kittens and then coax the mother into the garage. I haven’t seen the mother or kittens in almost 24 hours but I did determine where she’s got them stashed in the garage. She’s eating and using the litter box, so that’s good. So at the moment I’m now the proud owner of 9 cats - my three house cats, a feral teenage cat, and five babies. The kittens are all healthy and, needless to say, cute.
*My friend volunteers at the SPCA with cats and kittens. She’s fostered over two hundred cats. Right now she has three bottle babies at her house and has promised to help, if needed.
We have an almost 20 year old cat that my H has basically been keeping on life support for months. Her sister died right around the time H retired in early December, and this kitty has been H’s pal ever since. In the early spring, we thought she was going to die, but H has diligently done everything in his power to keep her hydrated & fed. He gave her subcutaneous fluids & spent a small fortune trying to find food she would eat. He gives her Mirataz, which stimulates her appetite. For the past several weeks she has become nocturnal & keeps him awake all night. He is a mess. This past week she has fought the fluids (which involve a needle), and now she won’t eat even with the Mirataz. H finally made the decision to let her go, and he is having such a hard time with it. It is hard to watch our kitty decline, but watching H is even harder. We have someone coming to the house tomorrow to help her cross the Rainbow Bridge, so today is a sad day at our house.
I am so sorry. Losing a beloved pet is hard.
Oh my. Hugs. This will be my husband and the tortie in the avatar when her time comes. She is his baby!
@kelsmom, your post is timely. My lovely girl is almost 19, and last year she was diagnosed with early kidney failure. But the vet said she could live 5 years with that. The last few months, she has constantly been screaming for food, yet she’s losing weight. Bloodwork shows no worsening of kidney failure, but shows anemia and low blood albumin, a protein. The vet thinks she may have lymphoma. Although one of the hallmark signs is lack of appetite, she seems to be obsessed with eating, so much so that I’m feeding her 3 times a day to keep her calmed down. Yet, she still loses weight. The vet put her on prednisone, but I looked up kitty lymphoma and it said prognosis of prednisone treatment alone is 30-90 days.
I don’t know what specifically is wrong, but I sense that she doesn’t have long to live, and it breaks my heart. My adult daughters were little girls when we got her. DH and I were (in retrospect ha ha) young and beautiful and healthy. Life was good, and in the years since we got Kitty we have lost our beloved Lab, my mother and stepmother, 3 brothers, and several friends. Her life with us has spanned many years and milestones. She has been the sweetest pet I’ve ever had. She loves snuggling me and is rarely out of my sight when I’m home. We have a trip coming up, and I’m so scared she is going to pass while I’m gone. I feel it’s my duty as a pet mom to be there with them at the end. I have no control over this, can’t stay home on the off chance she goes while I’m gone, yet if it happens, I’ll be so heartbroken.
But I guess to be honest, I’ll be heartbroken no matter what.
This is the hardest thing of all about having pets. I guess this is the price of love, no matter whether human, canine, feline. or other. To love is a blessing that is just compounded when you lose them…
Hugs to all of us who are facing loss of our dear sweet pets…
So sorry, @kelsmom. I hope she goes comfortably, and that your H is with her. It’s so tough.
And @Nrdsb4, that sounds agonizing too.
It’s just heartbreaking when they leave us.
H decided not to go through with it today. He didn’t want things to get to the point where our kitty was hurting, but he realized she needs to get there before he can let her go. She is close, and he had wanted to spare her real pain … but when faced with the reality, he found that he couldn’t let her go yet. Gosh, it’s so hard. Hugs to all who are dealing with the decline of our pets.
@kelsmom, I totally get it. It’s not always obvious when the time is right.
I feel for you and your DH!
@kelsmom - big hugs to you and your husband.
To all who lost their four legged members of their family… Hugs.
To those who are struggling with pets who are clinging to life, I can only say that we’ve euthanized one dog, several years ago, and two elderly cats in the last few months, and in each case I felt we waited too long. It’s so very hard to let go, but we’ve found that it’s truly awful when your last memories of a old pal involve pain and serious physical deterioration. In our most recent passing, I tried to keep our cat alive for a couple of days so my daughter could get home to say goodbye, even though he had stopped eating and was barely drinking. But he got suddenly much worse overnight, unable to even stand up by morning. I ended up rushing him to the vet to be euthanized, and then watched him die in my arms as we waited to get the second injection (malpractice by my vet in botching the process, but that’s a story for another day). It’s been a month, and I’m haunted every day by those last few awful hours. I won’t make the same stupid mistake again. Our animals don’t fear death, and once we know they won’t survive much longer, it’s a kindness to them and to ourselves to let them go when they’re still comfortable and at peace. It may take some courage, but it’s the right thing to do. And you know what? I’ve never heard anyone say they euthanized their pet too soon.
I’m so sorry @kelsmom and @Nrdsb4. @kelsmom, I hope your cat’s passing is peaceful. I completely understand your husband’s feelings. Making that decision takes courage and no matter how kind or correct it is, it’s extremely painful for us.
Warm hugs to all of you struggling with this.
^^^That would be me as a cat ?
Our old long haired ginger cat got where he couldn’t groom himself late in life. I once managed to shave him over a period of several daysb- he’d lay there and let me do it a while then walk off when he’d had enough. The pile of fur was like I made a whole nother ?