The Amazing Life of Cats (9 page)
W
e called him Beau because he was so beautiful, a little Siamese kitten with dark points, the most vivid blue eyes and a kink in his tail. His behaviour, however, was eccentric to say the least.
We’d gone to a cattery with a friend to look for a cat for her, but when we saw Beau he just leapt at me and it was love at first purr. On the way home he protested loudly from the cat basket they had lent us. By the time home was in sight all he could produce was a feeble groan. This was just a preview of coming attractions.
Soon after we got him I brought a few of my workmates home at lunchtime to see this wonder. They duly admired him while I made a few sandwiches. Then one of my friends took a bite of his sandwich, and through the air hurtled this flying saucer and grabbed the food.
After the sandwich incident all was quiet for a time. My husband and I returned home one Thursday evening laden with shopping and the house was in darkness. When we opened the front door there was a real commotion upstairs and we thought someone had broken in. My husband told me to stay near the door and bravely crept upstairs. He switched on the light and there wrestling on the floor was THE CAT and his victim, a perfectly cooked little quail all warm and ready for the table. All we could think was that one of our neighbours was having a dinner party and there on a silver platter of quails garnished with watercress would be a big gap. Not the sort of occasion when another shrimp could be thrown on the barbie!
My husband rescued the quail, taking the meat off the bone and feeding it to the victor, saying to me: ‘Don’t mention this to anyone.’ So I suppose someone was hungry while my cat, Beau, went to bed with a full tummy!
Marian Clarke
Bless their little pointed faces and their
big, loyal, loving hearts. If a cat did not
put a firm paw down now and then,
how could his human remain possessed?
Winifred Carrière
The story she wants me to share
S
pot was our very special pet. She came to us from out of the wild in the spring of 1995 when she was about a year old. We decided that the first of May was her birthday. She had a very playful and inquisitive nature.
Over a couple of months my husband, Mack, and I had become aware of a little black cat following us to the restaurant down our street, and again on our way home. We would turn to look and she would scamper into the shadows of trees and cars, only to emerge and follow us when we had turned away. Sometimes we would pretend to chase her and she would pretend to be chased, only to resume following us and eventually disappear into the shadows. I thought to myself, ‘That is a cat who knows she is black.’ I assumed she had a home somewhere in the neighbourhood, but she had no collar. Then, for three weeks, it rained almost continuously so we didn’t take our usual weekly walks to the restaurant. One day during this time we returned home to find this little black cat all drenched and crouching on our doorstep. She was obviously in need of a home. We took her in, fed her, and nursed her back to health, as she needed some nourishment and deworming.
Mack said he thought she had been living in the wild for some time but, as she was very affectionate, she must have been raised by some loving humans. She had no fear of people, only a healthy wariness of them. It was also apparent that she was in heat, and we needed to decide whether we really could keep her as we were not supposed to have a pet in our apartment. We live on the second floor of an apartment block and have a spacious balcony. Naively, we thought she would stay on the balcony with her food and litter box when we were away. That is how we discovered ‘the cat elevator’: juniper bushes grew along the side of the building, and the trunk of one had been sawn off, just at the level of our balcony, providing a handy step for the cat to begin her descent to the ground. By the time we discovered that she could come and go as she pleased, we also discovered that she was pregnant.
By this time, it was also pretty obvious she had chosen us and we were going to have to make things work out together. We named her Spot because she was all black but for a large white patch from her throat down to her chest. I checked out the cat encyclopaedia and found her in its pages staring back at me, matching exactly the description of the beautiful longhaired black Norwegian forest cat with the large intense yellow eyes and exquisite triangular face. She also had the characteristic of ‘rusting’ when exposed to sunlight. I would refer to her as my fire cat when her reds, bronzes and golds glowed in the sunlight.
Spot gave birth to five beautiful babies. We ran an ad in the paper and found loving homes for all of them, after which I rushed her to be spayed, assuring her that she would always be my ‘kitten’ no matter what.
Spot was a natural birder. She was not much interested in mice or frogs or anything other than birds. She was so good at catching birds that we kept a bell on her to give the birds a fair chance. In spite of the bell, Spot still managed to occasionally catch birds and would bring them to us, dead, as a gift, or, quite often, release them alive inside the house so she could chase them. This always created pandemonium, which she loved.
Spot would regularly accompany us on walks in the neighbourhood, usually to the post office, but she would not go all the way. She had a favorite set of bushes she would sit within, and watch and wait for us to return. She would then come out and resume the walk home with us. She was not so fond of riding in the car but, with some persistent encouragement, she tolerated it. At her best, she really enjoyed watching the world pass by through the windows. Riding in the car expanded her sense of place. She knew exactly where she lived in the scheme of things. She could come and go freely, and she was known and loved throughout the neighbourhood by people and creatures alike. She was a true queen. At home on her porch, she would constantly survey the neighbourhood, her ‘domain’.
I had become accustomed to Spot being around a lot as I was working from home. She was always very communicative. Very talkative. And she had a large vocabulary. She would boss me around and make me do things just the way she wanted them to be done. For instance, she would command me to make the bed for her
every morning
and would not allow me to leave any wrinkles. Sometimes I would hold Spot on my lap and gaze into her deep yellow lantern eyes and ask, ‘How will I ever live without you?’ Not that I was really expecting an answer, but her answer would come innocently, ‘What do you mean “without”?’
I know the life span of a cat, in human terms, is short. But my last cat was a venerable Siamese who lived to the age of twenty-three. He was very healthy all his life and was never under a regular veterinarian’s care because I couldn’t really afford it. When we lost Si, it was difficult but understandable. His bodily systems were shutting down. He had lived a long life and his time had come. Now that Spot was going to be a part of our family, I wanted to do the best we could for her. We decided that rather than rely on the same country doctor who had done her desexing surgery, we would take her for annual check-ups at the large veterinary facility in nearby Sumner, Washington. They were well established, with a good reputation, so we trusted them and went along with their program of recommended vaccinations.
Spot was very happy and healthy and we never had any problems until the summer of 2007 when, based on her blood tests from her standard annual examination, she was diagnosed with early feline hyperthyroidism. She was thirteen. As far as I could tell, she really was not manifesting any symptoms of the disease. I was curious about its cause and asked her vet lots of questions. According to him, in many cases hyperthyroidism is hereditary and begins to manifest as a cat approaches its senior years. He also told me that it had become more prevalent in the later part of the twentieth century, and veterinarians theorise this is due to successive inheritance of the trait among the cat population. He gave me some brochures to help me understand what effect the disease can have if it is left untreated and what the options for treatment were. He also strongly recommended radioactive iodine treatment, which is a one-off procedure done at a specialised clinic. As it so happened, there was one in nearby Tacoma. He said this treatment was safe and assured me that it was a ‘cure’ for the condition, whereas the other treatments would require lifelong therapy. My husband and I discussed it and agreed that Spot should have it.
Because it was an expensive procedure, we could not afford to have it done until March 2008. By this time, Spot was fourteen. Everything went well with the treatment. Spot’s first-month follow-up examination was perfect, and so was her three-month follow-up. This examination coincided with the time that her standard vaccinations were due, so I asked that they be done at the same time, thinking it was convenient to do so.
Over the course of the next fourteen months, Spot began to develop a progression of serious medical conditions: osteoarthritis, an unidentified autoimmune disorder similar to lupus requiring ongoing steroid treatment, a prerenal condition, chronic urinary tract infections, chronic kidney disease (requiring intravenous fluids three times a week), anaemia (requiring a blood transfusion), diabetes (requiring twice-daily insulin injections), and ultimately, end-stage renal disease and sepsis. Spot was in and out of the emergency veterinary hospital and several times needed to stay in for extended periods of time. At home, we cared for her and gave her the treatment she needed. Assisted and supported by Mack, I nursed her and appealed to the Goddess to heal her.
Throughout this period of Spot’s illness, Mack and I were in the process of closing a deal on a lot across the street from where we live, on which we plan to eventually build our own home. On several occasions, I found myself sitting by a little crab-apple tree on soon-to-be-our land, praying to the Goddess to heal Spot. Every time the thought occurred to me that she was dying, I was afraid because we did not yet own our own place. If she did die, where to bury her?
Spot, however, was not afraid. She made an amazing recovery and seemed to be returning to full health. In May of 2009, we finally closed the deal and got our land. By then Spot was healthier than she had been in quite a while and she spent the next three months hanging out with us on our property, doing wonderful lazy cat things in the sun and exploring all of its plant life. Until nearly the very end, I believed that Spot could be healed.
Her time to die came on 19 August 2009. Spot was fifteen years old. Mack and I were with her during the day and a half of her passing, until her very last breath. The Goddess had given us time for Mack to build her a beautiful wooden coffin, and we knew where we would bury her. Now, she is the heart of my sacred grove near the little crab-apple tree. Mack later built me a beautiful garden bench, where I can often sit and meditate and be with Spot. It is a powerful place.
But this is not the end of her story.
Initially, my grief was intense. I could still feel Spot’s presence and I strove to maintain contact with her. In meditation, I can still see her eyes gazing back at me. I can feel the exquisite silky texture of her long fur and the velvet of her nose and paws. I can feel the outline of her cheekbones while I rub her face. Now when I do this, it is a joy. But it was extremely upsetting for me in the beginning. Several times, I asked Spot for a sign that she was nearby. Once, right after I asked, a crow landed on the window ledge, called loudly and then flew off. Another time, when I was on the bench in the grove, a black walnut dropped from the sky. It landed ten feet away from me on the grass, glistening with dew, looking like a jewel in the sunlight. Crows like to drop these nuts, usually on the pavement, to crack them open, but as I examined the sky I could see no sign of a crow nearby.
For months after Spot died, I tried to deal with nagging thoughts and emotions regarding the progression of her illness, things I had not allowed myself to completely process earlier because I was so absorbed with trying to save Spot’s life. I was conflicted. I could not let go of the feeling that something was not right. I asked Spot what she wanted me to do, and she told me she wanted me to uncover the truth. I had kept all of her health records and I started going back over them. It was a puzzle I felt I had to solve, and I also felt Spot driving me to do it. Earlier blood tests suggested Spot may have had a prerenal condition before having the radioactive iodine treatment for her hyperthyroidism; I discovered studies which show that this treatment can worsen such a kidney condition. It looked to me like Spot’s doctors should not have recommended this treatment and should have alerted us to the need to be proactive in treating her prerenal condition.
