When I came to finally update this blog a while ago I was shocked — genuinely shocked — to see how long it had been since I had written here: 10 months! That being the case, I doubt anybody is reading this. But I’ll update it anyway. And will try again, in 2012, to resolve to regularly write here. I was shocked, too, to realize how much has happened in our cat family since I wrote that last post about Digory and his outside-the-litter-box problem.
Digory
There’s no easy way to put this: we had to say a permanent good bye to Digory in May of last year, two months after that last post. In those two months he did start suffering physical problems to add to his emotional ones. His pancreatitis worsened and he developed some dementia (and had already been developing it some time before, we think). His life was no longer pleasant for the most part. To be honest, neither was ours — and it also affected the other cats. The combination of things, including becoming ever more touchy and ever more litter-box incontinent, took their toll.
In regards to the peeing, we tried everything we could think of, including using Feliway (the collar, the diffuser, the spray). I wish, however, that we had known about the Bach flower essences. I discovered them only about four months ago, and they’ve worked wonders for Eustace, who we were asked to take in not long after Digory died. (More of Eustace below.) The flower essences may or may not have worked for Digory. It’s easy to second-guess yourself. Because of the circumstances Digory’s death was one of the saddest we’ve had to confront in losing a cat. Though quite ill, he was physically terminally ill at that point. We miss him still — most of all his nightly naps on my lap. R.I.P., Digger Boy. (See the previous post re: Digory for a photo of him.)
In the mean time, last spring, we started noticing signs in Caspian of what looked to me like possible kidney disease. Unfortunately, blood tests showed I was right. He refused to eat the so-called feline kidney diet, which was all right with us. But we did ask our vet to put him on LDN (low-dose naltrexone) and that seemed to help. It certainly, helped for his arthritis/joint pain. He became noticeably more mobile. He had a good summer, for which we were thankful. He loved going out and lying in the sun on our deck, with Keeley as his deck-buddy. And bumming bits of grilled meat from us when we would eat supper outside, which we did frequently.
Eustace
Strangely and coincidentally, Eustace reminds me of Digory in various ways: he looks quite a bit like him (we didn’t actually pick Eustace out; he came to us via a friend who fosters cats for Save-A-Pet). He is approximately the same size as Digory was, has a similar way of looking at you, and instead of slinking along in silent cat-like fashion he trots down the hall loudly (the cat equivalent of a galumph) like Digory often did. He also came to us with severe emotional problems: a fear-based aggression that he took out on Caspian, poor gentle Caspian. I suffered a literal handful of bleeding, puncture-wound bites from him in the first several months. I know the warning signs of a cat being agitated, but Eustace gave no warning signs. He had been locked up in a tiny apartment bathroom for the most of the first seven months of his life and didn’t learn by example to be a proper cat; nor did he learn to interact trustingly with people.
Eustace’s name (like Digory’s and Caspian’s) comes from the Narnia Chronicles. Eustace was a nasty boy who, because of his nastiness was turned into a dragon for a while. But he learns his lesson and reverts to being a boy, a much improved boy. We wanted another Narnia name and we joked that Eustace (aka “Dragon Boy”) certainly suited him. The name stuck, though now, almost six months after he arrived, he’s no longer that Dragon Boy. He has come a long, long way and is on the road to being a very fine cat.
Josie
In the month after Digory’s death, and just a few weeks before Eustace came to us, we adopted a young female from the local SPCA. We very literally saved her life, as she was ill with a respiratory infection, had spaying surgery while ill (I tried to convince the shelter to wait), and then needed additional medical care and hand-feeding to nurse her back to health. We named her Josie. My mother’s name was Josie; I can’t say that we named her after my mother but I’ve always liked the name and it somehow fits this feisty, energetic little cat. Rambunctious might be a better word. She even gives Eustace a run for his money. That’s a very good thing. She plays with him fearlessly, and he can still get rather rough. But she’s dauntless. Even Roo, our lovely little Prima Donna Roo, has accepted Josie. Good thing, since they’re the only “girls” in the group.
Caspian
This year, 2012, began very sadly. Yet again we were forced to confront a tearful good bye. It was Caspian this time. His kidney disease caught up with him. Throughout November and December we were giving him regular subcutaneous injections, and that would help a bit each time but it was clear his kidneys were now seriously failing. On January 3, as he just turned 17 years old, and on the second day of his refusing to eat anything at all, we took him to the vet for the last time. He lies buried next to Digory (and then Dancer, Cassie and Hedwig) under our backyard apple tree. How we miss his sweet-tempered nature, those beautiful, soft liquid eyes and that peculiar little squeak-meow, so kitten-like for such a large male cat.
The New “Five Felines”
So now we’re back to “The Five Felines” — but a different five than when we first used that term so long ago. Then the five were Caspian, Digory, Dancer, Cassie and Keeley. Keeley, who will be 9 in March, is the only one of the original five left. The current five are Keeley, Roo, Doughal, Josie and Eustace. Very interestingly, Doughal, who has always been a bit shy, is showing more and more signs of the kind of sweet-tempered personality Caspian had. (The picture of Caspian at left was taken last September 24th, my birthday. It shows him as he mostly as he always was.)
When you love and adopt animals — especially when you have more than one or two — heartbreak is sure to follow at intervals. There’s no getting around that. Except in unusual, unnatural circumstances, human beings far outlive cats and dogs. That’s the way God created us. We must learn to handle it. Ed and I decided many, many years ago that we would, over the course of our life together, give homes to as many homeless cats as we reasonably could. For us, six at a time is our maximum.
We’ll see: once The Five settle in to the new situation and shift status and relationships amongst themselves, as cats always do when they lose one of their companions, perhaps we’ll open the door to one more. We’ll see what spring — or summer — might bring. For now, we’ll love and relish the antics of the New Five Felines.
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Tags: Caspian, Digory, Doughal the cat, Eustace, fear-agression in cats, feline kidney disease, Josie the cat, LDN for cats, Roo
