I know that in the grand scheme of things the last several days do not really rate up there as either chaotic or tumultuous all the same in my little world the apple cart has been formally overturned.

Our eldest cat, the one my wife had gotten as a child, has suffered a series of small strokes leaving him slightly incapacitated; his left rear leg is partially paralyzed and his overall back strength compromised. Friday night and most of Saturday looked so bleak that we were making plans for burying him at my in-laws as we shuffled about sleep deprived and depressed from worry. Stepping back for a moment, if this is how we react to the potential loss of a pet I do not want to even consider the ramifications when a parent or sibling is involved. Drama runs very high in our household.

Our cat perked up late Saturday and has been improving over the last day. He is eating, drinking and moving about house on his own albeit slowly. We have been bombarded with questions, some bordering on accusations, as to why we have not taken him to the vet or the animal hospital. The short answer is that his quality of life at the moment is still decent. He is not in any appreciable pain; he purrs and perks up when you call his name and he rolls over for you to pet his belly and scratch his chin just like he always has done. We know that if we take him to our vet it is likely that it will be recommended that we put him down and we just are not sure that is the right decision at this moment. We want his last days with us to be peaceful and full of love and being brought to a noisy vet’s office full of other animals will only serve to make his last moments full of fear and anxiety. It is possible that I am anthropomorphizing my cat but we love him like a family member and want to give him the best life that we can.

As if one pet drama was not enough this weekend presented itself as a double-header. The greyhound that we adopted last month has hit a new stage, progressing from a dog on his best behavior to a dog wracked by separation anxiety. It began slowly and innocuously enough with difficulty getting him to settle into his crate to waking up an hour early to bark and whine until we let him out. Last night saw him reach a fevered pitch in his performance, howling and barking and thrashing in his cage until it reached the point of collapse. My solution as the soft hearted animal lover was to let him out and sleep in the living room with him; please keep in mind that this is my wife’s dog, I am a cat person and really was not too keen on getting a dog. Not surprisingly, he was well-behaved and slept an uneventful night in his favorite spot by the fireplace.

So what about during the work week, what are we going to do with him? Well, this morning I broke down the crate and constructed a quasi exercise pen so that he will have space to turn around, stretch out, and generally cause mischief. We also have an actual exercise pen on order that should make it a little easier to set up and break down the daytime arrangements in the room. Will it work? Honestly, I have no idea. When we left this morning he was generally quiet, letting out little whimpers as he peered over the baby gate to see what was going on around the house. When we go home at lunch I have expect to see the house torn apart and an over excited dog gnawing on my Xbox controller. I’ll find out in two hours.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 13th, 2005 at 10:06 am and is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.