A Certain Kind of Cat Post

I’ve seen a few of them lately and I always read them and comment. I wrote one myself a few years ago and the writing was well received although it was a difficult piece to write – the dead cat post. I remember being surprised at not only the likes and cares, but the comments as well. I also was amazed at who liked and commented. These weren’t only my mom and normal Facebook people replies, they were some of my more rough and tumble friends. Guys who just normally scroll by were touched. Grief is the most powerful of the emotions. It’s good to not be all alone with those thoughts.

I know what you’re thinking. “oh-no, here it comes, Dale is writing an ode to another fallen feline friend” you mumble and nod as your read this. But you’d be wrong. Let me tell you about “old” cats.

Our elderly feline friends are a joy to love and spend time with and bring along a host of special circumstances to cherish. Our Rommie, who is a cat of many nicknames has reached the ripe old age of seventeen, and I dote on her like nothing else on the planet.

All cats sleep a lot, all the time, everywhere. They’re partial to sun-patches and warm blankets, but can also stretch out across a cool tiled kitchen floor creating a furry mobile obstacle course for the people of the home. Elderly cats do the same thing, but they sleep even more often. They aren’t as experimental sleepers as younger cats generally occupying the same basket, bed, or windowsills. They look blissfully peaceful, so I never wish to disturb her. The strange part of this leave-her-alone-while-she-naps protocol is that somewhere along the path, you start to look closely, just to make sure she’s breathing. Around our house, that habit started about a year ago.

Like all of us, she has her good days and bad, but it’s a little different now in that all of her good days are awesome! And all the bad days are traumatic. Bad days can almost be anything, maybe she wobbled a little when she walked through the room, maybe she slept even more than normal, or chose to use her litter-box under the same protocol of horseshoes and hand-grenades but the Queen Mother of all bad days are the days she won’t eat.

Feeding elderly cats is a tumultuous exercise because they go through cycles of not wanting to eat for any number of reasons that are all bad. Because of this, one will literally try to feed them anything, anytime to keep their weight up. Gourmet cat food that cost near people food – check. Brand name food that’s marketed for old cats, urinary care, glossy coat – check, check, check. Expensive prescription cat food from the vet – check. Packets of cat gravy – check. Can of tuna in fresh spring water – check. Any human food in the house, steak, pork, lobster, fish, and chicken – check,check,check,check,check.

The mind crushing part is that she’ll simply attack and devour something one day, then turn her nose up at it the next. On the other hand, things that she’d normally ignore, she wants to eat. I’m certain some of her fickleness can be chalked up to aches and pains, but I’ve got a nagging suspicion she’s messing with my mind sometimes as well.

You’ll do other weird things around feeding as well. Don’t want to eat where your bowl has been for a decade, no problem, I’ll put the dish in the living room so you need not walk as far from your favorite perch. You won’t eat cold food out of an open can from the refrigerator? No problem, I’ll open a fresh can and feed the cold open food to the younger cats, or maybe I can heat it up for you?

I may have reached the pinnacle of cat feeding insanity a few weeks back when I decided because of her advanced age and probably arthritis Rommie would like an “elevated” feeding dish so she wouldn’t have to bend her little neck down so much. I scoured to or three pet stores and found nothing then turned to the inter-webs where I found so many types of elevated dishes and had trouble picking one out. Then I saw a bright light and swore I heard chorus of Handel’s Messiah, being sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

The dish was stunning.

The elevation was spot on, and it was the perfect size for my little old kitty. The feature that made it most impressive was that the dish part was slightly tilted to allow for as little kitty neck bending as possible. It really looks like a satellite dish with cat paw prints on it.

Finding my target, I started my quest to acquire. Amazon – sold out. Chewy – sold out, Petsmart, Petco, Walmart, Pet Supplies Plus – bubkis – each and every one of them. Now don’t get me wrong, every website showed my beautiful bowl, it’s just none of them had it stock. When buying something this important for an elderly cat, there’s no time to dilly-dally with back-orders. It was time to take my quest world wide.

I found the bowl listed – in stock – somewhere in the United Kingdom for something like twenty pound sterling. I do follow world events so I knew that the pound was sinking against the dollar like the HMS Hood against the Bismark, so the price was right with the foreign currency exchange.

Now the shipping is another matter. Shipping to the states was an another twenty, but in what time? Time is off the essence when buying for old cats so I didn’t want Rommie’s bowl to languish on some slow container ship making it’s way across the pond. I researched the express, air-shipment options which I discovered only cost yet another ten. You may have guessed that I paid the fifty and FedEx had it safely on our doorstep in two days.

The great part about the dish is that she loves it and that’s now the only dish she eats from, however, I still will move it wherever she wants.

What?, you’d like to have your breakfast in the sun-patch that hits the foyer floor precisely at 8am?

No problem, I’ll feed you anywhere you’ll eat.

Old cats don’t play much. When she was a kitten she was hell on paws. Jumping on everything with a particular affinity to places cats shouldn’t be allowed like counters and tables where we’d “shoo” her off or use the dreaded spray water bottle. At this stage in the game if I find her somewhere, I gently lift her off while telling her she’s such a strong girl to jump up so high and rub her ears a bit.

We have toys scatter around the house that she used to pounce and claw at regularly. Now she walks pass and generally pays no mind at all, and if she does even lift a paw to bat at a catnip mouse I heap praise on her for being such a wily and brave spirited hunter. She rolled, clawed, and gutted a fake frog the other day and by my reaction you’d think she scaled Everest.

The risk of a cat dying is always there permanently. When they’re young the risk is minimal, but they’ve got a lifespan like all living things and the odds go up with age. Graphically we all have that life risk going “up and to the right” like a line on a stock market index while the Fed is lowering rates. The bill always comes due, you just don’t have the luxury of knowing when. When my first cat died in my arms at about fifteen I was wholly unprepared.

The emotional part was devastating because I had done everything in my power to will him to live to no avail. He had surgery, antibiotics, and IV fluids but we couldn’t beat death. Sad is an understatement, but I knew the circle of life had ended. But the circle had ended on an inconvenient holiday weekend where I couldn’t make arrangements for cremation. I didn’t want to bury him in my small suburban backyard because I feared something digging him up. Having these thoughts while processing the loss is tough and it caused me to safely pack him away in a plastic container in a freezer until I could take him to the crematory when business resumed.

So now, I keep space in the freezer just in case. Read that again but don’t dwell there, I stay focused on enjoying the time we have left together. She curls up on my lap and sheds as we binge Netflix and I listen to her purr while we enjoy each other’s warmth.