When pets die

[Guest Low Roller]

Anybody lost a pet in their life?

I just lost my 15-year old tabby cat Kicia yesterday... My Mom had her put to sleep because she started really suffering from her diabetes. My Mom was saying for a while already that when I got back from the UK in August that we would take her to the vet, but I guess my Mom decided that Kicia couldn't wait for me. My nephews were there with her, and apparently tears were being shed by all.

It's a weird feeling losing a pet. It's not like I lost a relative, but it still feels like I lost a family member.

[Douglas]

I'm sorry Andrew...my heart feels very heavy for you right now.

I dread all the days following the day that Sammy leaves me.

[hamilton]

That sucks, LR. Losing a pet *is* very much like losing a family member. Unless the pet is a goldfish - they're a lot trickier to bond with.

I remember when our family cat died. I was 18, the cat was 20. She had been around the house for longer than I had, so it was even more strange when she died because I had never *not* had that cat in my life.

[timouse]

hey low roller, very sad to hear about your loss.

jennifer and i have had to put down a couple of 20+ year old cats, and it's a very sad thing to go through...pets are a huge part of our lives, and it hurts to see them go.

george carlin talked about losing dogs, and his take was "life is a series of dogs." or in your case, cats

[Davey Boy 2.0]

yeah that's rough LR... my folks' diabetic cat passed away this past spring, he just laid down in the back yard one day, closed his eyes and that was it. It's strange not having him around when i go home for a visit now

the dog is also getting on in years which is also hard- so incredibly rambunctious just a few years, well even months ago but he's slowed right down and he's going greyish as well

c'est la vie i guess

Edited June 30, 2006 by Guest

[Deeps]

Lost 3 cats over the last 3 years.

Each one had an impact on our family, and we all definitely felt a real loss.

Sorry to hear about your cat brother.

Deeps

[Sunshine]

I've lost several pets and it hurts a lot.

(((( Sorry to hear about your cat LR.))))

[LJFH]

Ohhhhh,,,I'm so sorry. I know what it's like to lose a beloved pet..I've had a couple that have had tragic ends and I miss them very much.

HUGS

[ollie]

My condolences Low Roller. I've been through this and it's tough. Pets are awesome.

[Im going home Donny]

awe...roller...yup....childhood doggy sniff sniff Dusty the sheepdog/collie/wonder dog, multiple kitty cats, budgies(well I think the kitty cats were responsible for them little chirpers), many fish, newts, gerbils....oooh our old back yard was a real pet cemetary.

When Wilson goes I'll be signing up for grief counsling!!

sorry about your loss. Frame some pictures mabey.

meow

[StoneMtn]

I was the member of my family who had to make the call to put our 19-year old dog down. That was harsh. Since then, I've also lost three cats; and one of those was a total surprise as he died while being neutered, after surviving many other illnesses and a difficult life on the streets.

It's hard on me every time; and I think it is very much like losing a relative.

My condolences.

[meggo]

aw roller. i'm sending you a big hug across the pond. i'm going through the same thing right now; my mom phoned last night to tell me they're putting down my sweet 17-year-old puppy today. i am heartbroken and i've been a mess since she told me.

thinking of you, kicia and patches today.

[Im going home Donny]

((((((megsters))))))

[kippi]

I had number of pets while growing up. One was a longhaired grey and white cat. She used to curl up on a specific cushion on the couch and actually formed a pseudo-nest with the hair she’d shed. It used to bother me that the cushion was always messy and that we could never sit there- especially because she’d crawl onto your lap the second you sat down anywhere. When my mum called me to tell me that our cat had to be put down I was very sad. But it wasn’t until I went home and saw that her cushion was clean that the reality of the loss was felt- my heart ached. Years later my family is still trained – her cushion is always the last one to be filled when we all get together.

Losing a pet is losing the friend that was always there for you. My heart goes out to you and meggo

[Guest Low Roller]

Hey thanks guys. I see a lot of people have gone through the whole process of losing a pet, and sorry to hear about yours Meggo. It sucks. I talked to my Mom today, and she is still shaken up. She treated that cat like a third child. It will be weird going home in four weeks, and not have a purring cat on my bed.

[Birdy]

meggo and lowroller my condolences to you both! losing a pet is such a hard thing to go through.. i hope you can find solace in remembering all the good years that you've had with your little animals, and thanking your lucky stars that they lived full lives. my two dogs are turning 14 years old this summer and i know their day is not too far off. it's a very sad thing, indeed. big furry animal kisses and hugs to you both.

[bradm]

Our family got a cat when I was about four years old. I ended up naming him (Tinker George M.), but he was really my Dad's cat. He was an outdoor cat, and a scrapper, sometimes coming home with some pretty viscious wounds. One day he brought home not one, but two, birds, one of which he brought into the house, and dropped at my feet, as if to proudly say, "Hey, you feed me, I feed you."

By late 1985 (I think) he started to decline, severely. He couldn't keep things down, and just wasn't doing very well. My Mom told me that my Dad was going to take him to the vet's to be put down, and that she wanted me to go with him.

"You're taking Tinker to the vet's? Can I come along?"

"You know he's probably not coming back, don't you?" he replied, displaying a hopefulness I don't think he entirely believed.

"Yeah."

We three went, and he didn't come back. My Dad stayed pretty solid on the way home, but when we got into the house, he and my Mom went into their bedroom and closed the door; I heard his sobbing, and I crumbled.

There's only one picture of him, but it's a beaut: he was just about to groom his chest, so his tongue is sticking out, in a playfully rude display of personality. He was a solid black cat, except for two bits of white: the tip of his tail, and a "vee" on his chest (we called it his "Superman Decal").

It wasn't as if he was a part of the family; he was part of the family.

{{{{{Low Roller & family}}}}}

Aloha,

Brad

[Davey Boy 2.0]

Hugs, Meggo

[Sunshine]

this thread is giving me goose-bumps and my eyes keep swelling up everytime I open it.

HUGS TO EVERYONE RIGHT NOW!

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Very sorry, LR and meggo - there's nothing like the sustained company of a pet, a friend who is unconditionally there, and, well, wonderfully not-human (no offence to any humans here). I was away when my folks put down the cat I'd grown up with, and had a weird no-closure thing around it; years later, though, I sat one night through the death of one of the coolest cats ever to come into CJ's and my life years back - a case of UTI where it hit too late to do anything about - and it was heart-rendering (the vigil not the least).

It's a little corny, I know, but this got me thinking of this -

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . ."

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."

"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.

"On another planet?"

"Yes."

"Are there hunters on that planet?"

"No."

"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"

"No."

"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.

But he came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please--tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . ."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Had to smile when I saw this just now -

Mice show empathy for fellow rodents

... until I thought of how they're the no. 1 experimented-on animal going....

[Velvet]

I thought my cat was gone for good when he went missing all last weekend (he's almost 20), but the Humane Society had him. Then I bring him home on Monday and he goes into a diabetic coma. I was up half the night with him.

He's still here, and as healthy as he can be right now, so that's all good, but I sure thought I'd lost him a few times recently.

And yeah, I cried my eyes out.

[StoneMtn]

Velvet:

I am really glad I didn't know Studebacher was missing. I would have been stressed. I'll always have an affinity for that little guy.

You sure are a good cat-dad.

[Velvet]

The neighborhood gossip ladies came by my house yesterday for a little intervention. They seem to think he's too old and should be put down. It's a DAMN good thing I wasn't here for it. My roommate told them to come back when I was home. I'm eagerly awaiting the visit.

[Cosmic ChrisC]

Oh you guys, stop it! Here I am at work reading this and trying not to cry! I've cried over pets many times.

Here is Leo, Ollie's cat. We had to put to sleep a few years ago now. He was 17. We tried everything to keep him alive, and spent thousands of dollars on vet bills, but finally had to let him go. We have a lot of videos of Leo that I still have trouble watching to this day.

And here is Theo, my sister's cat. She had to put him to sleep last week. He was only 8 but had recent problems with crystals in his bladder. His story is sad because it happened so fast and he was supposed to move to Vancouver with her, but she had to leave him behind in Prince George where she buried him in his favorite little forest.

It is strange when pets are dying. What I find hard is that we can't really communicate with them and it feels like they just don't understand what's going on.

Low Roller and Meggo, I'm thinking of you.

Velvet, I'm glad to hear your cat came back!