pets

I came home yesterday evening after a wonderful day of walking with friends in the fall outdoors, spending quality time with my daughters, my grandkids, and my son-in-law to see my daughter’s kitty, Merlin, laying on the floor by the pet food dishes and meowing strangely. I noticed after a few moments that Mer wasn’t moving the lower half of his body. I immediately called my daughter Stacy – Merlin’s mommy, and a trained vet assistant – to come home and see what was wrong. While I was waiting for her to get there – which seemed like hours – Mer tried to move and could only drag the his legs and had no bladder control. His fur was not right and he was panting hard. Poor thing. I knew something bad was up and I called her again and asked which vet she wanted to take him to so I could call ahead. I told her to hurry, hurry.

We rushed him to the emergency vet and they quickly diagnosed him with a blood clot. It had apparently started in his heart and traveled to the lower half of his arterial veins. By the time we were at the vet’s, his hind legs were cold and his toenails were changing. As soon as the doctor named his condition, Stacy immediately knew from her training this was fatal. The humane thing to do was to put him to sleep.

I can’t say enough nice things about Pilchuck Vets in Snohomish. They were so kind and compassionate. They let us sit in a consultation room for as long as we needed to be with Merlin. Stacy sat and rocked him and held him (after they gave him pain meds) and cried and cried until she knew she couldn’t prolong the inevitable any longer. She had to show him one last act of love and kindness. And Merlin even gave her a lick goodbye and stretched his front paws up around her neck to tell her he loved her too. She got to hold him while the vet administered the last medication.

Everything happened so fast, I think we are both still in shock.I have never lost a pet but my sweet daughter has now lost 6 cats. This is the only one, however, that she’s been able to say goodbye to, so I think all the hurt and grief of losing all her other beloved four-legged children is wrapped up in the grief of losing Merlin. And all this while being pregnant. We’ve been up all night and when one of the other kitties walks by, we think it’s Merlin and start to cry all over again. My daughter is just heartbroken. Me too.

Merlin feels like he’s as much my kitty as he is Stacy’s because he’s lived in my house almost his whole life. Just hours earlier, Merlin was fine. The vet said she sees this more in larger cats, and Merlin was a big cat, but a lovey-dovey cat who often thought he was one of the girl dogs. He would sleep in their pink beds, follow Stacy around the house – and me too – and he always slept at the foot of my bed if he wasn’t sleeping by her. There’s still a spot on Stacy’s bed where he’d sleep throughout the day and his fur all over his favorite chair. He kept me company in my office while I worked, and talked to me every morning when I made my coffee. He’d act like there was no food in his bowl on the counter, when in fact, he was just chatting.

I wish I had gotten a picture of him and the way he’d sleep upside down and sprawled out on my bed. He loved the dogs and was the man of the house, always going to the door when they went out and waiting for them until they came back in. He was a protector, a guardian cat.

I know he’ll still be my daughter’s protector and guardian cat – only now in spirit.

Tagged as: cats, grief, loss, pets, Pilchuck Veterinary Snohomish

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