Thread: Pretty tough day today.

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A while back I had to have my one cat Scooter put to sleep. She was about 16 years old, and got really sick. Today I had to make the same **** decision for my other cat Sniffy. Sniff was about 17, and had been in great health right up until a couple days ago. I started noticing her sleeping more and generally staying all by herself. Last night she jumped up on the couch arm next to me and I noticed she was breathing very rapidly and shallow. I kind of knew that the day I had been dreading might be here.

I took her to the cat hospital today and they did a lot of tests and took some xrays.................bottom line, she had heart problems. They gave me the options, one was to send her to a specialist who would do more tests and put her on medicine to try to get the fluid from her lungs, and to find out what was wrong with her heart. The other option was to put her to sleep. The Doctor said the prognosis was not good and that at most we might buy her a few days or maybe three weeks. He said he might even come in to work tomorrow and find she had died overnight. She had just gotten old.

Toughest decision I have had to make since doing that for Scooter, but I couldn't stand to see her suffer. She was like a kitten right up to the end, and about the most gentle cat you could imagine. After giving it a lot of thought I told him we had to do what was best for her, and that was what we did.

Some people probably can't understand how a pet can become so very important to someone, but I am really broken up over this. Pet lovers like me will know exactly how I am feeling right now..................rotten. I also hate myself for being such a coward and not staying there with her to the end, but I just could never stand to see that happen. I prefer to remember her as that kitten we adopted right after Hurricane Andrew. She was one of the pets rescued from the storm, and when I heard they had lots of animals to adopt we went over and picked her out. I think it was Dan who went with me, because Don and I picked out Scooter from a shelter a year later.

So I'm kinda bummed right now, and know it is just starting to sink in. If you are a pet lover like we are, give your loyal friends a big hug tonight and maybe a little treat. You never know when their time might come. My only solace right now is that she and Scooter might be playing together again.

Sorry to bring this subject up, but I have a lot of good friends on here and I needed to talk about it. Here are some pictures of Sniffy and Scooter in happier times. Sniff is the small cat and Scooter was our big girl. Thanks for listening.

Don