Because I Said So

Big Ben

Meet Ben. We adopted Ben from an animal rescue group over the weekend. Ben is part mastiff, part something else (two different sources say two different things: German shepherd or hound dog). He's about two years old. He's very large (90 - 100 lbs) and incredibly laid-back. Today Frieda clamored over him and he responded by wagging his tail.

I did a fair amount of research on available dogs before I asked this particular rescue organization about Ben. He fit all of my criteria: an adult dog who is already housebroken, has modest exercise needs, is good with kids and other dogs, and isn't a barker. I like bigger dogs, but I didn't set out to adopt a massive dog. It just turned out that way.

Ben is fairly well-behaved but he is quite stubborn. Last night he hopped on the couch to snuggle up next to me. I don't want him on the furniture so I told him, "Off, Ben!" No response.

"OFF!"

Nothing.

So I emphasized it with a shove. "GET DOWN!!" (shove)

He looked up at me and wagged his tail.

"You're cute when you're angry," he seemed to say. "Now rub my belly."

We start obedience class next week.

Elegy for Sydney

On Sunday, we had our remaining cat, Sydney, euthanized. Sometime on Friday night or early Saturday morning she'd had a stroke. She couldn't hold her head upright. Instead, she held it tilted at an angle -- we think because half of her body was partially paralyzed. She couldn't walk in a straight line. She tried to, but she kept turning in circles. It was hard to see. However, she didn't seem to be in pain. She was still affectionate, still seemed to want to eat (though finding her way to the food bowl was difficult for her). We gave her a day to see if she would improve. But she didn't, and it seemed unlikely she would.

Like Ira, our cat who died a little over a year ago, she was nearly 21 years old. She was a sweet cat with an affectionate disposition. She used to be very skittish, one of those cats you'd never see if you were a visitor to our house. Then, a few years ago, she went deaf and was suddenly friendly and social. She had the most beautiful fur, soft and sweet-smelling, until she got too old to groom herself anymore.

I remember very well the day I got her back in 1987. An old woman living in a decrepit old mansion on Bryant Avenue south in Minneapolis was a bit of a "collector" -- someone who compulsively hoarded cats, although unlike many collectors she also gave them away. That's how I came to get Sydney. I went down the basement (that dark, damp, old-house basement), and there she was -- a little puffball eating canned chicken. She was the only one of her many siblings with long hair.

Now, I'm not usually one to be seduced by cuteness. But she was just overwhelmingly cute. Cosmically cute. If came off her in waves. No one, I think, could be immune.

She was a smart cat, and used to fetch those plastic rings from the gallon milk container caps. When I was done playing, I'd hide the ring from her. Once I put it in a desk drawer, and was later surprised to find the drawer open, and Sydney carrying the ring about in her mouth. She'd figured out how to get on top of the desk, and push/bat the drawer open from behind. You go, cat.

We will miss Sydney, as will Della the Dog who held particular affection for her. Except for a brief period in the midst of the Reagan administration (aka my freshman year of college), I have never lived without a cat. But kitten and newborn baby are not a good mix, I think. Someday we'll get another cat -- we can only hope as sweet and loving as Ira or Sydney.

Goodbye, old friend.

Elegy for Ira

Last Friday we had our elder cat, Ira, euthanized. Ira was nearly 21 years old, had gone blind, had kidney disease, partial paralysis of the pharynx, and incontinence. Up until a few weeks ago, he was still eating well and seemed happy and in no pain. Then last week, it became obvious that he was failing. He didn't want to eat or move around, he seemed barely aware of our presence when we held him or petted him. In short, it was time.

Despite knowing that it was the best thing, I still felt torn up emotionally. Ira had been with me for half my lifetime. I was a 20-year old college student living in my hometown (Fargo, ND) when some friends and I rescued Ira from a farm. A friend of mine boarded a horse there, and she'd seen the orphaned kittens (their mother having been shot by the cranky farmer) peering at her from behind the hay bales. The kittens were about six weeks old, already quite wild. They raced past us, yowling and hissing, as we tried to grab them. Finally we managed to collar Ira and put him in a box. By the time we reached my apartment, he'd fallen asleep.

I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out -- was he going to be tame, or would he persist in his wild, freaked-out kitten state? -- and when I heard him scaling my bed in the middle of the night, I was afraid. But I needn't have been. He curled up next to me, purring, and went back to sleep.

He was always the nicest of cats, very friendly and loving, though he had some issues. He was a compulsive eater and once broke into the cat food, ate nearly half his weight in kibble, and nearly died. He and another male cat of mine got into pissing contests (literally), and it if weren't for his sweet disposition and my attachment to him he would have been out on his furry ass years ago. Instead, it was the other cat who went to the Humane Society, and Ira stayed on.

He lived with me in Switzerland when I was there for a year. He also broke his leg there, and his journeys to and from the vet on the public tram system occasioned some of the only times the natives struck up conversations with me. (Turns out the Swiss love animals.) When I got very sick while there, Ira lay on my pillow and licked my head -- something he had never done before, but which was comforting in a strange, fever-flushed, surreal way.

All of our friends liked Ira. Our friend P. said Ira was his "power animal." Our friend J. used to carry Ira around the house on his shoulders. My friend A. once took care of Ira for a week or so, and said that he drove her crazy, crying outside her bedroom door every night. He hated to be without human company.

I will miss him.

The people at our vet clinic were kind and respectful. We held Ira and said goodbye before the plunger for the final dose was pushed, and he went limp in our arms. I'd like to think he went to a cat heaven, with unlimited kibble, no interspecies dominance issues, and plenty of radiators to doze on or under.

Goodbye, old friend.

Resolving to Resolve

The new year is a week old: is it still new? If a year were a person who lived to be, say, 80, then that person is now a toddler -- about 1.75 years old. Not too late to make resolutions, plenty late to break them. My friend T. says his resolution is to "set some goals." Resolving to resolve.

Last week ended up getting away from me, so no blogging, writing, or resolving for me. I spent a fair amount of time at the veterinarian with Ira the Cat, who will be 21 in April, and has developed new health problems. There's a list of them now: kidney failure, partial blindness, ulcers, and hypothyroidism, to which are now added high blood pressure and unilateral pharyngeal paralysis -- which makes it more difficult for him to breathe.

Quite frankly I thought he would die last week, but he has rallied once again. He is the Rasputin of cats. Obviously quality of life is an issue at this point, and I feel the weight of a decision ahead of me. Last week, when I went to rouse him to bring him to the vet, he didn't respond at first, and I felt a whisper of relief -- thinking that I had been absolved of my responsibliity.

Thus, one of my resolutions for this year is to face bravely what needs to be done for Ira, to put him down when his suffering outweighs his interest in the world. Am I letting him continue on because I can't let go, or because I truly believe he is still enjoying his life?

Resolved: to answer this question with the appropriate care and action. To say goodbye to my good friend when he needs to go.

Unintentional Catslaughter

SPOILER: The cat doesn't actually die.

Ira the elderly cat likes to go outside, although he has never technically been an "outdoor" cat. Usually he's a bit nervous about all the noise and activity out in the world, and prefers to sleep under the rhubarb leaves to venturing outside the fence. Tonight I forgot he was in the yard, and I left him out there for an hour or two. When dinnertime came, we couldn't find him -- he had wandered off. I walked around the 'hood, calling for him, to no avail. When I got back home he was sitting on the porch, looking like -- well, like something the cat dragged in, only in this case he was both cat and aforementioned dragged-in object.

He was filthy, and he was obviously exhausted and kind of limping around. I brought him inside and decided to give him a bath. That's how I almost killed him. I think the stress of the whole peripatetic adventure overwhelmed him, and then I came along and hosed him down with water and shampoo and more water. I thought he was going to pass out. But he seems ok now, and even forgiving: he is lying by my feet, his fur still damp and clumpy from the bath.

Ira is a dear old thing and he's been with me half my life, but his incontinence has gotten worse, and he doesn't take care of his fur anymore so it is rough and matted, and he cries in the middle of the night because he can't jump up on the bed anymore and he wants a boost but when I reach down to pick him up he steps just out of reach under the bed and cries some more, and then I have to lean waaay over the side of the bed and blindly grope for him and I end up dragging him out from under the bed by whatever part I manage to grab: tail, leg, ear, etc. and then I lift him onto the bed, and ten minutes later he jumps down and wanders away and then an hour later comes back and cries and starts the whole business over again and it. drives. me. nuts.

Ira, I'm sorry I traumatized you, old friend. You have been a loving and kind companion. And you have had a good, long life filled with comfort and yummy styrofoam snacks (yeah, he eats styrofoam). But don't feel that you have to hang around this tired old world any longer. It's okay to let go. It's okay. Head toward the light, Ira! Head toward the light!

I hear there's styrofoam aplenty on the other side.