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Loki crosses the Rainbow Bridge

Today I picked up the small metal canister containing the ashes of my almost-perfect cat, Loki, who passed away Sunday morning. The canister comes with a card that tells a lovely little fairy tale about the Rainbow Bridge, when our little pets go at death to frolic together while they wait for us to die and take them to heaven with us. It is meant to comfort, but I found the sheer fantasy of it more painful than the reality, since it raises false hopes.

 

Here is her story. I tried very hard to be a good pet owner. Since my previous cat, Pumpkin, died due to complications of an infection brought on by his consumption of a wild rabbit, I vowed that this cat would be an indoor cat only. She briefly slipped out a couple of times, but only for a minute, and seemed content with watching the animal world from the safety of the couch.

 

Eating was her favorite activity, and while she was occasionally picky, she had no trouble maintaining her slightly overweight figure. I don’t think it would have mattered if I had noticed earlier that she was losing weight. Around Thanksgiving, she seemed to be getting much pickier about her canned food, and sleeping on a couch cushion instead of top of the couch where she could look out the window. By early December she had gotten much pickier, and I took her to the vet. She had lost a good deal of weight, and test showed non-regenerative anemia. The usual cause (feline leukemia) was ruled out. We tried an antibiotic and vitamins in case of some strange infection, but her pickiness increased and her weight continued to drop. Another exam revealed a mass of some kind, and an ultrasound showed a large tumor on the pancreas that also pressed on her stomach. A needle biopsy was inconclusive as to cancer, but there weren’t a lot of other possibilities. She was too weak and thin to endure a more invasive biopsy, and removal of the tumor, if she even survived, would result in leaving her with diabetes. The choice was clear. Bring her home and keep her comfortable.

 

She lasted a little over a month after that initial visit. I soon abandoned the antibiotics and appetite stimulant, since they didn’t help much and giving  her meds only upset her. Since I work at home, I was able to give her attentive care, frustrating as it was. I suspect she not only had little stomach capacity but also suffered from nausea. She would ask for food four to six times a day, but never would eat from the same can or packet more than twice. It wasn’t the temperature, since heating it up didn’t help – she seemed to need that just-opened-can smell to stimulate her to eat. She often would just lick the gravy or sauce off all the meat, and ate very little solid food. My cupboard soon filled up with cans and packets of every brand and flavor as I attempted to find just the right brand of flavor that would pique her interest. As soon as I found something she liked and bought several, she would begin rejecting it. The fridge filled up with opened cans with three bites eaten. Small quantities could be fed to the dog, but the rest ended up in the trash. She ate some dry food, the occasional crunchy treat, and all the Fancy Feast she wanted. Winston, the dog, was very good during this time. In the past I would feed her on a table where he couldn’t reach, but now I got better results feeding her anywhere she was when she asked for food. Winston patiently watched and waited each time, while I blocked his access to her food, rewarding him with an occasional leftover.

 

How does a pet owner decide when it’s time to let go? It’s a decision I’ve faced a number of times, and I’m never sure I’ve done the right thing. I like to think I was well enough attuned to her behavior that I did not let her suffer unduly. She spent most of her days in the dog bed under my computer desk, sometimes sleeping on my lap until my legs began to loose feeling, then I would move her to a box of clothing nearby. I only heard her cry once, when she needed to vomit, and she still mustered up a bit of purring from time to time. Like many animals, she stoically endured whatever discomfort she might have been feeling.

 

The night she died I did not take her to bed with me as I usually did, since she seemed a bit uncomfortable. She was responsive and would reply with a silent meow when I talked to her but did not want any food; later that night I checked on her again and she seemed the same. But a few hours later, my boyfriend came and woke me up with the words I was dreading: “Loki’s dying”. He had gotten up and heard something odd. She had gone in a closet and collapsed. She lay limply, and a couple of times a minute gasped loudly. We suspect her heart gave out, and hope that she was unconscious during that long and painful half an hour or so while we watched over her, waiting for her to finally go. This was the first time I have watched a pet die without going to the vet for the magic shot. It was very painful, yet I felt blessed to be there as she became more and more peaceful.

 

I’d like to say Winston watched over her too, with a tender inter-species sympathy. Not so. He decided since we were all up, it must be play time, and kept interrupting our vigil with demands for attention, and now doesn’t appear to miss her at all. But of course, he’ll see her again someday, on the Rainbow Bridge.

Winston's Choice

Dogs, like human babies, insist on putting anything interesting they see into their mouths, with no regard to usefulness as food. Humans eventually grow out of that phase (although emergency room staff might disagree). So, even though Winston is approaching two years old, he still will stubbornly chew all sorts of odd objects. Last night, when I took  him out for a potty run, he secretly grabbed a broken walnut shell. He was not able to conceal it for long, since it sounds like cracking plastic when chewed, arousing instant suspicion. Winston has the jaws of a pit bull, so prying them open to retrieve an object is a difficult and foolish move. It also means that the offending object goes deeper into the mouth, not a good idea when it's got sharp edges. So I tried psychology. A favorite snack would surely be more interesting that a sharp old walnut shell. A Snausage was laid on the floor, a foot or so away. I even held it under his nose briefly so the true fumage of the highly processed meat and cheese would be unmistakable. The wheels turning in his head were almost visible. His little forehead wrinkled as the dilemma unfolded. Open mouth, drop walnut shell, get yummy treat. But that would mean losing face and accepting defeat. Back and forth, the choices battled, as he stared at me and at the Snausage. Minutes passed. I tried hard not to laugh. He wanted the Snausage. Even I wanted the Snausage. But more than the treat, he wanted to win the contest. To eat the Snausage would be defeat. Finally, I ended the showdown. Stubbornness won. Minutes later, I found the shell on the ground, forgotten, but his pride had been preserved.

Well, it’s about time!

I admit I like my routine. If forced to deviate too much from my timetable for my day or my week, I get behind on everything. Lack of sleep, exercise, or a little down time makes me a bit cranky.

 

I imagine it’s even harder on my animals when things get disrupted. While they don’t have chores to worry about, they do establish routines and expectations and have no idea why they have been changed. My recent month-long house repair extravaganza was hard on my animals. First the furniture disappeared from most of the house, and the animal’s range was restricted. A special plastic door prevented easy travel into the kitchen or computer room. Workmen stomped and pounded and produced a hail of broken drywall, insulation, nails and other debris that pets had to be protected from. Loki’s daily routine of breakfast, quality time sitting on the couch back watching birds, napping on my lap in the computer room, and lunch on her special table in the living room was totally wiped out. While Winston enjoyed the daily visits from friendly workmen, he did not enjoy being locked out of the living room and his favorite chair. The final stage of floor refinishing was the worst. Winston whined and cried while being restricted to the bedroom; a large piece of plywood in the landing prevented him from entering the main house and walking on the wet polyurethane. Loki pouted on the bed, missing her lap time. The ferrets had been denied their energetic runs through the living room for some time, but had still had some daily free time in the den. Now their only play time is in a “ferret play pen”, which is very boring for them.

 

At last, the floors have dried, furniture has been moved back in, and the house is reasonably back to normal. Winston can chase his toys through the living room; Loki can resume her post on the couch, or nap next to the pillows. At last, back to normal for most of us, and routines can be resumed. And that’s a good thing!

The dog-walking myth

There is a myth about dog-walking. Want some exercise? Get a dog! You’ll be walking them every day, year-round. Cardio workout guaranteed!

 

Not! First of all, walking a dog is bit like walking a two-year-old. I like a nice brisk blood-moving, muscle stretching walk. Two-year-olds like to stomp in every puddle and investigate every bug, rock, or gum wrapper. Dogs are not that different, except they will attempt to eat the gum wrapper, the bug, and the remains of the squirrel who couldn’t figure out which side of the road it wanted to be on. All that takes time, as does the sniffing of each rock and bush that’s required to determine its pee-worthiness.

 

At least that’s what happens when I walk Winston. The King Charles Caviler breed is known for its strong owner attachment, especially the males. There is no doubt that Winston is Larry’s dog. When I offer Winston a walk, he reacts in typical doggy joy. Jumping, snorting, rolling on the rug, then the walk starts briskly down the street. Then four, five, six houses down the street he suddenly realizes there’s no Larry! OH NO! We have to go home! He suddenly turns around, digs his nails into the asphalt, and literally drags me home. To walk farther at that point would be like walking a sack of cement. It’s just not worth the effort. If Larry goes on the walk, Winston can happily trot for miles, even in the dark, which he usually fears. If it’s just me, there is a radius around the house he is comfortable with, and will go no farther. I have to go and cuddle my cat to assure myself that I am loved. Then I return to my “real” walk – sans dog.

 

I almost put the budgie down

I’ve never lived with parakeets before, so fostering two parakeets this summer has a new experience. I’ve found them to be quite low maintenance, and rather soothing – most of the time.

One of my favorite Monty Python skits features two “ladies” discussing how best to “put one’s budgie down” when it gets to be annoying. One might choose to hit it with a book, or shoot it above the beak, but at all costs, one should not flush them down the toilet, since they “breed in the sewers”. Not too longer ago I almost put one of the budgies down by accident – I didn’t close the cage door by the seed tray, and was surprised to suddenly have a parakeet careening through the house. I finally caught him/her behind the toaster oven, and had to carefully balance the need to hold on to the tiny squirmy body without squeezing too hard and accidentally reenacting the budgie skit. I quickly found out that that tiny little beak can exert quick a mean bit of force on the unsuspecting finger.

Once back in the cage, he or she immediately went back to normal, which for parakeets consists of an almost constant chittering and chattering, punctuated with occasional mad squawking and fluttering around for no discernable reason. As a human I have no way of knowing if they are happy or not; I can’t imagine being happy in a cage, but they do seem to enjoy each other quite a bit. They are constantly in conversation and mirror each other’s movements as well as vocalizations. They have their own personalities – the green one expects the gray one to provide grooming and will poke him if it’s not forthcoming. I’ve been told they like music and singing, so I do try to sing to them; they are quite patient and tolerant of my lack of talent, but suspect they breathe little birdie sighs of relief when I stop.

They have not been trained to talk and are quite skittish; they would never consider perching on a finger. They make an exception, though, for their favorite treat; they tolerate and even investigate my hand when it brings them a millet spray, willing to risk it all for that birdie junk food.

The Miner Bees are back!

Every April and May my side yard is invaded by bees. Small bees resembling honey bees circle endlessly, low to the ground, on sunny days. Their range seems to be linked to the range of the spring beauties, although they visit other flowers as well. When I first saw them I went online and discovered they were miner bees, a fairly common solitary bee, of special importance recently now that the honey bee has been suffering such dire reductions in numbers. These bees neither make honey or sting, but they do pollinate. After about a month they disappear as quickly as they appeared. The females live 4-6 weeks, the males about half that long.

The miner bee does exactly what its name suggests – the females mine out several chambers in clay soil, and construct an external chimney that resembles an ant hill. They lay 3-4 eggs in each nest, with a nutritious pollen packet stashed nearby for the hatchling to feed upon. After the eggs are laid, the female caps the nest with a plug of clay. The new bees will overwinter as pre-emergent adults, and will come crawling out the following spring. Gardeners who want to encourage these small pollinators to live near their flower beds can construct clay bricks for them to nest in.

I find these bees delightful to watch and when they arrive I know spring is finally here to stay. I am a firm believer in low-impact lawn care. Aside from the occasional application of Roundup to the poison ivy, I use no herbicides or pesticides. I will always have scruffy patches of lawn that can’t be mown right now because something is blooming or digging or flying around right now. My reward for that “neglect” is a delightful array of surprises every spring.

The perpetual four-legged two-year old

There’s a For Better or Worse cartoon on my fridge. It’s from the early days of the strip, showing Elly shivering in her bathrobe in the cold as their new puppy wanders around sniffing at leaves, ignoring his mission. Finally she yells at him in frustration: “GO ALREADY!”

That scene has been repeated many times in my back yard since my boyfriend decided he couldn’t live without a dog any longer. Winston, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, came into our lives during the cold of winter, and like all puppies, needed to go out constantly. Over a year later, it still seems he needs to go out constantly. And as the early riser, I’m the one shivering in my bathrobe yelling “GO ALREADY” as Winston sniffs the air and examines every stick and leaf for the specialness only dogs can detect. To rush him back inside often has unpleasant consequences, so we wander about while he looks for just the right branch or pile of leaves to position his posterior over. As a lifetime cat owner, it’s been a mystery to me why the training has taken so long. As I constantly point out, training a cat takes about 30 seconds. “Here’s the cat box”. “Okay,  thanks”. End of lesson. We both remain warm and dry. With Winston, the failures have been seemingly endless. The signal for “I have to go out” is quite similar to “I want to eat what you’re eating” and “Play with me NOW”. Giant bottles of Pee Pee odor eliminator are a regular item in our grocery cart.

The obvious solution is to fence in the yard, and I fully plan to do so. However, I still expect to spend a good deal of time watching him sniff the air. First, in the interest of neighborhood tranquility, we will need to prevent his habit of barking frantically at every pedestrian on the side street by our yard, especially those with dogs. Second, he has a profound interest in consuming the most disgusting items he can find. He will turn up his nose at the most gourmet of dog food, exhibiting a pickiness any cat would envy. But his poor neck has suffered from being constantly tugged about on every walk – once the snuffling starts, the swallowing is not far behind, and by the time we realize what’s in his mouth it’s often too late. We have pried sticks, rocks, sharp walnut shells, deer droppings, and maggoty dead birds from his mouth. Inside he delights in stealing items, as all puppies do, and we’ve caught him with cell phones, glasses, knives, bolts, ear plugs, heating pads, and other potentially dangerous objects. The canine lack of judgment very nearly cost him his life recently. The baby gate we installed to keep him out of the basement was left open briefly, long enough for him to pay a visit to the cat box for a delightful meal of cat litter and droppings. We try to prevent this, not caring for his resultant cat poop breath. But this time his breath was the least of his problems. The litter I had begun using was Arm & Hammer Super Scoop with baking soda. It was unscented (I hate perfumed cat litter) and does a very good job of eliminating odors. It almost eliminated Winston. The baking soda reacted with his stomach acid, and his stomach inflated like a balloon. He began vomiting and trying to burp but the gas would not escape. He could barely walk due to the discomfort. About $600 later, with an overnight stay at the vet, about a dozen x-rays, much medication, and a temporary bland food diet, he seems to have mostly recovered, and his extreme thirst seems to be abating somewhat. Will he stay away from the cat box? Probably not, so we will be using the expensive recycled newspaper litter – without baking soda. And we’ll continue to try to protect him from this dangerous world we have created – that no species can adapt to quickly enough.

The very naughty cat

Pumpkin was a rescue cat, as I often reminded him. When he was small, my daughter and her friends made sure his feet never touched the ground. In spite of all that love and attention, he matured into a companionable but fairly aloof cat; only when reached about 5 or 6 in age did he once again occasionally consent to purr or sit on a lap. In spite of his aloofness, he tolerated being teased, chased, and carried around by children and adults with great patience, finally growling to let us know the game was long overdue to end.

Pumpkin had a number of habits that made him a challenging cat.

A sensitive digestion required special expensive food, and any time he coerced or stole human food, the odor from the litter box let us know he was not feeling well. Worse yet, he refused to engage in typical cat litter digging behavior, so a fresh deposit required immediate human intervention lest the EPA arrive and fine us.

For some reason he had a burning need to chew on things, mainly wires. I will never know how he managed to avoid electrocuting himself. He chewed and ruined power strips, TV cables, monitor cables, every heavy duty extension cord in the house, and the plug to the electric saw. I will never forget the sight of his mouth glowing bright green as he attempted to chew the lights on the Christmas tree. I tried duct tape, foil, and finally the corrugated computer cable covers to prevent further damage; of course he chewed those too.

His biggest joy was escaping to the outside for hunting trips. He developed several methods of escape. Front and back screen doors did not fasten tightly, so I had to add child-proof hooks to prevent him from leaning on the doors until they swung open. The carport door, which we used the most, was more of a challenge. He found that he could hide on the basement steps, waiting for someone to leave, then run up the steps, allowing the extra momentum to carry him around our feet. To prevent being knocked over (an 11 lb. cat has a certain force, when hurled), we developed the Pumpkin exit - exiting backwards, down the steps, with some item (bookbag, purse, newspaper) held in front of our departing feet to block the exodus.

When that didn't work, it was usually futile to try to catch him (occasionally he would play it as a game - walking forward, looking behind to see if he was being followed, then waiting for the human to catch up, then running some more...). Once outside, he was happy. He would sit under the picnic table, waiting for the inattentive bird or chipmunk to pass by. Often he would return with his prize, still alive, and drop it in the house. The best way to deal with that is to let him catch the (mouse, bird chipmunk, shrew) again, then remove them both. We tried various methods to save the animals - prying them out of his mouth, covering his nose, dumping cold water on him. Sometimes we saved them, only to see  him catch them again a few days later.

This endless destruction was what did him in, finally. He found a nest of baby rabbits, and couldn't resist actually eating one (the remains appeared on my shoes, so I know he ate it). He developed pancreatitus; antibiotics almost took care of it, but then a congenital heart murmer got worse, due to the infection, and he quickly went into congestive heart failure. It was really hard to say goodbye to him. I knew there was no hope, but he was still young (only 7) and in his prime. He had become more affectionate and all his habits and quirks made him a constant source of amusement (as well as expense).

I chose not to make him wait and suffer for the final shot while I returned to the animal urgent care. I missed my chance to say goodbye. He came back to me the next day, wrapped in a huge swatch of plastic, taped up, in a large box, and cold from a night in the cooler. I buried him out back, with the remains of one of his chipmunk victims, exhumed from a nearby grave, next to him, eternally taunting him to resume the hunt.

The almost perfect cat

Loki is the latest in a long string of cats who have chosen to allow me to care for them. My late cat, Pumpkin, had not been gone long before I got an email from a friend whose daughter was moving back home, bringing with her a large surplus of pets. After a few hours of hiding in the basement, Loki entered the family and proceeded to tell the resident dog, Winston, who was in charge now.

Loki lacks the bad habits of Pumpkin. She seems content with staying inside, eating (perhaps a bit too often), sleeping, and sitting behind the couch, leaping at birds visiting the window feeder. I've learned to ignore the "thump, crunch, thump" as she appears from nowhere like a jack-in-the-box, thumps the window, and falls back down to her hidden lair. I no longer have to worry about hiding food on the counters, table and stove from a marauding feline - her stubby little legs prevent her from jumping that far. Unlike the companionable but aloof Pumpkin, she hears the sound of a body hitting the couch or chair in her sleep, and in short order is in place to share a warm lap. A hassock by my desk allows her to sleep near me as I work, safe from dog harassment.

Her only fault is her lack of a good internal clock. If I wake up in the night for any reason, she decides it's breakfast time. First the loud purring or meowing in her one-note voice, that sounds like she has just suffered a dreadful tragedy. Then the licking. Any available spot of skin is targeted - if you've never experienced having your elbow sandpapered at 3 am, it's not something you'll forget easily. My response (hiding under the covers), brings the next phase - tap. Tap, tap, tap. A gentle, persistent whacking begins until I give up and stagger to the kitchen for a spoon and some Fancy Feast. Pumpkin preferred the method of jumping on the dresser and knocking things over, or rattling the mini-blinds. Either way, my sleep has been disturbed and the cat once again reigns supreme.