When to Let Go...

Just recently, a very good friend of mine had to have her cat put to sleep.  Her darling Alfie was 17 years old and had led a charmed life, but she was really struggling with her health and euthanasia was the kindest thing to do for her.

As an owner, I think making this decision can be the hardest thing in the world but if you can assess your pets quality of life, you can help prevent suffering.

Cats Protection have created an essential guide which is designed to help you assess quality of life, help you understand euthanasia, what it is and how it works and how to handle the grief surrounding this hard decision.

Losing a much-loved pet is a very traumatic experience and you may go through a mixture of emotions – sadness, loneliness and even anger.  

My personal advice would be to talk to friends and family… don’t feel guilty about your cats death, you made a decision to end suffering – it was an act of kindness.  Try to remember the good times you spent together and treasure those wonderful memories.

I hope this blog post can bring some comfort, when needed and please do take a look at the essential guide as I feel it will be very useful essential guide

 

Gorgeous Alfie Chilling By The Fire

Peter - The cat that started my obsession

I can’t really remember a time when I was not besotted by animals.  I was obsessed with elephants as a child, with orangutans as a teenager and now?  Well I love all animals but I adore cats in particular and I guess I always have.

My grandmother had a beautiful, friendly tabby called Tiger who I used to love to visit.  When I was about 10 years old Tiger had a litter of kittens and after much begging, I got my mum and dad to agree to let me have one.  I picked a beautiful tabby boy and called him Peter. 

My Peter - such a handsome boy

At the time, we had no other pets at home and Peter became my best friend.  Peter and I would hang out together all the time and he loved to sleep on my pillow, wrapped around my head.  I used to pop him in my dolly pram and he would happily be pushed around the house or garden, he was such a sociable boy!  He was also an incredibly affectionate cat, and when he was particularly happy he would knead away and dribble like mad!  After a few months Mum and Dad adopted a Springer Spaniel puppy which we called Penny.  The first meeting of Peter and Penny was an exciting time but it didn’t go as planned.  Peter was really not impressed with the bouncy puppy and decided to show his distaste by scratching her on the nose and giving her a big hiss!  As much as I adored the new puppy I was mega-protective of my best friend Peter and I bundled him up into my arms and took him off to my bedroom where we consoled each other with a good old snuggle.  Anyway, after a few more supervised interactions they got used to each other and over the next few months they became the best of friends.  They would play together, eat together and sleep together – it was adorable.  Peter was very loyal though and I like to think he was still my best friend.

Peter and I had many, many happy years together and I would rush home from school to see my beautiful boy but one terrible night Peter went out for his usual evening stroll and he never came home, I was devastated.  We put up posters and knocked on doors but nobody had seen him.

After months of living in hope, we had to accept that we might never see him again.  This was before the days of microchips so I like to think that he wandered off and maybe found a new wonderful home somewhere else, but we will never know.

I know this is a bit of a sad story but I have such wonderful memories of him and I am grateful to him for the years of companionship and I completely owe him for my cat obsession!

I’d love to hear your memories of the cats that started your love for cats/cat obsession….

Melly Boy - Slightly resembles Peter I think!