Cat Pyre
Suzanne Courteau has been a friend of mine for
years, so when she asked if I could adopt her cat when she moved to Mexico, I
was more than happy to.
Besides, we
already have so many critters running around Three Meadows that one more cat
seemed unlikely to cause additional
strain.
He was a beautiful and friendly
neutered male tabby named "Berdoo." The girls quickly added the name "Rose," so
he became Rose Berdoo. Funny name for a boy, but whatever. For the first
couple of days, we kept the dog and other cat outside, to let Rose Berdoo
acclimate. And it seemed to work
great.
Then we let the dog
in.
Cats normally aren't too fond of
dogs, and Bippy is, um, extremely friendly, and not one to stay at a polite
distance. Rose Berdoo freaked at this much canine attention, and hid upstairs
in the girls' playroom, occasionally appearing on the catwalk. Wouldn't even
come down to eat.
So I locked the dog
outside, dragged the cat to the food and water, and tried to ease him into
getting along. My desensitizing technique for this is to make the dog hold
perfectly still while I rub the cat's face in the dog's fur. Usually after
three or four treatments, the cat begins to think of the dog as a stinky
annoyance, instead of a dangerous
predator.
And it seemed to be working
pretty well for Rose Berdoo. He began to come in and out of the house, and
while he avoided the dog, he no longer panicked at its approach. Life was
good... or so it seemed.
One night
after a couple of weeks, I opened the back door to let the cat in for the
evening, and he wasn't there. I shrugged -- it's not unusual for a cat to spend
the night outdoors, and our neighborhood is safe for
cats.
We didn't see him at all the next
day, and I started to worry. I suspected that he'd found a better owner
somewhere (there's a lady who feeds dozens of strays a few doors down) with
fewer dogs, or something. Could be worse. But the next day I saw his head
peeking out of the under-house access door. He ran away when I approached, but
I put a little dish of food and water there for him. Alas, he didn't go for them
over the next couple of days. I figured he'd found a new hiding spot
somewhere.
Didn't hear from him again
for over a week. But this morning, again, I saw his head poking out of the
crawlspace. This time he didn't run when I approached, though he acted
terrified when I touched him. When I picked him up, I found to my horror that
he was emaciated, horribly dehydrated and malnourished. Apparently he had been
hiding under the house the whole time, without eating or drinking, in the
intense spring heat.
He was a very sad,
sick cat.
I tried to get him to drink,
but could only get him to lick a few drops from my moistened fingertips. He
couldn't stand up straight, and his pupils were completely
dilated.
I felt like a bad, bad cat
owner. Why hadn't I crawled under the house to drag that cat to safety? It
just didn't occur to me that any animal would intentionally skip more than a
couple of meals. Cats are supposed to be smarter than
that!
Normally I'm pretty much a
non-interventionist when it comes to pets you can get free at the pound, but in
this case I packed up poor Rose Berdoo and carted him up to the local vet. He
just sat in my lap while I was driving and purred
pathetically.
I hoped that a quick IV
of saline would perk Rose Berdoo up, and get him back on the road to health.
That he had some infection that antibiotics would kill.
Something.
Alas, some tests confirmed
that the dehydration had caused massive kidney failure, and poor Rose Berdoo
wasn't going to make it.
I hate
that.
I held his shriveled purring body
as the vet injected him with the traditional massive overdose of some sort of
barbiturate. He went still almost
instantly.
The vet had a $45 fee to
dispose of his corpse, so I opted to take him home to inter somewhere in Three
Meadows, perhaps on the island.
We had
a Roman funeral, with each of us saying a few words before we placed his boxed
body on a roaring bonfire.
Mira
probably said it best: "Goodbye, Rose Berdoo. We'll miss you."
Filed Tue - June 3, 2003, 10:07 PM in
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