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[linnea]

It sucks that people are such assholes and allowed to live until their seventies, but animals - who love unconditionally and often form the bedrock of our families - are lucky to see 20. That seems pretty backwards. I'd certainly let the world give up the dick that flung spitwads at me in 7th grade for another fifteen healthy years with my cat. The dude that gets in fights at every bar he hasn't been banned from yet and then tries to get the women to come home with him in his tricked-out pickup truck can take a dirt nap now for all I care if it will get me another decade with my dog. The world would come out ahead in the end.

She's been dead for three hours, and it already feels like months.

Quoted for truth. Y'know, one of my friends saw me cuddling Milan and Lenny when they were yearlings, and he said, "Somebody nice, what are you gonna do when they go to kitty heaven?"

I was very surprised that he would say that, because he implied that I was too attached to them. Just because they're not going to live forever doesn't mean I should avoid loving the little rats. Living life by avoiding emotional attachment so that you're not let down later...that's not living. That's a hollow semblance of what life should be.

[jaydub]

Wow, er, a Zombie Thread alert! seems somehow inappropriate (given the topic) , so I'll post a pic of the baby kitty one of my neighborhood feral cats had.



I've got to find a home for this little guy.  I'll probably get the mom spayed as well - though I don't know what to do with her either.  Damn people and their carelessness with their pets!  (My little neighborhood has something like 10 feral cats, most of which use my front garden as a litter box).

[V-Adore]

That is a super-fluffy baby kitty.

Feral cats really sadden me. People around here have the laxest standards for cat care I've ever seen, which really shocks me somewhere where there are quite a few wild predators. We've tried to do our part; we never let the cats out, both the cats we've adopted have been from the shelter (one of whom was found abandoned in a ditch as a small kitten), and we've let one of the neighborhood feral cats live on our carport. In a perfect world, we'd capture the guy, get him fixed and vetted, and try to find him a home, but he's an old and rangy feral cat, and we figure the best thing we can do is just make sure he has shelter and a little food for however long he has left.

[jaydub]

I've had to get out the shovel twice to take care of wild ones in my neighborhood who got hit by cars.  I checked them for collars before burying them, and thought lugging their corpses from door to door wouldn't be much appreciated.  They were both barely past kittenhood themselves.  I don't want that future for this little guy, but unfortunately with my wife's cat allergies he can't stay with us (I think he's a he, but I haven't messed with him close up, not wanting him to imprint on me and make our eventual separation even sadder).

Also, I don't want his mama to move him until I find him a home, and I figure she might abandon their nest if I take too much interest in him.

[AlohaDawg]

That's some heartfelt writing. I've been pondering what will happen when my 16 year old cat finally comes to the end of his life - I've had him since I was in college. He's seen just about everything important that happened in my life from a front-row seat. He's logged 5,000 miles and 13 different addresses.  There were times when he was more like a brother than a cat. A very good nonjudgmental listener, too.

I'm having trouble composing myself thinking about this - so I know that your sense of loss is profound and I feel for you.

I forgot about this thread. As it turned out, I know that I couldn't have guessed what it would feel like. In March 2006 I had to put old Spanky down after his kidneys failed. We spend $1200 dollars or so the last two weeks trying to keep him alive, and I now know that what I was buying was time for me to be ready to let him go. He was suffering and there was just no reason to keep him alive for me at his expense. So on a spring day I took him to the vet and came home without him. I don't think he knew exactly what we were doing, but I did and the vet staff were very good. I'm not a big cryer but I definitely spent that day in a lot of grief. I've never understood people who seem incapable of having feelings for animals, especially the obviously sentient creatures that, I believe, do feel love and express love in their own way. I think it's kind of sad, actually.

Aug, excellent post about Jack. That was a tearjerker, too. I'm looking forward to getting a dog when we move off this island. I'm not looking forward to that inevitable event, but we are intertwined in a vast system of births and deaths and it's something to accept, not to understand nor to struggle against.

[AugustWest]

Re: I miss my cat.

Perhaps you should try a new scope.  Or maybe less caffeine.

[Golfhaus]

Re: I miss my cat.

Perhaps you should try a new scope.  Or maybe less caffeine.

Shaddup, you!

I've married a woman allergic to cats, so there are no more in my future. That makes me kinda sad. It makes me laugh, though, that the two threads that I started that tend to surface are the ones about things around me dying. That paints a very morbid picture. I need to get Mr. Bear back on here to balance that out.

[linnea]

Shaddup, you!

I've married a woman allergic to cats, so there are no more in my future. That makes me kinda sad. It makes me laugh, though, that the two threads that I started that tend to surface are the ones about things around me dying. That paints a very morbid picture. I need to get Mr. Bear back on here to balance that out.

I have very bad allergies. However, some Zyrtec or Claritin and some Flonase has ironed all that out. My cats sleep right next to my head and I don't have any problems.

Then again, the first few months I had Milan and Lennybruce...well, it was pretty rough. But having a sweet kitten asleep on your chest is worth all the allergy bullshit, especially because I toughed it out until I got used to it. Then again - I'm dedicated and not everybody is that gung ho about cute kitties. Some people might flinch in the face of allergy suffering. The little dudes were totally worth it. Your wife might not feel the same way I do.

They do have the hypoallergenic cats from Allerca, though. Look at how damn cute the front page kitty is!!!

[AugustWest]

We have new kittens. 

Well, not brand new.  But they've lived long enough that they've emerged from wherever their mom had them hidden and are hanging out in the general cat population.  Cute!  One orange, one gray striped.

Circle of life and all that...

[linnea]

We have new kittens. 

Well, not brand new.  But they've lived long enough that they've emerged from wherever their mom had them hidden and are hanging out in the general cat population.  Cute!  One orange, one gray striped.

Circle of life and all that...

Awww... is there some agency that will help with the costs of spay/neuter? I hate having feral cats runnin' around. Are these guys feral?

[wombat]

They do have the hypoallergenic cats from Allerca, though. Look at how damn cute the front page kitty is!!!

These are probably a scam - there are lots of reasons to be suspicious of this company, like this story about how they refuse to sell them to people they think are highly allergic - perhaps because those are the people who are really going to notice that it's a crock of bullshit?  And here's another one about another weird idea they have for selling cats for thousands of dollars. This is also interesting.

[linnea]

These are probably a scam - there are lots of reasons to be suspicious of this company, like this story about how they refuse to sell them to people they think are highly allergic - perhaps because those are the people who are really going to notice that it's a crock of bullshit?  And here's another one about another weird idea they have for selling cats for thousands of dollars. This is also interesting.

They talk a lot of shit about how their pets are developed by scientists. But isn't what they are doing just selective breeding? It's not like they're doing sophisticated rocket science here. Ahh...one of the articles omba linked was about just that. Thanks for the links.

Wow, I had no idea about all the fraud and sordid business practices behind these folks. They're claiming on their website that they're going to put a 12-month hold on accepting new clients, since their waiting list is already 2 years long. I agree with you, wombat - the whole thing sounds really bizarre.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Awww... is there some agency that will help with the costs of spay/neuter? I hate having feral cats runnin' around. Are these guys feral?

Yes: http://www.lovethatcat.com/spayneuter.html#states
My mom and I have 3 feral cats that live in our backyard that we got fixed and give shelter/food to. After the mommy cat had a litter we got the kittens fixed and adopted, then got her fixed and haven't seen any kittens since. I'll miss them when theyre gone. I don't recall any of this costing any money.

[AugustWest]

Awww... is there some agency that will help with the costs of spay/neuter? I hate having feral cats runnin' around. Are these guys feral?

They're barn cats.  We feed and water them, and that's about it.  I highly doubt we could catch them to spay or neuter even if we tried. Ray knows.

[Arachno-capitalist]

We Trapped the mommy cat with a large crate, towels, and her biting straight thru my firefighting gloves.