The Faithful Dog

The late and very lamented Bear-Bear was a people-cat, so much so that he largely ignored other animals, to concentrate solely on humans. What a fellow he was.

My friend Renn is also a people-cat. He likes other cats, as well. He is Tungsten’s pal, always taking the opportunity to sniff her nose - or her other end - and keeps trying to get close to my foster-beast, Cammie, who treats his efforts like a tap that runs with both hot and cold water. But above all, Renn loves his humans.

Possessed of a cool and logical mind, my big boy is a scientist, specialising in the study of water. But his heart is susceptible not to reason, but to the lure of human company. He loves lying with me on the bed. He is always the first of my roommates to join me there at night. If I wake in the middle of the night, I will inevitably hear a repetitive ‘rrrrrr rrrrrr rrrrrr’, and feel heavy footfalls making their way up toward me. To Renn, even the middle of the night is an opportunity for some interspecies comradeship.

If I go for a nap during the day, I need only lie on the bed and I will hear his sturdy tread trotting to the bedroom. How he knows the difference between me sitting on the bed and lying on it is a mystery. But he is a learnèd cat.

When I sit on the couch, perhaps after dinner, relaxing with a book and a cup of tea, Renn will eventually come to join me. He will lie against me, and likes to feel the reassuring touch of my hand on his flank or, better yet, on his chest.

Periodically, he will find me while I am writing or reading, and come up to me, his back arched and his big floofy tail wagging like a hound’s. I can’t resist him then and we spend a few minutes in mutual admiration. He is not a lap-cat, really, and has only rarely jumped up there. But if I pull him up to rest there, he will purr contentedly for a long time.

What draws these animals to their humans? Why do they choose to like people, or some people in particular? Renn doesn’t like raised voices. There have been times when, angered by a dish that decided to spill its contents (it’s no use blaming me; I didn’t do a thing) or a cat-toy that leaped into my path, I will curse with some vehemence. Renn hurries away at such moments, crouching low, heading for the basement as a refuge. He has known fury; perhaps he has been its target. But this has not soured him on humans, and when I assure him he is not to blame, he slowly resurfaces, and knows all is well.

It’s cats such as Renn who have made pets of their species, chums for humans who expect nothing from them but companionship. I have mentioned before that he reminds me of a dog. He is my faithful dog, the sort who shows us that fidelity and friendship are not exclusive to canines.

...And Not a Drop to Drink

During the winter, southern Alberta sometimes experiences chinook winds, the local name for a foehn wind that blows down off the Rocky Mountains. Though it sometimes feels very cold to the skin, it raises temperatures greatly and swiftly. This occurred last week, when the temperature climbed from -14° to five or six above zero in a couple of hours. The foot and a half of snow that covered my town disappeared in two days.

One living in regions where winter is wintery all season long may think this a good thing, but it does have its disadvantages. The amount of run-off overwhelmed the water-purification plant that serves the district and so, as a precaution, the town authorities issued an order to boil water before drinking it. Most people bought bottled water, which I dislike using. I have a four-gallon barrel of tap-water stored which I renew from time to time, and drew on that, so I and the most of the cats were able to drink rather stale but clean water.

Not so with Tungsten. My orange one does not drink from a bowl, at least not while I am at home. I’m sure she does when I am absent, as she has no choice - I’m sure she does it! - but when I am present, she demands water dripping from a tap. In this case, however, the water may have been dirty. It is true that the water was likely fine to consume, and the warning no more than a precaution by the town government against being sued. With myself, I was ambivalent. After all, I ate bacon and fried potatoes with a piece of pie afterward for dinner on Friday. The concern I have for my health cannot be too great. But Tungsten’s health is more precious.

Consequently, I tried running the tap on the big four-gallon keg for her. Having a giant blue jug balanced on the bathroom basin’s counter unnerved her a bit, I suspect, and she did not want to lap up the water dribbling from it. Then, I remembered the big, fat syringe I used to feed Tucker his medicine some months ago. I filled that with water and used it a tap. To my surprise, it worked.

The water emergency is over and we can drink from taps again. It smells heavily of chlorine but, strangely, the cats do not object to that. The event made me think, though, that the tiny terror probably is not taking in as much water as she should. I will start pumping water into her (it sounds more fun (for me) if I phrase it that way) a couple of times a day. She will dislike it, but with her border-line kidney problems, I believe it may be necessary. It wouldn’t hurt in any case. At least it’s not medicine, and I don’t have to space the waterings twelve hours apart.

Little does she realise the fun for which she is in store…

Hidden Josie

Things in my house have slipped into a routine following Bear-Bear’s death. In fact, they slipped into a routine quite easily. I think it’s because the situation caused by his illness was extraordinary, and life wants to be ordinary, so after the BB left, my world reverted to what it had been.

That doesn’t mean that my long-cat isn’t missed. Each morning, when I leave for work, I say good-bye to my beasts, my remaining foster-cat, Cammie, included, and I find there is something amiss in counting only five fuzzy heads. You see, what my world reverted to was not a world without Bear-Bear, but a world without his sad and deteriorating condition. It remains a world with him in it, but he’s not there.

It feels as though he is somewhere that I can’t find him, and that I’m excluding him from all my activities, that he’s being left out. I’m sure that sensation will fade, and probably soon, but until then, I feel as though I’m turning my back on the BB.

But there is still plenty to do with my other cats. None is sick, thank goodness, though Tungsten continues to require her hyperthyroid medicine, and I am learning about feline kidney disease. I think that will involve my tiny terror more and more in the days to come.

The cats still surprise me. Not long after Bear-Bear passed away, I woke in the night. There are usually three cats, sometimes four, on the bed with me these days, all the perma-cats except Tungsten, who joins me half the time; the other half is spent in the warmth of her heated cat-bed. I don’t blame her for that. Tucker, Renn and Josie find their special spots on the bed and hem me in as best they can. My Chubs is normally right against me on the near side of the bed.

I woke this night, as I usually do each night, at some point and, as soon as my eyes opened, saw Josie’s white face staring at me in the gloom. She was purring. Most of the time - in fact, always - the Great White needs petting to purr. Her motor starts more readily than it used to, and more frequently. But it normally needs to be revved up by stroking. Not this time. This night, she was simply looking at me and purring.

Thank you, Josie.

Thank You

I would like to thank all those who have left kind words for me on the passing of Bear-Bear. It is comforting to know that so many care; I realise that too great a number of people have also experienced the loss of a beloved animal friend. I will try to thank each of you individually over time.

I have published a memoriam of my long-cat, with pictures. Don’t feel that you need to comment on it. Just read it, please, and remember the BB.

In Memoriam: Bear-Bear

Bear-Bear died on 25th February, 2014. He was about eleven years old, very possibly older. He was my foster-cat; I never adopted him, which I regret now. But he didn’t know the difference, of course. After a while, I didn’t either. But I feel it now. This is his story, accompanied by photographs in no particular order or preference.

He came to me in April of 2013. He was found wandering around an apartment building, and was taken in by a couple who felt sure that he was lost and someone was searching for him. He was such a friendly fellow that he must have been missed. He was neutered, so someone had taken the trouble to see to that. He was healthy and strong, well-fed. Yet no one came forward in response to the couple’s search. Bear-Bear became another lost cat, and was taken in by a local rescue-group. This group’s headquarters suffered a terrible fire, of which I wrote at the time, and, after a while, Bear-Bear and a few other cats were transferred to the care of the Lethbridge PAW Society, the cat-rescue group with which I volunteer.

The BB soon went to live with a couple on a ‘trial-adoption’ for two months. Thereafter, he went overnight to a veterinary hospital for some more or less routine health-work; nothing serious. The couple could not be reached when it was time to collect Bear-Bear. That cat came to stay with me for a day or two. When his prospective people were reached, they stated that they had decided against adopting Bear-Bear, and no satisfactory explanation was ever given as to why. Bear-Bear was homeless again, and his two-day stay with me became longer - permanent, as it turned out.

What was Bear-Bear like? He loved people, first and foremost. He had lived, when first rescued, with several other cats in a temporary facility. He got along with all the cats there. He ignored them, really; people were his interest. He enjoyed talking to them, whether it was me or friends come to visit. “Raa,” he would say, or “rao”, with different inflections, depending upon the meaning. He would greet me at the door when I came home, usually trying to get there first, so that he didn’t have to wait behind the other beasts, and he sometimes would appear on the bed at night, trying to get as close as possible to my face. That would have been more endearing if he hadn’t also been suffering from a cold during many of his attempts.

He played when he first arrived at my house, chasing fuzzy mice I would throw him and trying to catch a toy on a string. He also liked 'Undercover Mouse'. But his health declined soon after, and playing slowed and disappeared. But he remained sociable to the end, ready to discuss things and events, even if his loquacity suffered.

The BB was not upset by much. He was very adaptable and would have done well if adopted into a new home. Novel situations did not faze him, and even a journey to the veterinarian did not worry this cat. He would lie in his carrier and speak to the people in the car with him. He never cried or sang; all his talk was conversational. They sounded like comments: “Look at how blue the sky is this afternoon; isn’t that nice?” or “Is this route different than last time?” and “I never noticed that Burger King before.”

He was patient, dignified. He endured medicine through most of our time together. First, I tried giving him pills. That would not do. Bear-Bear simply would not take them; too degrading, I suspect. So then I was given medicine to rub in his ear. This he took stoically. Later, the drugs were dispensed orally, but in liquid-form, and he acquiesced to this method, though he never liked it. This became worse when he stopped eating, and had to be fed by syringe. He never fought me. He was very helpful - and that was a favour to me but to show his disdain for the process, he would turn his head, or push away the syringe with his paw, but he accepted the food, though he couldn’t have guessed why I was tormenting him so.

Before he became sick, Bear-Bear enjoyed eating. He usually cleaned up his dish. I tried to interest him in good foods, but he preferred the less healthy ones. Eventually, just before he stopped eating, he seemed to like some better choices. In his heyday, he could eat a whole tin of his favourite food. I of course would give him as much as he wanted, as he was a biggish fellow and he was never as weighty as he should have been.

Bear-Bear was a long and lanky beast, tall, with a span from nose to tail’s tip like the spread of a hawk’s wings. He was light on his feet, considering his size, and I compared his gait to that of a deer’s, rather than Josie’s brontosaurus, or Tucker, who reminds me of a manatee with legs. The BB was graceful until a week or so before he died, when he mis-stepped from time to time. His footfalls were quiet, and unlike Renn’s heavy stumping, the first intimation that Bear-Bear was present was often a quite “rao rao”, when he wanted my attention.

But, oh, what an ugly fellow he was. I would tell him that, too. “An ugly brute,” I would call him, though he never took offence. His facial colouring reminded me of a drunken clown, too inebriated to apply his make-up straight, and his pink lips were spotted with black, making it look like the end of his tongue was lolling out. But his eyes were golden and bright, and full of enthusiasm and cheer.

It was discovered that Bear-Bear had anaemia when he went for a dental operation to fight his mild gingivitis. He couldn’t take the anaesthetic, so the gingivitis stayed. It gave him bad breath. Now, I had an ugly, smelly foster-cat. Strangely, it didn’t bother me much. I probably was ugly and smelly to him; he liked me anyway. More worrying was the low number of blood cells in his body. The doctor concluded that it was either a case of his body mistakenly killing off its own blood cells, or cancer.

A long course of Prednisone initially helped raise his cell-count, but that didn’t last. We think now it was cancer. The BB retained his appetite for quite a while, though he continued to lose weight. Then he refused food except at breakfast, so I plied him with as much of whatever he would consume at that early meal. Then, he stopped eating even then. I had to feed him by syringe, something we both detested. His deterioration thereafter was rapid. He grew weak. I came home one day to find that he had pooped on the floor and wet in a cat-bed: he didn’t feel that he could manage the stairs to where the litter-boxes were kept. I moved a box upstairs, and once again, his hygiene was good. He was always conscientious about that. But he ceased grooming himself eventually.

Bear-Bear’s life in his last two weeks was confined to his heated cat-bed, with periodic trips a few feet away to the litter-box. He even stopped drinking water, which had lasted longer than his desire to eat. But he still was able to find me to tell me he wanted to sit on my lap, and at those moments, it was as if he were healthy again, so bright and glad were the sounds he made.

He died a few minutes before six o’clock, 25th February, 2014. I and a friend from the PAW Society took him to the veterinary hospital at five. First, Bear-Bear had a catheter inserted in an artery of his leg, and we spent some time with him before a tranquilizer was administered to knock him out. He was a tough one, even at this stage, because he had to have a second dose: he just wouldn’t go to sleep. When doesn’t a cat want to sleep? There were too many things left for him to do, he probably thought. He wanted on my lap. I stroked his fur, which was still smooth, and talked to him as he, eventually, abandoned consciousness. I wanted me to be the last thing he felt and heard, so that he would know I was still with him.

The lethal dose was then given. The end came very quickly after that, and he was gone. He was very limp, not at all as though he were sleeping, and his pupils had dilated to fill his eyes, making them black. His soul had departed.

I had taken pictures of him the previous weekend, the last photographs of my long-cat. He looked ravaged. I’ll never show those images to anyone. I present to you instead pictures of Bear-Bear in the glow of life. He was, perhaps, already dying, a cancer growing within him. But you wouldn’t know it. He was a happy, cheerful cat, ready each morning for a full day of eating, sleeping and gazing at the wide world. I miss him, and will until I myself die.

I can’t say farewell to Bear-Bear, because he will never leave me. His memory will remain, a little less clear each day, but always present. He is a part of my life, and will stay far more than the ten months which God kindly gave me to know him. He is a fixture in my heart.

As the BB himself would say, “Raa.”

Bereft

Bear-Bear died yesterday, just before six o’clock in the evening.

His condition had deteriorated greatly in the last week, and there was discomfort and little joy in his life. He was taken to his veterinarian who sent him away from me. I will write more about the extraordinary BB tomorrow or the next day.

Bereft is from the Old English word ‘bereave’, which means ‘to steal’. The bandit clans who lived in the Middle Ages on both sides of the English-Scottish frontier were known as Border Rievers, because of their lifestyles. It’s how I feel: Bear-Bear was robbed of half his life. But God gave me a piece of it to share, and I am grateful.

Godspeed, Bear-Bear.

The New Hammock

Before Tucker’s recent sojourn into unwellness - he is doing much better now, by the way - which cost me an arm and a leg - the roly poly one himself contributed nothing to covering the cost, it will be noted - I was able to bid on a cat-hammock in an on-line auction to assist a little dog named Tweedles. (From his blog, it looks like he is doing as well as Tucker, which is good news.) Last week, the hammock arrived through the post and this weekend, I put it together.

The hammock is actually a Ham-mick, created and donated to the auction by Forty Paws, and I am very pleased with it. It was easily assembled; though it came without instructions, there was nothing to figuring out how to put it together. It was probably the most successful mechanical job I’ve ever accomplished. It may, in fact, be the only one I’ve accomplished. Anyway…

Tungsten was the first to brave the new furniture. In the photograph above, you can see two of the boys contemplating it while the tiny terror staked her initial claim. And below, Cammie also investigated. The picture may look confrontational, but there was just some sniffing going on. Cammie isn’t one for cat-beds of any kind, though that may change, as I saw her exploring one on sunny Sunday morning.

Then, Josie had to see if it fit her, or vice versa. As you may observe, she fills up the hammock pretty well. She is, in some ways, like gas, as described in high school chemistry classes: she expands to fill the available space.

At last it was the turn of the boys. Renn rolled about, taking in the smells that came with the new item, and leaving his own. He often likes to give a good roll to wherever he plants his big frame.

Tucker enjoyed the hammock even more. From what I’ve observed, he and my Chubs are the ones using it the most. It may be just a coincidence that it finds favour principally with my two fatties. Whatever the reason, I am very pleased with the product, and want to buy another, though that will have to wait until my finances recover from recent feline expenditures. Maybe next year…

A word about Bear-Bear… You can see him in a couple of pictures. He goes for another blood test this very day, but over the weekend, he stayed in his heated cat-bed. He doesn’t go anywhere else except on to my lap, for which I am grateful, and down to the litter-boxes, for which I am equally grateful. He is currently being syringe-fed, since his nose is so clogged from his previous respiratory infection (I believe it is gone now) that he cannot smell anything, and thus will not eat anything. We may see about dealing with that when he goes for his test. Until then, the BB is resting comfortably. Just not in a hammock.