Fluffy Cat

Last night we came home to Berkeley (from the Salt Lake City trip that I will post about later)
to find Squeeky had not been taken away as planned. We walked into the yard to find Squeeky sitting in the middle of the yard mewing, and two metal food bowls on the bricks, for the two nice downstairs kitties.

This perturbed me for many reasons, including that I knew the owner of these two cats wasn't home and hadn't been for days, indeed, had moved out, telling us that the cats would be picked up last Friday to go to her dad's house.

Cat and two bowls were there, but we had a bad feeling about the little cat, since she was nowhere to be found. Last time she came back from the dad's house, she had lost three or four of the few pounds she ever had (at most ten? to start?) and came back with bones sticking out. She'd lost so much weight, she was eating birdseed to feed herself.

Paul and I are the ones most frequently at the house, and as such, we take it upon ourselves to shower the two downstairs cats with love and, when we can, extra food. But the last trip to the dad's house had taken most of Flluffy's weight away.

A telephone call confirmed our fears. Fluffy had been put to sleep. Something about dehydration and a possible urinary tract infection, and possible kidney damage from said dehydration. As much as we loved the little cat, serious neglect from the proper caretakers had hurt her, and she was either too far gone, or deemed not worth the effort.

R.I.P. little kitty. I'm sorry you landed where you did.

Fluffy cat had grown her personality tenfold since I met her. first a shy, skittish ball of fur who was frightened by the sound of her drool hitting the couch, she gradually gained self-confidence finally to the point of slapping and ambushing the other two, much larger cats in the yard. Once, after she'd spent a few days ambushing Fang repeatedly (and she was too small to hurt them, but kept trying), I pulled a cat claw out of her head while petting her in the garage. She turned into a little scrapper! I declared her a bully; Paul called it "sassy," and was charmed by it. Paul was her favorite, and she'd follow him around the yard, "ack"ing. She rarely could squeak out a real "meow," usually just choking out an "ack... gaaak" instead. She was a beautiful soft little kitty, who we will miss. I can't help but feel we failed her.