WriteHere
The Last Time I Cried? When My 18-year-old Cat Got Sick
He was the sweetest, most gentle-natured cat I’d ever had
The last time I remember properly bawling my eyes out was when my elderly cat got extremely ill. He was the sweetest cat I’d ever had. The most affectionate, with the most gentle nature.
He was also the most annoying because he craved attention too much. When I was trying to work, he would sit on my lap and rub his head against my hand, preventing me from typing. In the end, I had to ban him from my room, the annoying bastard.
But when he was about 18 years old, he got very ill. Then he got better. But then he got ill again.
He had no energy, wasn’t eating his food, and would spend all his time curled up in a corner. Stroking him wouldn’t make him purr or get much reaction from him at all. Sometimes he would crawl around the house very slowly like a slug.
I looked online about these symptoms, wanting reassurance that he wasn’t about to die. Unfortunately, it said that these were indeed the symptoms of a dying cat. I suddenly burst into tears, realising that he would soon be gone.
But then he got better again, and several months went past with him in reasonable health for such an old cat.
Then late one night, I heard noises from outside. I went down to see what was going on, to find a man in my back garden chasing after his two dogs. They were running around like mad things, totally out of control. He had no verbal command over them at all. One of them almost ran into our house, at which point I almost called the police.
Both dogs ended up in my next-door neighbour’s back garden, running around in circles, frantically barking at something. The man had to climb over the fence and physically grab his dogs.
The next morning, at 6:30 am, my next-door neighbour rang my doorbell. When I answered, she said, “I’m sorry Edward, but your cat’s lying dead on my lawn!”
I went round to her back garden, and there he was, lifeless. I touched him and he was stone cold. I took a few photos, for whatever reason, I don’t know.
I couldn’t see any blood or bite marks. I think he just died of fright. An elderly cat is no match for two young dogs. I think they scared him so much his old heart gave up.
But do you know what? I didn’t cry when that happened. It seems that I’d already done all my crying several months earlier when I thought he was slowly dying in front of me.
I was just angry.
I was angry that this man was such a naive and stupid dog owner that he’d never trained his dogs to respect his command and come when he called them.
But also, it turned out that he had this routine of taking his dogs for a walk at midnight and then letting them off the lead when he got to the bottom of our street. But there are loads of cats around here, and cats are nocturnal. So, what are untrained dogs going to do at night? Chase cats! And what’s an elderly cat going to do when chased by two aggressive young dogs? Die of fright!
When I showed the man my dead cat in a bag, he was so overwhelmed with remorse he didn’t know what to do with himself.
The incident was reported to the police, and he received a visit from them about a week later. Apparently, as soon as he opened the door to them he said, “Yeah, I know what this is about”. He felt so guilty he even considered writing us a letter of apology. The police advised him not to, but they gave him a warning that he needs to keep his dogs under control.
My cat might have lived to be 19 if those out-of-control dogs hadn’t got to him.
