pet death, emotional, long
Poekie has died today, at 16:13 UTC+1.
I don't remember exactly when she came to live with me, but it would've been something like 11 years ago - previously she lived with a number of cats, who'd continuously chase her away and steal her food, and she was a ball of anxiety and trauma by the time I adopted her.
Over the years, she mostly recovered from that, and learned to trust people again - but the panic attacks never quite went away, and eventually dementia appeared to set in, after she'd already been dealing with thyroid issues, near-total blindness, and incidental epilepsy attacks for a while.
For several years we could manage the issues using a combination of felimazole, phenobarbital, and annoyingly tiny doses of diazepam - but eventually that stopped working, the panic attacks became more and more frequent, and the treatment options ran out.
So I've finally had to make the difficult decision to put an end to it, given that there was no path forward other than suffering. It's still something I'm deeply uncomfortable with, making this sort of decision for *any* other creature, and it frustrates me to no end that I had no way of communicating about it with her. I guess it's some sort of sad consolation that most people would've apparently given up sooner, or so I've been told.
I can't shake the sense, however, that after I spent her last two days hanging out with her on the couch, she eventually caught onto what was happening - suddenly wanting to go check out the bathroom and the office (which she always recognized as my 'territory') when I started preparing to bring her away, wanting to hang around with me there for a bit, and then walking back down and waiting there for me, being unusually calm as I led her into the cat carrier. But I guess I'll never know.
I will probably not be around much for the next few days, at least. Poekie has been my only companion for many of my most difficult years, and it will take me some time to process this fully. I'll have to get used to the silence around the house, too.
I might tell some more stories about her on here, I don't know yet.
story, re: pet death, emotional, long
When she was younger, she would often tell me exactly what she needed by leading me to the food bowl, the door, the water bowl, whatever it was, then intently staring at it for a bit, and then staring at me and meowing. This got worse with dementia, though.
Likewise, she understood "pointing at stuff" perfectly well (right up until the end!), and could 'follow the line' of what I was pointing at. She understood instructions to "wait, I'll be right back" (and would indeed wait for me to return) as well as "come on" (and she would follow).
She clearly understood that my office was my territory, and seemed to recognize the threshold as being the boundary - she would sit *right* in front of the threshold, looking at me, occasionally a brief meow, until I told her to come in, and then she would.
I also taught her to sit and stop meowing before she would get her food; by this point she was probably already at least 15 years old (her exact age is not known), either by instructing her to "sit", or just standing there with the food and looking at her until she sat down.
The degree of communication was always quite good; making it all the more frustrating that I couldn't explain *this* to her.
stories (3), re: pet death, emotional, long
She always trusted me a lot. If I pushed her over, she would let herself fall over, trusting that I would catch her with my other arm or against my leg or so, for cuddles.
Likewise, she was fine with me touching or holding her paws; this became especially helpful in her last two years or so, where she was increasingly having trouble controlling her claws, and I often had to 'unhook' her claws from some bit of fabric.
That trust goes back a long time; when I first met her at a then-partner's house, she came up to me almost immediately, something that she apparently never did with anyone else.
I still don't know exactly why she made that decision.
re: pet death, emotional, long
It's definitely going to take some time to get used to coming downstairs and not running into the cat there...
re: pet death, emotional, long
more stories, re: pet death, emotional, long
Poekie was certainly a weird cat; with a particular fondness for rough petting, especially *against* the grain of her fur.
In the early days, when she just came to live with me, she would often hide behind my legs when there was a stranger in the house. Later on, she got more relaxed about that; her blindness seemed to play a part in that.
Especially at the end she was quite clingy; if you picked her up (which she was totally fine with!), she would try to grab and hang over your shoulder for a cuddle - but she only allowed that for people who would put her back down as soon as she tried to move away.
She also never complained much when she wasn't allowed to go outside anymore. At my old place, she could go out onto the balcony, but at the new place I only have a backyard and that meant she wasn't allowed outside anymore. Sometimes she briefly took a look outside when the door was open, only to take a few steps and walk back inside, meowing.