A Tale of Four Kitties

Our old house in Roy came with a bonus - a black cat we named Athena. She was a good cat - smart, not at all needy, an excellent mouser. Once we had a mouse behind the fridge that I tried to catch for a solid hour. Then I went and found Athena, and she'd taken care of the situation in less than a minute. Another time she disappeared for more than a week and we figured she was a goner. One day as we were loading the van to go on vacation, I heard a meowing sound close to the house and went over to open up the crawl space under the house. Out she jumped, none the worse for wear. I had accidentally barricaded her down there when I was repairing some insulation.

About a week before we moved out of the Roy house, I was bringing the trash up to the curb after dark and I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. I wouldn't have thought much of it, but the idea crossed my mind that it would be crazy if Athena got hit by a car. I walked over to investigate and sure enough, there she was, about twenty feet from the road in a crumpled heap, unable to move either back leg. She had lived at that house on that busy road for all the eight years we lived there and even longer, and had somehow managed to get struck by a car just before we moved. Maybe she couldn't bear to leave home.

We spent that whole night trying to make Athena as comfortable as possible as she got closer and closer to death. We called Michelle's uncle who's a vet and he said we could give her prescription painkiller if we had any. I administered it to her with an eye dropper, mixed in with tuna liquid. I don't know if it did much good. By sunrise, she had a final burst of energy and tried to escape the closet she was lying in, and then she was gone. It was devastating for our family.

When we got to our new house, we knew we eventually wanted another cat, and Michelle took the lead in making it happen. She and one of her sisters went out one night in November 2016 (including this picture mostly because Michelle's cute):

and then we went down to PetCo one Saturday and I sat in the car while Michelle snuck in and grabbed a little tabby kitten. Bri and Mason babysat it down in the guest room on Christmas Eve and paid the price from an olfactory perspective.

Then we surprised the kids Christmas morning. They just melted.

Timmy was a pretty good cat. He liked Bryn especially, and Michelle liked him especially. He climbed trees, was good natured, and liked to sprawl out on the couch.

In late August, Michelle noticed that Timmy was acting lethargic, didn't play or climb anymore, and was getting really skinny. One night we came home and saw that he was struggling to breathe. I said we'd give it until the morning, checking him periodically, and then take him to the vet.

We didn't make it until morning. About 2:00 am I checked on him and saw he wasn't doing well. So I took him to the Animal ER up the road, with Timmy lying on the floor of the passenger seat. They were super nice there and very communicative about how much everything would cost. It is crazy how much you can spend on a pet. They took fluid off his lungs and then diagnosed him with feline leukemia, which a kitten gets through its mother but may or may not present. They told me there was nothing we could do, and I told them to put him to sleep. They couldn't get a good vein, poor cat, because he was dehydrated but finally got it taken care of. I'm usually pretty detached about pets, but it was an emotional night even for me. He was just a miserable dude.

My mom's philosophy is that the cure for mourning one cat is to get another, so we went ahead at the beginning of October and while the kids stayed with a neighbor went back to Petco. They had a really young kitten with a mild temperament and goopy eyes. We surprised the kids again, naming her Oakley.

Oakley liked Asa best, and she'd crawl into his bed at night (which was sweet) and sleep on his head (less sweet). It was fun to have a tiny little kitten in the house.

Then she started to get lethargic and really bloated and not eating, and we thought, You gotta be kidding." Sure enough, one month after we got Oakley, Michelle took her to the vet and found out she had the same disease! And the vet assured us we weren't doing anything wrong, that there wasn't contaminant in our house - the cat is born with it or it gets from consuming another pet that has died of it.

At this point, our nerves and our budget were shot, but the kids and Michelle really wanted a new cat, so at the end of November we worked with Michelle's vet uncle in Brigham City, who got us a little gray cat with shots and fixing and feline leukemia testing and vaccine (we've learned our lesson), and four months later, we have managed to keep a cat alive.

Meet Mike. 

He very nearly didn't survive the first few weeks because he kept relieving himself on the furniture, and I got to keep cleaning it up. (Michelle being pregnant means she's not supposed to come in contact with what comes out of cats. She's real sad about it, let me tell you.) After locking him in Addison and Asa's bathroom for a week, he was cured! He is not particularly friendly, nor does he particularly like being petted. He also seems to suffer from anxiety, and the first time he went outside he was beat up by a neighbor cat and voided his bowels all over himself, which I also got to clean up. He's also not the sharpest crayon in the box. Are you getting the picture that I'm not wild about this feline?

But he's warming up to us, hanging out with us and accompanying the kids around the cul-de-sac when they're out and about. I guess we'll keep him - mostly because our cat budget has been blown for the next decade or so!