(no subject)

It's official.  I am no longer a cat owner. 

I received a phone call at work today informing me that our old family cat, Polly, was very poorly, and the vet had recommended that she be put down without delay. 

It wasn't unexpected.  Polly was twenty-three or twenty-four years old - a veritable Methuselah.  After years of dodgy health, she suffered from kidney failure, and yesterday, her kidneys packed up completely.

I haven't had much to do with Polly just recently.  I've seen her once in the last year.  She spent her twilight days in Nottinghamshire, staying with a friend of my father's,  But I'm still sad.  A little light has been snuffed out from the world, and there will never be a cat quite like her again.

We acquired Polly from the local riding school from which I'd got my horse  We went to buy some bales of shavings, and came back with a free cat in a free bucket.  Polly and her sister - both tortoiseshells - had appeared at the stables - and Polly (then called Smartie)  was earmarked for destruction (by drowning) because everyone knows that long-haired cats can't catch mice.

Naturally, we threw up our hands in horror and rescued her. 

It turns out that Polly had a lucky escape.  Her sister died a few weeks later, when Douglas the horse stood on her and killed her outright.  As for Polly....  She was rather sickly.  She had a runny nose and eyes, and diarrhoea.  Was it a touch of cat flu?  I don't know.  All I know is that she was on a special diet of white fish and chicken for a long while, and that the vet told us later that we wouldn't have her very long, as she had an enlarged heart and was always going to be rather sickly.  In later years, she had all sorts of problems, and there were many times in her youth, particularly on hot summer days, when she would be coughing and wheezing and acting like she was at Death's door.

But she pulled through.  She was what you might call a survivor.  She went missing for six weeks once, before mysteriously emerging from a garage three doors up the road.  We took her to the vet's for a check-up, and as we marvelled at the fact that she was still alive, the vet prodded her stomach and announced that the cat had been eating.  Either our neighbours had mice, or their kids had taken a fancy to the cat and were feeding her.  It was after that time that she stopped meeping like a kitten and started to meow like a grown-up moggy. 

Dear old Polly.  In her older days, she was deaf as a post, almost blind, and she had just two teeth left.  But she still threw her weight around, bossing her Miniature Schnauzer companion and eating the dogfood, and she made a big impression on her foster family in Notts.

And was she any good at catching mice?  I'm afraid not.  She was absolutely hopeless.  She once made a pig's ear of half-killing a blackbird - most of the time, she waited for one of the other cats to make a kill and then she'd move in and pretend she'd done it herself.

Now she's joined the feline ancestors.  I have raised a glass to her, and at some point tonight, I hope to speed her on her way by playing Song of the Stars by Dead Can Dance.

RIP Polly (aka The Grim Meeper).  You had a long life, and a happy one.  And you will be missed by all of us.

(no subject)

It's official.  I am no longer a cat owner. 

I received a phone call at work today informing me that our old family cat, Polly, was very poorly, and the vet had recommended that she be put down without delay. 

It wasn't unexpected.  Polly was twenty-three or twenty-four years old - a veritable Methuselah.  After years of dodgy health, she suffered from kidney failure, and yesterday, her kidneys packed up completely.

I haven't had much to do with Polly just recently.  I've seen her once in the last year.  She spent her twilight days in Nottinghamshire, staying with a friend of my father's,  But I'm still sad.  A little light has been snuffed out from the world, and there will never be a cat quite like her again.

We acquired Polly from the local riding school from which I'd got my horse  We went to buy some bales of shavings, and came back with a free cat in a free bucket.  Polly and her sister - both tortoiseshells - had appeared at the stables - and Polly (then called Smartie)  was earmarked for destruction (by drowning) because everyone knows that long-haired cats can't catch mice.

Naturally, we threw up our hands in horror and rescued her. 

It turns out that Polly had a lucky escape.  Her sister died a few weeks later, when Douglas the horse stood on her and killed her outright.  As for Polly....  She was rather sickly.  She had a runny nose and eyes, and diarrhoea.  Was it a touch of cat flu?  I don't know.  All I know is that she was on a special diet of white fish and chicken for a long while, and that the vet told us later that we wouldn't have her very long, as she had an enlarged heart and was always going to be rather sickly.  In later years, she had all sorts of problems, and there were many times in her youth, particularly on hot summer days, when she would be coughing and wheezing and acting like she was at Death's door.

But she pulled through.  She was what you might call a survivor.  She went missing for six weeks once, before mysteriously emerging from a garage three doors up the road.  We took her to the vet's for a check-up, and as we marvelled at the fact that she was still alive, the vet prodded her stomach and announced that the cat had been eating.  Either our neighbours had mice, or their kids had taken a fancy to the cat and were feeding her.  It was after that time that she stopped meeping like a kitten and started to meow like a grown-up moggy. 

Dear old Polly.  In her older days, she was deaf as a post, almost blind, and she had just two teeth left.  But she still threw her weight around, bossing her Miniature Schnauzer companion and eating the dogfood, and she made a big impression on her foster family in Notts.

And was she any good at catching mice?  I'm afraid not.  She was absolutely hopeless.  She once made a pig's ear of half-killing a blackbird - most of the time, she waited for one of the other cats to make a kill and then she'd move in and pretend she'd done it herself.

Now she's joined the feline ancestors.  I have raised a glass to her, and at some point tonight, I hope to speed her on her way by playing Song of the Stars by Dead Can Dance.

RIP Polly (aka The Grim Meeper).  You had a long life, and a happy one.  And you will be missed by all of us.