I had to put one of our cats to sleep earlier this month. Garbo Jeng had had a severe lung infection, which left extensive scarring on the lining of her lungs. It turned out she also had a very large tumour and she was in a pretty serious condition; her breathing was shallow and very rapid, and she was also leaking mucus from her nostrils and mouth.
I’d already gone through tests and biopsies with another cat of mine, Milo, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience for him. In the end, the prognosis wasn’t good for Milo and I had to put him to sleep, too. I didn’t want to have to put Garbo through that same battery of tests, so I made the decision to do the humane thing and have her euthanized while she was still relatively pain-free, although she was obviously in distress at having a lot of difficulty breathing.
It’s always sad when you have to go through this at the end of a pet’s life, but my philosophy is such that when one pet passes on, then that opens the door for another pet in need—whether they’re at a humane society, city pound or a pet shop after having been brought in as a rescue animal.
So it was with Fatima, a young tortoiseshell kitty El Franco had seen many times in a pet store close to where he works. Fatima had been there since March, after having been brought in by a man who’d fed her and her brother after discovering the two of them (they were just kittens at this point) in his backyard. Their mother was nowhere to be seen, so it was obvious they were strays and were fending for themselves. This person fed them for 9 months, helping them survive the winter, and even built a small shelter for them in his back yard.
Once spring arrived, he then took the two cats to his local pet store where they were put up for adoption.
Fatima’s brother, Archie, was adopted out after a couple of months, but she was left behind and her personality quickly changed once Archie was gone. She had been an affectionate if somewhat shy cat, but she then started to become withdrawn and reclusive. It seemed to the staff and to El Franco that she was becoming depressed at the loss of her sibling, and at the fact that she’d now been in a cage for over 5 months.
It was at this point that we decided to adopt Fatima (whose name was then Elle-Bee, but we thought she had an exotic look that deserved a more exotic name). So I went on the subway up to St. Clair today, cat carrier in hand, and filled out all the necessary paperwork before taking a taxi back home with her. She’s resting in a cat bed at the side of my desk as I write this post. She’s shy and very quiet, but I’m going to leave her to her own devices so she’ll be able to orient herself and come round in her own time. I’ve placed a metal grill across the door to my office so she can see out into the hallway and even get to know Keaton, our other cat—once he wakes up, gets off the couch and finally realizes that something different is happening!—through the safety of the barrier.
Fatima will now stay in my office for a few days, where she’ll have plenty of food, water, and her own litter until I think she’s ready to venture forth, at which point I’ll remove the grill from the door and let her discover the rest of the house at her leisure.