Skittish relaxing in 2003
My favorite aspect of Daily Kos has always been the sharing of stories, support, and love with regard to our pets. So here goes: Monday marks the six month milestone since my first and most favorite cat Skittish (aka 紅貓
hong2 mao1) died. While my family has always had cats, Skittish was the first cat who lived just with me and for whom I was totally responsible. I think I must have committed every mistake in the book while owning him, but that eager, expectant face was always there to keep me company. Here are a few highlights from his life.
The Earliest Days
His birthplace
Skittish was born in the summer of 1999 in the Far West area of Austin, Texas on the grounds of a pretty typical apartment complex. His mother was a mostly white tortoise shell, and he was the runt of the litter. His litter mates were an orange and white brother and gray and white sister. Here's a street view shot of the apartment complex where he was born and grew up. I first noticed him and his siblings around August or September of that year. They would play around in the grass but refused to have anything to do with me. This is how Skittish earned his name: he was always the first to run off and hide from me. When my parents came to Texas to take in a UT football game and do a trip to Big Bend National Park, my mom noticed the cute kittens and told me that I needed to catch one.
The First Encounter
Over the next few months the kittens grew bigger and wandered around the neighborhood. It was not until one evening in February 2000 that I met his brother Ringtail. I fed him a cube of cheese and pet him a bit. The next night Ringtail came back, and while I was feeding him I heard a meowing outside the door. It was Skittish, and he cautiously came in for the first time. I discovered that he was super playful and would chase a piece of string until he was exhausted and panting like a dog. Gradually, Skittish visited me more often, and Ringtail less often. And one day I realized that Skittish had "adopted me" because he constantly slept on the patio outside my unit.
The original cat carrier and tattered ribbon
In April 2000 the woman who owned the mother cat moved and took the other cats with her, and I got to keep Skittish. So I took Skittish to the vet for the first time. During the 1-block walk between my apartment and the vet, the cat struggled more and more and almost got away. Luckily a vet nurse was just then pulling up and showed me how to get control of the situation. Skittish got a check up, neutered, and was diagnosed as having just about every minor infestation possible (fleas, ear mites, tape worms, and bartonella)! The vet kindly gave me a pet carrier donated by a woman whose cat had just died and tied a bow on it with a new, red ribbon. Skittish was crazy about that red ribbon, and it served well as his first toy (shown above and now frayed and torn). The fact that that carrier belonged to someone who had just lost their cat underscored for me that I was in this for the long haul, for the full cycle of life.
Life in Austin
In owning Skittish, I feel I made just about every mistake in the book. I let him go in and outdoors as he wished, and I paid for it in terms of vet bills. He was pretty territorial and was constantly getting into fights. I even remember going off for a one week trip to California and left the sliding glass door open a bit so that he could slip in and eat some food. It's a miracle he was still around when I got back. I finally had to put a stop to that when at 2am one night I discovered a raccoon in my apartment eating cat food! Gradually I converted him to an indoor only cat. He took to the litter box perfectly.
These were the pre-digital camera days, so I have almost no photos of him from 2001 or earlier. Here is one taken with one of those cheap, disposable underwater cameras that I had bought in Hawaiʻi for snorkeling. I think there were three exposures left, so I used them up taking pictures of the cat.
Skittish in June 2001
His second photo
Skittish in his first Christmas present, a cushy igloo
I think back then my attitude was that cats were not really worth wasting film on. Boy was I wrong. I treasure these photos so much now and wish I had taken many rolls more. Also, that Hawaiʻi trip marks important milestone because my sister looked after the cat, and when I went by to pick him up she mentioned how excited and happy Skittish was to see me. And it was clear that he was from how he was acting (but I simply had not understood cats well enough to pick up on it). I had not thought this possible in cats, so it's one more thing that Skittish taught me. Skittish was always a big time cuddler, and I noticed that while he did not follow me like a dog, if I left one room for another, he would make his way to wherever I was a couple of minutes later. By this time Skittish was skittish in name only and had become a super social adult cat.
I received a digital camera for Christmas 2001, and that's when the cat photos really took off. My partner and I moved to a bigger apartment that had a great view of a greenbelt.
What's Skittish looking at?
A butterfly!
Enjoying some books
Resting after having laid waste to another scratching post
Meeting one of my partner's research butterflies (Euphydryas editha)
A bit of grazing
Catching a quiet moment under the bed
During a layover in IAH when I realized how much I love Skittish
In 2003 I took Skittish on his first airplane ride to visit my parents in the DC area. He was totally fine on the flights with the assistance of a bit of valium to keep the meowing down. He adapted in no time to his new surroundings and always made himself at home. Here is a picture of him in his comfy carrier waiting for a connection in Houston. Continental Airline's policy was that in-cabin animals weight 10 lbs or less. Skittish had already surpassed 13 pounds, but luckily no one noticed. This trip marks another important milestone because it is the first time I realized that I was totally crazy about this cat and that he had become my best friend.
In 2004 we acquired three more cats. First there was Mia that we adopted from the local shelter, and later in the year we live-trapped a feral mother and her 8-week-old kitten. The kitten named Ivan totally worshipped Skittish, but Skittish would have almost nothing to do with him. Skittish would tolerate other cats but had a rather cranky attitude towards them. He definitely preferred my company over that of other cats.
Skittish and Mia
The gray kitten Ivan with his biggest hero Skittish
In November 2004, Skittish did a very bad thing. One afternoon when the cats were with me on the patio, he suddenly smacked Mia, and she ran off into the greenbelt. And then he ran chasing her. We searched for hours and hours, and finally he came home at 1 in the morning. But there was no sign of Mia. This was a huge worry because we did not think Mia had the sense to find her way home. We continued searching and searching and even made lost cat fliers. Fortunately the next day she was discovered, having hunkered down two doors down behind someone's patio grill. I guess she figured any patio was her patio for getting back inside to safety.
Life in DC
In 2005 my partner found employment in Washington, DC, and we moved into a brand new condo in the Adams Morgan area. Our pride and joy is a rooftop terrace in which we constructed a garden, and the cats enjoy it immensely. And there is no chance for cats to escape or get into trouble.
Skittish in the rooftop garden
Skittish recommends sleeping on red or yellow yarrow!
Inspecting the new fish tank
Watching the flatscreen tv
In the summer of 2009 Skittish was diagnosed with chronic renal failure (CRF). So I had to give him a sub-q fluids session 3x a week from then on. He was always very tolerant of these even though I think I was pretty clumsy at administering the fluids, etc. He eventually enjoyed them because it was one of the few times that he would get real treats outside of his prescribed kidney diet. It got to the point where all I had to do was shake the bag of treats, and he would go over to wait where we did the fluids. He was also always great at the vet because he had to go in once every 3 months and get a blood draw to recheck the creatinine levels. I was able to maintain his levels at 3.0 or less until the very end. He had a good life those final 4-1/2 years and never suffered the symptoms of the more advanced stages of CRF. However, he was a fat cat and topped out at more than 20 pounds. He could no longer jump high or move quickly given all that weight, and the vet had once pointed out to me the beginning signs of arthritis in one of his x-rays.
Final Days
Skittish sleeping in the same igloo after all these years
This past January, I noticed that Skittish was eating a bit less than usual. The vet and I tried him on a different food. But this is a 20 pound cat who previously had never turned up his nose at a meal, so I suspected something else was wrong. I finally decided to take him in for an examination on January 30th. The vet discovered a huge mass on his left kidney and confirmed it via x-ray. The most likely diagnosis was lymphoma. I felt gutted. I remember that evening that my dinner and many subsequent meals tasted like ashes.
Over the next few days I made him as comfortable as possible and scheduled him for an ultrasound for February 5th. Luckily there had been some phenomenal weather in DC that week, and I had the chance to spend many hours with him in my lap in the roof garden.
Skittish enjoying his final sunny day on February 4, 2013
His eating never got better, and by the night of the 4th I knew he did not have much longer. He just did not seem to be able to settle into a deep sleep. That night I set up a basket full of blankets for him to sleep in, and I slept next to him in the floor in a sleeping bag. I got maybe half an hour of sleep that night because I was simply feeling empty and desolated. One thing I noticed that night was that even at this point of decline, he still used the litter box and was accident free to the end. He kept close to me that night apart from when he went for a few sips of water.
The next morning came around, and it was a bleak, cloudy morning with a wan sun. We took Skittish to the vet, inside his comfortable basket of blankets -- not that old plastic cat carrier. He did his usual complaining on the way there, and the ultrasound confirmed the worst. In addition, it was unlikely that chemotherapy would extend his life or give him any quality of life at all. So we decided to have him put to sleep then and there.
They fixed him up with the IV catheter and then let us spend about 20 minutes with him alone to say our good byes. And this makes me sob every time I think about it: he was purring! As usual he was just happy to be with me and my partner. I spent that time caressing him and telling how much I loved him and how he was totally my favorite. The vet finally came in and put him to sleep while I held him. As the anesthesia went in, I held him close and whispered "Good boy, good boy" -- my mantra with him. I like to think that his final memory is of me praising him. One aspect of this was how profound and moving it was how moving it was to feel his life force literally exit his body as he died. That is forever etched in my memory.
Later that morning we took his body back home to serve as closure for the other cats, and then that afternoon we took him up to a pet crematorium in Maryland. A very sweet lady helped us through with that process, and three days later we received his ashes in a small wooden box along with a plaster paw print and a few tufts of his fur.
As for end of life, this brings up a promise I had made to myself on that first day in 2000 when I picked up Skittish from the vet. I would be with him to the very end. There is no way that I would let this sweet cat die alone or in fear -- and I kept that promise to him.
Here is a message of condolence from my mom which pretty well sums things up:
That is sad news. However, you rescued him and kept him safe and happy for a lot years. You gave him a pampered life of happiness to which he was not born. I don't understand people who don't like cats. They miss out on so much. And they aren't nice people.
And one from my sister after I asked her to scan an old photo:
Anything for my favorite brother. What a great cat and so good looking. He was so lucky to have you, I don't think he had much of a chance before you came along. He was totally crazy about you too.
Over the next few days, I still thought about Skittish a lot, and of course the house was so much emptier and quieter without him. I still think about Skittish frequently, but not with the immediacy of the grief that I had felt back in February. One thing I noticed is that I would feel saddest in the early morning, and then this would wear off over the day. I gradually assembled all of the photos and videos of him that I could find, and now they number in the hundreds. I even came across a long recording of him purring.
Epilogue
To anyone else, Skittish probably seemed like just one more average cat. After all there is no shortage of orange and white domestic shorthairs in America. But he taught me so much about how great cats are, and the older he got the stronger my love for him became. Skittish also signifies the end of an era in my extended family. He was the last surviving pet born before the turn of the millennium. Finally, to end this tribute to Skittish: one last photo of him back in his prime.
Skittish back in 2003 with his giant tennis ball toy.