Bootsie
Sunday, October 15th, 2006When we left Boston, we took our neighboors cat with us. Actually I asked to hold on to the cat for a while until they could figure out how to get him to CA without slipping him the dog’s sleeping pills and hiding him in a carryon. Needless to say, we had the cat until yesterday.
Bootsie was the smartest of many, many cats that have lived at my home. Mostly at my parent’s home, where cats were always around. He was smart enough to expect certain outcomes from his actions. One of the first things he ever did was headbutt the bag of dog food while standing on the couch. When it fell over, he hopped down to the floor and looked for the spilled food. The bag was still shut, and he was pissed that there was no food. He had to go upstairs to see his old apartment empty before he would stay the night with us. Things like that.
He was also an annoying shit. He would howl the entire time he was caged on car trips, and most of the time if he was loose. “Surely no animal can howl like that for 8 hours straight.” No, he will go hoarse before then, but still try to let us know how pissed he was. After going outside, he would come in and gorge, then purge. I cleaned up almost as much cat puke as Sammy (the dog) did. And he would yowl if his water bowl had dog drool in it.
Apparantly the puking and constant thirst were signs that his kidneys were failing. Over the last week, he quit eating, lost several pounds, and became lethargic. Those are pretty much the only signs that I believe show an animal (or human) is actually sick.
They were end stage signs for Bootsie. With near total kidney failure and little hope of recovery and the prospect of I.V. fluids for the rest of his life, I decided to have him put down. And chicken-shit me didn’t say goodbye, and I wasn’t there when they did it. I just paid the bill and left.
Part of my tries to say “It was just a cat. Cat’s die. I didn’t like him much anyway.” Part of me calls that first part a liar. I’ve had plenty of cats die. And get eaten, or crushed, or just disapear. But this was the first time the cat was solely my responsibility. And he died.
He used to go on walks with us. He’d see me take off with Sammy on a walk, and follow/lead/yowl/lead us around the block. I never called him “my cat” though. He was “the cat that lives with us” or “the cat we’ve been watching for XX years.” Maybe if I took mental ownership of him I would have taken better care of him. Or noticed that he was sick sooner. Or something.
Godammit, Bootsie.
