I said goodbye today to the first fur baby my husband and I had together.
Ani Grey came home with us from the shelter six or so weeks after her Easter Sunday birthday in 2008. Her tiny grey paws stretched for the strings hanging from my skirt and she got her claw stuck.
“Oh, kitty,” I said as I gently retracted the nail from cloth and set her back down. We showed her to the litter box and cautiously introduced her to my 12-year-old black cat, Remy.
Our 17-year-old Maine Coon’s routine started changing a few weeks ago. She swapped her sunning chair in the dining room for naps in the large dog crate at the foot of our bed.
I started handfeeding her tuna and soft cat food to monitor how much my skinny baby was eating.
I smiled every night she limped arthritically toward the living room to say hello. She had trouble jumping onto the couch without the mechanized footrest and she had lost a lot of weight.
When I called the veterinarian, I couldn’t make a checkup appointment until Wednesday, but the extra attention and food perked Ani up and she even used the litter box for the first time I’d noticed in … awhile.
The physical checkup obviously stressed our 6-pound boney ball of fur whose kidneys could be felt easily through her skin. I left the office with oral pain medication and doomed hope that she’d gain back muscle or any weight at all. She was 14 pounds at her appointment in 2018, records showed.
Once back home Wednesday, I only shot the .01 ml dose into Ani’s mouth once a day, not twice as the script was written. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t too doped up to eat.
Her frequent trips across the bedroom to the water bowl encouraged me and she ate well Thursday.
Last night she lay on the floor between the bathroom and water bowl, so I curled up beside her and pet her head. She refused tuna water while looking confusedly at the tap water in the white bowl she’d used as long as any of us could remember.
I carried her back to the pillowy dog crate and squirted painkiller past her gums.
This morning, she was back on the floor by the bowl.
The kids heard me crying and I started googling the cost of euthanasia. Someone had a house call death business and, as peaceful as it seemed to pass at home in a loved one’s lap, the initial charge was $500.
My husband called the animal hospital, and we made the decision. The kids pet and kissed Ani goodbye as I slipped on my open-toed shoes. I bundled our fur baby in a yellow and white crib blanket, which was handed down by our human creations.
I held Ani against my heartbeat as Russell drove to the clinic where each of us had previously put down pets. Getting older means getting more experienced at death.
I just wanted to make sure she was warm and safe and knew we loved her. We took turns holding Ani as the sedative drugs took effect. We continued petting her as the final dose wound its way through small veins to her giant kitten heart.
I pulled my chair forward and sat at her eye level.
“You’re a good kitty. I love you.”
I never looked away. She faded out of the room, leaving only fur and bones behind.