Farewell, Dale

I don't know a whole lot about Dale, but I will share what I learned. Dale was the elder cat and he took Genghis Khat under his wing when he joined the family. He taught him how to hunt catnip mousies and, after Genghis calmed down enough to be allowed outside under supervison, he taught him the best places to hunt for bugs. Dale and Genghis enjoyed kitty wrestling quite a bit. Genghis like to play with Dale so much that he would wear Dale out. Then Dale would retire and snarl at Genghis if he tried to continue the game. Dale went to the Bridge on his own on the morning of August 13th. His family miss him very much.  Genghis is discovering that being an only cat can be a bit lonely.

                                                 Dale was the elder cat.
                                                 He taught Genghis to hunt so well that
                                                       Catnip mousies were found
                                                        In the house all around.
                                                  Now he's at the Bridge where living is phat.

                                            

Farwell, Jake

There's a note on Jake's blog not to copy photos, but his Mom gave me permission to pick what I wanted. I chose this one because you can see Jake's handsome blue eyes. Jake was adopted from a family who had a new baby and were moving and didn't want him any more. At first Jake was very timid and spent his first week in his forever home hiding behind a bookcase. He gradually got used to the idea that his new home was safe and welcoming and came out. He developed a very special relationship with his Mom. He always slept in the same room as she did. When she woke up in the morning, he would give a big stretch, then go into the kitchen for breakfast. His personality really developed when Micah was adopted three years later. Jake and Micah became best buds and Jake got confident enough to claim the post of Alpha cat. On October 3, 2008, Jake was diagnosed with CRF. His family took good care of him with medications, special food and fluids. Jake himself was quite a fighter, too. He got very sick in February. Finally the vet said that he could do nothing more for him and sent him home. His family was very sad, thinking that they would have him for a few days, then have to send him on to the Rainbow Bridge. Jake had other ideas. Once he got home, he rallied and got as completely well as was possible for him. Things went pretty well until early August, when he began going downhill. He went to the Bridge on his own on August 11.

                                            Jake was a fighter, for sure.
                                            He had CRF, for which there is no cure.
                                                  He fought whole-hearted
                                                  Until he departed
                                            For the Rainbow Bridge where joys are so pure.

Farewell, Joey L.

This is another really hard one. Joey L. and her brother Jimmy were a litter of two born on June 22, 2008. They were practically inseparable during their short life together. Joey would sometimes go off and find a dark hidey-hole for a nap alone, but that didn't happen often. They played together, ate together and napped together. Now Jimmy has lost his playfulness and appetite and may have to go to the vet for a checkup to see if it's grief or something else. The two of them were always full of mischief and fun. Criz had to keep a close eye on them, because they had a talent for destruction if left alone. Their favorite napping spot became in Criz's closet with his shoes. Joey was Criz's alarm clock.  She woke him up every morning at 8:3o without fail.  The only health problem I found that Joey had before she got so sick was that she had an eye irritation and had to wear a home-made cone for a while to keep her from rubbing it. A short time ago, Joey got listless and uninterested in food. The vet determined that something was wrong with her liver and Criz was still waiting on the results of the tests when Joey went to the Bridge. Criz is devastated. He had been syringe feeding her and keeping her hydrated and trying his best to keep her comfortable, but nothing worked.

                                         The time has come to say farewell
                                         To sweet little kitty Joey L.
                                               She would run and play
                                               All the live-long day.
                                          Now she's gone to the Bridge, has sweet Joey L.

Farewell, Riley

I tried to do this last night, but the limerick wouldn't come. I think part of me really didn't want to write this post, because now I have to really admit that Riley has gone to the Rainbow Bridge. He was far too young to leave. Riley and Tiki were born in a friend's garage on May 23, 2006 and joined their forever family 6 1/2 weeks later. Kesey, the dog, welcomed them. That's Kesey's pink pig that Riley is with in the photo. It's Kesey's favorite toy and he used to bring it to Riley sometimes. See, Riley loved his sister Tiki and his Mom and Dad, but he adored Kesey and Kesey adored him. Riley gave Kesey kitty kisses every day and Kesey sometimes gave Riley a bath. They played chase very often. I told Riley's story and wrote him a limerick here. The main thing that has happened to Riley since I wrote his story is that he discovered the joys of strollering. He got to go out whenever Kesey went for a walk. When the magic word "walk" was uttered, Kesey ran to his leash and Riley ran to his stroller. Tiki hasn't yet wanted to get in the stroller. Now comes the really hard part. Riley seemed to be having a little trouble breathing, so his Mom and Dad took him to the vet, thinking he had a kitty cold. The vet didn't like the sounds he was hearing from Riley's chest and kept him overnight for observation and tests. The next day, the vet decided that Riley had a lot of fluid in his chest and was inserting a drain when Riley's heart stopped. The vet got it going again, but by that time Riley had no brain function, so they let him go to the Rainbow Bridge. They vet now thinks that there was more in Riley's chest cavity than fluids, probably lymphoma, which could have been crowding his lungs and heart. This is terrible. Riley was such a loving cat, full of mischief and enthusiasm. He is leaving a huge empty space in his family.

                                      Riley was such a lover boy
                                      He filled the entire house with joy.
                                            The very air was fraught
                                            With the laughter he brought.
                                      Oh, how he'll be missed, this marvelous boy!

Farewell, Turnip

From what I have observed in reading blogs about cats, when there are four or more cats living together, two personality types always seem to appear. There always seems to be an Alpha cat (in the case of Turnip's house, there were two, Buddy and Charlie) and there always seems to be one cat who is so laid back that nothing ever bothers him. This was Turnip. Turnip was always the first cat to welcome a new cat into the family. When the very aggressive Charlie joined the group, it's like Turnip said to him, "Hi, you want to be the boss? Fine with me." Turnip's story started about 13 years ago when the Mom was teaching in an inner city school in Connecticut. She found an obviously uncared-for, but very friendly female cat behind the school and took her home and named her Matilda. Even though Matilda was younger than the other cats, she acted as though she wanted to mother them all. As it turned out, Matilda was soon to be a mother for real. She gave birth to five kittens, including Zorro and Turnip. Turnip got his name because daughter Amy said that she always wanted to have a cat named Turnip. The Mom kept all of them, save one which she gave to her son. By the time that the family moved to New Hampshire, only Turnip and Zorro were left. Turnip loved other cats, but was a bit shy around humans. He was also a bit timid about going outside. He always stayed pretty close to the house. Where Zorro is a very active outside hunter, Turnip preferred to hunt inside the house. Zorro discovered how to bring live mice inside and let them go and Turnip was always on them in a flash. Turnip had appointed himself the eradicator of intruders into the house. In the Vermont house, he sometimes found snakes in the basement. The Mom was once carrying an armload of bedclothes to make up the bed in the spare room for weekend guests and stepped on something wet and gooey. She thought it was a hairball, but when she could look down, she saw what looked like a wet red cord. It wasn't until she saw a few scales left on the head that she figured out that Turnip, who was resting on the bed, had caught and skinned a snake. When she cried out her disgust, Turnip gave her that look of utmost innocence that everyone who lives with cats knows well. Of the cats who go outside, Turnip was the most unlikely to ever get hit by a car, because he usually stayed within sight of the house, which is far away from the road. The one time that he ventured near the road, he got hit. I can only guess that he was chasing something, maybe another snake, and wasn't paying attention to where he was going. The family is hit hard, because it wasn't that long ago that Charlie went to the Bridge.

                                       Turnip was such a kindly soul.
                                       He welcomed new cats without a growl,
                                             But show him a snake --
                                             It's skin off he'd take.
                                        Now he's gone to the Bridge in the grass to roll.

Farewell, Charlie

I was behind on my farewell posts before my modem died and I am even farther behind now. I am not even going to try to do them in any specific order, but I will try very hard to make sure I don't miss any.

Charlie Taylor Sherwood was a 14 year old Devon Rex. He had lived since he was a kitten with a lady who lived in an apartment not far from the Sherwoods. The lady got old and had health problems and dementia. She got sick and was taken to the hospital, then to hospice. She was so sick that she couldn't say anything about Charlie being left all alone in the apartment. It was days, perhaps many days, before anyone remembered about him. I am not too sure about this next part. I know that the Sherwoods got an urgent call about a cat in desperate need and that cat was Charlie, but I don't know whether Auntie Deb and ML got him from the apartment or if someone else got him from the apartment and took him to a shelter, which then called them. I do know that they took him straight to the vet and he was in pretty bad shape. His kidneys had started to fail and he had a heart condition. Of course, he was also very dehydrated and starving. Then he got fluid in his lungs, sort of like kitty pneumonia. Things looked very bad for him, but he rallied and got to go to his new home. Things were a little hissy at first, but settled down fairly quickly. Charlie turned out to be quite the lap cat, taking to both Daddy Charley and ML. ML was delighted because she had always wanted a lap cat, but none of the rest of them was much for lap sitting. Things looked really good for a while, with Charlie making friends, or at least tolerating and being tolerated by the other cats. He was eating and drinking well and put on some weight. He was still going in for regular vet visits, to check his heart and lungs. He developed fluid around the lungs, but was still doing pretty well. Then he got sick again. He didn't want to eat or drink and he had trouble controlling his urine. He had gone into kidney failure again and it was time to say goodbye. The Sherwoods only knew Charlie from late April to mid-August, but he carved out quite a place for himself in their hearts. I don't know if the lady that he lived with for almost all of his life is still alive, but I think that a joyful reunion at the Rainbow Bridge has already happened or will happen soon.

                                                 Charlie had a great home of his own,
                                                 'Til his human got sick, leaving him all alone.
                                                        Taylors and Sherwoods found him
                                                        And to their hearts bound him.
                                                   Now he's at the Bridge, nevermore on his own.

Tuna

This post is by special request from Jamie at Thoughts Fur Paws and Sandra, Tuna's Mom. Tuna was one of those once-in-a-lifetime cats who touch their human companions hearts so much that the love between them is all-consuming. Tuna was born on October 18th, 1995 and was sent to the Rainbow Bridge on March 23rd, 2007. Even after all this time, Sandra can hardly think about her without crying. The second picture is Tuna and Sandra with the Christmas tree at Tuna's last Christmas. Christmas was Tuna's very favorite time of year. Tuna loved going outside and especially loved chasing leaves and bringing them back to the front door of the house, where she would leave them. One day in 2005, Sandra was playing with Tuna and giving her a tummy rub when she noticed four lumps on her stomach. She was surprised, as the lumps hadn't been there a couple of days before. She rushed Tuna to the vet as soon as possible and soon learned that Tuna had both fibro sarcoma and spindell cell sarcoma, very bad news indeed. Tuna had two operations and two full courses of chemo over the next two years, but the cancer always came back, usually within a few weeks of the end of the chemo course. Tuna fought very hard, but near the end her weight was down to only three pounds. When the vet told Sandra that there was nothing more he could do for Tuna and the kindest thing would be to send her on to the Rainbow Bridge, Sandra was heart-broken. She took Tuna home for two more days to say goodbye. She pampered Tuna as much as she could and took her out in her stroller. Her brother Blackie found a leaf and brought it to Tuna. Sandra found this immensely touching. When the time came, Tuna went softly and gently, in Sandra's arms. Sandra couldn't bear to let the vet take her body away for a long time, but she finally did. Tuna is now buried in a pet cemetery, where Sandra can visit her. Sandra doesn't have a blog, but if you would like to leave her some comforting words, I will see to it that she gets them by e-mail.

                                                Tuna loved Christmas and leaves to chase.
                                                When Autumn winds blew, away she'd race.
                                                           Cancer took her away
                                                           To the Bridge to play.
                                                Leaving Sandra to mourn, with tears on her face.

Whoops!

I apologize for my long absence. My sick modem finally died, but not in an obvious manner. I spent days trying to track down why it wasn't connecting until I finally decided that it just wasn't working, despite all the right lights being on. Then I had to wait for a new modem. It arrived and I couldn't get it to connect. It took more days to find out that the protocol for connecting a new modem to my ISP had changed completely, but I am finally back and will be posting later tonight.

Farewell, Blossom

Gemel held Blossom in her arms for the last time on July 13th, as the vet helped her on her way to the Rainbow Bridge. Blossom was on old cat when Gemel adopted her late in 2005 and she had been getting more and more frail. Something went wrong with her back legs and she was in pain, so Gemel made the heart-wrenching decision to help her go so she wouldn't suffer any more. Back in 2005, Gemel had decided that she wanted to adopt an old, sick or homeless cat. Her husband was against the idea, as they were renting. He wanted to wait until their own home was ready. Just after he had said this, Gemel and a friend of hers went for a walk. Gemel had a definite feeling that on the way home she just had to go down a certain street. She kept feeling that something very important was going to happen. As they turned down that certain street, a long-haired white cat, very dirty and matted, came almost running, but limping, toward Gemel, while meowing very loudly. Gemel picked her up and the cat immediately began purring. Gemel decided that she had to take her home, despite what her husband had said. He was against keeping her at first, but soon relented. Blossom had found her forever home at last. Blossom loved to go out walking on a leash and loved to visit the beach. In cold weather, her very favorite thing was the fire. She would hop in her bed by the fire and stay for as long as the fire lasted. At night, she slept with her humans. As it is winter now in Australia, where Blossom lived, she had been enjoying her fire very much.

                                        Blossom ran to the Bridge through the cold.
                                        She went because she was tired and old.
                                                Although it grieved her,
                                                Her Mom relieved her
                                        Of all of her pain from being so old.

Farewell, Obi-Wan

Life at The Cat Street Boyz just won't be the same without Obi-Wan around. Obi-Wan was a pure white standard poodle with a wonderful personality. He was always full of life and fun. He loved to play with his poodle brother Luke and all seven of the kitties. They have a huge fenced in back yard where they can all run around and play. Sometimes Obi would get a little excited and chase the kitties, but they knew it was all in fun. There may occasionally have been some tail-poofing involved, but I included that line mostly for the rhyme. Obi loved to give the kitties a bath, which didn't take long with his tongue. The kitties liked to use him for a big fuzzy pillow when he napped. It is suspected that Von Willebrand disease is what carried him off. This is a disease which is found in poodles which thins the blood and prevents clotting, leading to internal bleeding and death. It usually runs in families, but no dog in Obi's line tested positive for it. Whatever it was, it was fast. He fell ill Monday morning, July 20th, and was gone that same evening. The vets tried everything, including a blood transfusion from a Great Dane, but it only helped for a little while. The family is devastated. Obi was only four years old.

                                Obi-Wan was a cat-loving woofy.
                                Sometimes he'd chase them and make their tails poofy.
                                                     Then he'd lick them clean,
                                                     Never being mean.
                                He really was a first-class woofy.

Farewell, Hans

It's back to the farewell posts again. Obi should have been first, but Blogger did it again and I couldn't access his blog last night. Luckily, Hans is on Wordpress, so I could research him for a post. Hans was a lilac otter Netherlands Dwarf bunny. His Mom bought him from a breeder as a little guy. He was very happy in his new home, though Buttons wasn't too happy about it at first. From the very beginning, Hans loved to be loved. He especially liked to have his ears petted and his chin scritched. His Mom liked to pet him until he fell asleep. Poor Hans developed problems, though. Before he was a year old, he got an abscess in his jawbone and all four of his incisors had to be pulled. This meant that he could still chew his food fine, but he could no longer nip off bites. He still liked to chew (or gum) his grass mat, though. With antibiotic treatment, the abscess went away, but then it came back again. He seemed to be doing well on a new antibiotic treatment, but then he suddenly hopped off the to the Rainbow Bridge from his Mom's arms shortly after she gave him his injection. As you can imagine, this caused his Mom great distress. She was afraid that she had done something wrong. However, the vet and people on bunny blogs and forums were able to assure her that subcutaneous injections like those she gave Hans every day could not cause such a sudden departure. It is most likely that something else was going on in Hans' body that he could no longer fight off. It is possible that Hans felt so safe and secure in his Mom's arms and he was tired of fighting, so he just relaxed and let go. It's really sad, not least because Hans had just recently celebrated his first birthday.

                                         Hans had lots of trouble with teeth.
                                         He lost his incisors, above and beneath.
                                               In Mom's arms he felt warm
                                               And safe from all harm,
                                         So he hopped off to the Bridge, to look for his teeth.

Maverick

In some ways Maverick is all dog. He loves to go for rides in the truck. Heck, he loves just sitting in the truck. He loves rawhide chew toys. He loves going for walks on his leash. In other ways, Maverick appears to be part cat. One of his favorite places to sit or nap is on top of the couch. He loves to play with toy mice. He likes to play chase with Mr. Tigger and Samantha. He prefers cat food to dog food so much that now Mr. Tigger and Samantha get their food up on the counter, where Maverick can't get to it. He will make a dash at an open door, hoping to get outside. He managed it once and scared his beans half to death when they discovered him missing. A neighbor reported that he had been seen with another neighbor. It turns out that Maverick just went a few doors away to play with some other dogs. Maverick is a rat terrier. He came to live with Mr. Tigger and Ariel, the cat who came before, when he was just a puppy. He is seven years old now. He belonged to the Sonbean. When the Sonbean moved out, Maverick moved out with him. However, now some or all of the Sonbean's family have developed an allergy to Maverick, so last February, he came back to live with Mr. Tigger and Samantha. Mr. Tigger and Maverick seemed to remember each other, so there was little fuss between them. In fact, Mr. Tigger and Maverick often stand nose to nose, as if they are having a conversation. Samantha was a different story. At first, she didn't want anything at all to do with Maverick and hissed at him whenever she thought he came too close to her. Now they get along fine.

                                        Maverick is a dog who acts like a cat.
                                        He sits on the back of the couch, like that.
                                                     He plays with toy mice
                                                     And is off in a trice
                                        If somebody throws one near where he's at.

Award

I am getting so frustrated I want to scream. For the last two nights I have been unable to access any Blogspot URLs when I want to visit or post. My time is very limited and I can only count on being able to blog between midnight and 2:00am Mountain Time. Has anyone else had this problem? The date is wrong on this post, as I started it Friday, then lost access and I don't know how to change the date. I am way behind in my tribute posts, but I wanted to do this post and maybe one other before I get back to them.

Shadow, Molly, Trooder and Jake gave me this award on July 22nd and so did Jana, on the same day. I have read that the translation is "Your blog doesn't stink", but I think it's more like "Your blog is like nectar." The rules are very simple: put the badge on your blog, link back to the person(s) who gave it to you and pass it along to five other bloggers. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I would like to pass this award on to:

Faz
Lorianna
Roxy
Princess and Pierro
LC, Ayla and Iza