Cat Hospice

We've had Callie 21 days now and she went from sitting in a chair in the back bedroom, hissing at all the other cats, to walking down the hall hissing, to a week of sitting on the sofa in the living room, to being back in the chair in the back bedroom, practically comatose.

She hasn't eaten anything that I've noticed in several days, isn't drinking water, and the the few times she goes to the bathroom, it's very runny. She sleeps all day and night and barely moves. She's getting unsteady on her feet when she does try to move. I think I have another dying cat here.

And I'm angry. I'm angry that its owner, whoever it was, didn't see fit to let this cat live out its final days in the comfort of familiar surroundings. I'm angry that this poor cat went through its life deaf and declawed. I am sad that I never knew her when she was young and full of exuberance, that my only memory of her will be a very sad, listless cat. I'm sad that I can't think of anything she'd like to do. She doesn't want to be held. She doesn't want to look out a window. How is time passing for her? All she does is stare at the pink corduroy fabric of the bucket chair she's in. I can't take a dying cat to Disneyland. They don't care.

Maybe the owner was doing Callie a favor by deciding to put her down, and we rescuers just made Callie's situation worse.

I created one of those Apple iPhoto books with photos of Merly's life and even though I had seen it several times on the computer before sending it off to be printed, when the printed copy arrived, it was too much to bear. It was too soon to watch her whole life go by in just 20 pages of photos, from curious, thin young cat to scraggly looking cat who always looked confused and startled at the end. My husband put it down quickly, and I know I won't be able to page through it for...I don't know how long.

Callie has gone back to sleep without eating or drinking today. Holding her head up was too much work.

Callie

Callie came to us on Sunday, Nov. 1. I'd been hearing about her from my husband for the past few days. A neighbor we seldom saw suddenly started talking to him because she knew we had cats. Her sister had a friend who was pregnant and decided to have her two cats put down to make way for the new baby, which seems a rather severe reaction to pregnancy.

A home had been found for one of them. The other was more of a problem. She was deaf and declawed. Don't you love people who threaten to have their pets killed if someone else doesn't provide for them? What a handy, blackmailing solution.

My husband was obviously moved by the dilemma because he presented the situation not as a story but as a situation we were now in as active participants in this cat's fate. I was immediately resigned to acquiring another accidental cat -- not one that I chose. I thought the plan was to gradually have fewer cats now that my own life can be measured in one cat lifespan left.

The arrangement was if the neighbor couldn't find someone else, we would take Callie, but that arrangement always means you're getting the cat. Callie arrived on a Sunday afternoon in a large, rather nice traveling case, with brand new food bowls, a hairbrush, and six cans of expensive Science Diet food. How old is Callie?

"Well, I know this woman had her for at least nine years, but I think she may be older," the neighbor said.

Was she very upset to be parting with a pet she had that long?

It turned out no. The woman showed no emotion. The husband had recently lost his job. A lot of reasons to be emotional here, and yet none were displayed. I guess anyone who would declaw a cat because furniture is more important than a cat's safety and emotional well-being might not have deep feelings of compassion.

So Callie has issues. She can't hear. She doesn't hear anything coming up on her or any of the comforting noises of a house --voices, arrivals home, cat food cans opening. She can't hear the birds outside. She can't claw. There is no pleasure in scratching. She can't even scratch where she itches. She's listless and fearful and growls at the other cats. She sleeps 23 hours a day in a corner of my office, burrowed down in a felt sack. When she talks, she talks loud, unable to modulate her voice. She is plaintive and I don't know how to comfort her. Everything she knows has changed to something she doesn't know and she doesn't know why it happened.

She is not an attractive cat. My husband guessed -- probably correctly -- that she was named Callie because she's calico. She is every cat color, black and orange and white. She doesn't know her name is Callie and won't know if we change it, although we won't. I tried to find a home for her the first few days I had her, posting on Twitter and Facebook, but after a week, to move her again would be cruel.

I wouldn't be surprised if she is older than 9 or even 10. I wouldn't be surprised if she is very old. There is no spring in her step. She yelps and grouses like an elderly woman who's uncomfortable in her own body. Her countenance is grouchy.

I don't sleep well and wake up often during the night, so I know Callie moves during the night, that she comes to our bedroom and gets on the bed, and then leaves again before dawn and returns to the sack in the corner of the office. Last night she sat on my husband's pillow all night.