An email arrived yesterday reminding me that the dear darlings are due for check-ups and inoculations next month.
It always seems like just yesterday we were shuttling them back and forth.
They won’t be pleased!
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Willow and Sophia will go first.
Willow adopted me in 2015. She was more or less full grown but still very kittenish, as you can see.
She marched down the steep hill behind the house and straight into my heart.
She never attempted to leave and settled right in with my already large family of cats.
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Willow was about 4 when we moved.
The following year, she had some sort of alarming fit. Luckily we found a good specialist. He got down on the floor to observe her and I was impressed by his gentle manner. He offered the opinion that she had a form of epilepsy.
We could have diagnostic tests, or we could give her medication and see if it would solve the problem.
Apart from the cost, given that we had 12 other cats, I never like subjecting an animal to what must be terrifying procedures and having cats sedated can be risky.
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Willow responded well to the medication.
Sometimes she seems to get ‘twitches’ which I assume are neurological and they may be the cause of her peeing in unauthorised places. I give her the benefit of the doubt.
Grant says it’s a grey cat thing as every grey cat we have known was guilty of the same.
Generally, I don’t believe in coincidence, but in this case I think it has to be just that.
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From the start, Willow has always appeared to welcome her medication, indeed sometimes coming to me at the appointed time as if to remind me.
Does the liquid taste good? Does she like the attention, or the feeling of the liquid being squirted into her mouth? The latter I think is unlikely.
Recently, Willow has been giving me a slight run-a-round. She’s not trying to evade me, but I must follow her until she chooses the right place to submit.
The same is true of where she will accept her lunchtime kibble. Round and around and around we go. Where she’ll settle only she can know.
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How is it that certain animals bond to us so strongly? Why do they choose us in particular?
It has been my good fortune to enjoy such a bond a number of times but the manner in which Willow arrived made it the more astonishing and mysterious.
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At the time of Willow’s descent down the hill, I was still grieving for Panther who had died the year before.
I think I didn’t want to stop grieving because it was the last way of holding on to him. Rationally, I knew this did not make sense, but I couldn’t let it go.
When Willow crawled into my lap purring, I said:
“Panther sent you didn’t he?”
We can’t know how the Universe works. I only know that Willow made it alright for me to stop grieving.
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And I shall be forever grateful to all my beloved friends for the time we walked together on the same path.
It is so much easier to get (most) dogs to the Vet. They want to be by your side, and generally love car trips. Though I always felt Ollie looked at me as if some betrayal was involved, once I opened the back and he realised we were at the Vet’s.
Best wishes, Pete.
Thank you, Carolyn, for today’s beautiful and moving tribute to your friends!
Joanna
Such beautiful photos. And what a lovely story of Willow! It’s amazing how each cat holds a special place in your heart. I would suggest that you don’t leave the diary lying around with the cats’ vet appointments … Dee Dee might sound the alarm!
Trouble is, Lily is a mind reader but she doesn’t have to go yet.