Visits

For a long time we wondered what this old abandoned building had been.

Grant eventually found out that it had been – a chicken coop.

We pass it every time one of the cats visits the vet, or when we need access to route 22.

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On Thursday it was for the purpose of taking Lily to the vet. We had no specific worry, but in the past couple of months her behavior has changed. She has lost weight and become more talkative and at times demanding of attention.

Lily is 18 but had never shown signs of aging until this year. In multi-cat households, losses always change the dynamic and the differences in Lily’s behaviour began after Muffin’s death in June, increasing after Sophia’s recent departure.

But she also was drinking more, frequently demanding to have the kitchen tap turned on, so we were a bit concerned because earlier in the year we learned that one of her kidneys had not fully developed. We decided not to wait for her annual check-up.

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Lily is stoic. Her file is not annotated “COMBATIVE!”, as Tinkerbelle’s was, but she is a mind reader and if she picks up our going-to-the-vet or administering pill vibe, she slinks off to conceal herself in some dark remote, inaccessible corner.

Thursday’s visit was rather spur-of-the-moment and had hardly entered our thought processes, but I think Lily also couldn’t be bothered anymore with evasion tactics. On the way, we got a couple of grumbles, but nothing more.

An unusual visit had keep thoughts of capture and cat-carrier from our minds…

I mentioned this caller recently, but this visit was special:

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The juvenile Cooper’s hawk was sitting on the little log Grant placed to mark the groundhog hole, right in front of the kitchen window. He summoned me with great excitement and although I expected the bird to fly off when I approached the window, it ignored me.

If I didn’t know better, I would say the hawk did not see me, but birds see or sense everything.

It was a sunny day and young Coop seemed simply to be enjoying it.

Periodically, it raised its head to follow the path of an unwise bird passing overhead, but the hawk made no attempt at pursuit.

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Tearing ourselves from the window, we put Lily in her carrier and exited the house. The front door is around the corner from the kitchen window, yet the path to the garage is in full view of the groundhog hole and birds always fly off when they see us.

Surprisingly, the hawk did not.

Lily was examined and found mostly healthy, but blood and urine samples were taken for analysis and the following day we got the unwelcome news of early kidney disease which is very common in aging cats. Several of the cats in my care succumbed to it, including Yeti and Panther, despite attempts to feed kidney-friendly foods. The diagnosis explains Lily’s worrying increased thirst.

We will do all possible to keep the disease in check, but there is no cure. After Yeti was diagnosed, I kept her going for several months with daily IV fluids which she tolerated patiently until one day it was clear she had had enough. Most cats want no part of daily poking and I very much doubt Lily would.

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Arriving back from the vet after an hour, we were astonished to see the Cooper’s hawk still sitting on the log. There’s no way to be sure it didn’t fly off and return, but I think it’s more likely it had remained.

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It paid us no attention as we got out of the car and was still there when we went again to the window, although it finally flew off a few minutes later.

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On the way indoors I got another short, shaky video of our gorgeous friend.

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