For six weeks I've pushed myself to move through each day, missing that funny, chubby guy sleeping on my desk while I work, his sweet little head next to me on the pillow at night, his contented purr that became my personal sound machine lulling me to sleep.
Heartbroken, sleepless, lonely, it occurred to me to foster a cat--for mutual benefit, two beings in need of comfort. So today I picked up an older female at Gainesville Pet Rescue.
With my first look at her torn left ear, her missing front teeth, and her obvious fighter attitude, I found the name on her chart patently ridiculous. "Lori." Such a girly handle for a combat vet. Home again, I unzipped the carrier to let her nose around my apartment, all the while mulling over what to call her that would be more fitting with her character. But, after scoping out the territory, she turned and told me wordlessly, "I'm Lovey. The fools have been mispronouncing it."
February 16: I spent yesterday in my bedroom suite with Lovey, making sure she knows her food and water bowls are always there for her, and the route to her litter box has become familiar in this new dwelling--her fourth in a short period of time, I was told.Now she has the run of the place, and enjoyed the satisfaction of kneading her daybed before watching the lake for a while, then dozing off. She's had almost a year of upset, surrendered last April to Levy County Animal Control, and recovered by Gainesville Pet Rescue in a multiple cat blitz. Her three previous foster families didn't stick around, so she's spent most of ten months in and out of her kennel at the shelter. No wonder she's been quick to figure things out here. She's well practiced in assessing the parameters of new territory.
February 17: Lovey has passed my two Pet Tests: (1) When I came home after being out for a few hours this evening, she walked to the front door to greet me. (2) I moved her daybed next to me on my desk, started watching something on Netflix, and when I turned around she had quietly joined me.
February 18: Lovey's first toy on a string ("Play Guy"):
February 19: Lovey wants to be cuddly, if I move toward her slowly--and never from the front. She'll sit quietly on my lap, as long as she initiates it. And even if she bites, it's very gentle, followed by licking me, as if rewarding me for approaching her in a way that she feels safe.
February 21: Gainesville Pet Rescue requires foster families to return the pet to the shelter Thursday morning through late Saturday afternoon, because these are key adoption days. However, Lovey is not a friendly little kitten people will jump to adopt, and it's taken her all week to begin to trust me, so there's no way I'm going to put her back in that cage for three days. I proposed adoption, and Lovey accepted. We'll make it official tomorrow.February 22: While I was signing the adoption papers, one of the staff members said "Oh, you know she's FIV positive, right?" Of course, no one had told me, but Lovey and I are a family now, and we will deal with this together.
The shelter offered no information about Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, so after returning home I studied some internet articles. FIV can only be transmitted to cats, not to humans or other animals. Even in cats, transmission would require deep scratches and fluid exchange. Lovey may not show symptoms for years and, once symptomatic, the disease might progress slowly or intermittently. In our stress-free, indoor environment, she could live many healthy years.
March 3: Lovey chews up paper left on the table or floor. I've never had a cat do that, and wonder if it's an anxiety response. I've cut out many small pieces for my ongoing collage project, and now have to hide those not yet glued to the canvas. No matter, today we can celebrate: for the first time she felt safe enough to stay seated on the screened-in lanai and watch a dog being walked by.
March 9: Well, this little cat and I have a different journey now. The vet says the state of Lovey's spine indicates she's probably in her teens, much older than the nine years quoted by Pet Rescue. Sadly, urine and blood tests show she's in chronic renal failure, advanced enough that if she were human she'd be on dialysis and signed up for a kidney transplant. She might have only months, but maybe a year or so. A diet of renal support cat food will help--low in protein, which is difficult for kidneys to process--so we brought home samples in a variety of flavors, both soft and hard food. She made her preferences quite clear.
March 10: Lovey hasn't let her illness get in the way of settling in and being an affectionate and playful companion. She especially likes to bat around her toys in the middle of the night, because--after all--she's slept all day. And she wants me to play with her. I have not slept all day.
March 18: Today Lovey fell asleep on my laptop after I'd left it sitting open. I don't know what key or combination of keys she stepped on while turning around and settling down, but my screen display went sideways. I have to leave the laptop open and let it sleep, because if I close the lid, the ON button no longer works. Knowing the warmth of a recently used keyboard would continue to attract Lovey, I considered leaving it sideways, but the view is annoyingly narrow that way. So I googled how to return the view to landscape mode, and found this instruction (in case your cat ever turns your laptop screen sideways): "Hit CTRL + ALT + UP ARROW."
April 10: We've had a sweet few weeks of growing closer. Lovey bonds by licking my hand if I sit near her or licking my cheek to wake me up.
May 2: Now up to date on her rabies and FVRCP shots, Lovey was a model patient at the vet's today, but has gained a pound and a half since she came to live with me 11 weeks ago. So, it's time to stop feeding her every time she chirps, follows me into the kitchen and sits at attention in her feeding spot, looking up at me with longing. Or perhaps it's not "longing," but rather Lovey seeing just how far her training of me can go.
May 23: Lovey often awakens from sleep crying out. Though she seems more and more at peace, her dreams must take her back to a scarier time. If it's daytime when this happens, she'll come to me to be kissed and petted and reassured, then groom herself. If night-time, when she's already next to me, she'll go straight to grooming, which I've read can reduce anxiety in cats.
May 25: She's shown no signs of end-stage kidney failure, so I'm hoping Lovey's now months-long diet of renal support food and stress-free environment will give her longer than initially predicted.
June 3: Lovey has taught me how to play. She's insistent when she wants attention and specific about the attention she wants. First, she taught me how to dangle Play Guy on a cord and she'd roll around, bite and kick, then let go so I could dangle him again. Yesterday she upped the game a notch, showing me that if I drag him slowly across the carpet she'll run very fast, turn with screeching speed, and run very fast again after him. Now I look forward to our play times. She makes me laugh!Play Guy, though, seems a little tired.
June 10: For the first time, Lovey snuggled next to me under the covers for an afternoon nap! OK, sure, there was another thunderstorm and she was trying to find a hiding place, but she stayed there and we both slept for about an hour.
June 18: All right, five months post-adoption, and (a) trust has been established, (b) Lovey has become a Love Tyrant. She wants, always--when not sleeping or eating--to be brushed, to be cuddled, to be enticed with Play Guy on a string and (more and more recently) Squeaky Mouse on a string, plus either or both Guy/Mouse jumping in and out of an open cardboard box. This requires, of course, that I am puppeteer.
July 21: I clicked onto The Beatles and Lovey immediately wanted on my lap, is licking my hand. She knows what I am feeling, what I am remembering. "Get back, get back to where you once belonged...."
Mid-July-mid-August: We've had almost a whole month of loving, happy times, though there have been many thunderstorms and Lovey hiding under the bed for hours. Sometimes I lie down on the floor next to the bed and place an arm near her, just for reassurance. Other times--when she seems not sure where I am--she'll give a long, lonesome howl. I'll come running to reassure her, and as soon as she sees me, she wants to play. She's also developed the habit of sleeping on the bed near its edge, but I could never predict which side. I finally realized -- as with the laptop -- she wants to sleep in the warmest place, in this case whichever side a lamp has been warming (on right side when floor lamp is on for back light while viewing a film; on left side when crookneck lamp is lit for reading).
Saturday, August 18: Observing that some days she seemed tired and less active, and occasionally would throw up, I asked Lovey to tell me when she was ready to go, hoping to myself that would mean months at least. I was still in denial--it turns out--because she'd apparently been waiting to know she could finally let go. Starting four days ago, on Tuesday, she simply stopped eating.Lovey rallied on Wednesday, ate a bit, let me pet her, and we played with her toys for a long time. But Thursday and Friday she didn't eat, just sat alone, often in corners behind furniture. I was going to wait until Monday, but by late afternoon on Friday I could see I'd only be dragging out my time with her for my own sake, not for hers, and arranged to take her to the vet today.
They gave her a sedative, left us for a while, and I wrapped Lovey in a blanket with my arms around her. She was licking her lips with thirst, so I filled my hearing aid carrier with water and--even though she was drowsy and lying on her side--she drank it all, even when I refilled it, three times. Then she tried to give herself a bath, and lost consciousness while doing that very ordinary thing.
In February the vet had said "months," and Lovey was with me for six months. I will miss this tough little person. She taught me so much.
August 19: My relationship with Lovey was very different from "pet/owner," more like engaging with an older, experienced woman who was mute. We each seemed able to read the other. It was obvious from her behavior that she'd been abused and obvious from her physical state she'd been in fights, so I watched her reactions carefully to avoid doing anything that seemed threatening. She'd let me pet her a little bit around the head and--if behind her--I could pet a few times down her sides. But if facing her and reaching out with a hand, her automatic reaction was to bite, quite aggressively and fast like a snake. Then I read that former prisoners always watch your hands, because danger lurks in unexpected weapons or blows. So instead of reaching down to pet her, I'd sit on the floor beside her, place my face against her body, and she'd lick my face.
Lovey also read me--she loved to play with toys on strings that made noises, and would move to a table leg and reach her paws around, watching my face to see if I understood she wanted to play with it that way. After a few weeks of jumping around table legs, she'd run away from me a bit, then look back at my face to see if I understood she wanted me to pull the toy across the floor so she could run after it. She invented a number of games that way, and thus we had several play-breaks each day. I spent all our play times laughing, and that's how I'll remember Lovey.
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