Is This Your Cat?

Started a nice beach walk from Slip Point yesterday. Found this cat in a plastic bag on the beach.

Cat on beach

Is this your cat? It's a large, black-and-white cat. I don't know the gender; we didn't dig around in there much.

There was also this pair of flannel pajama pants, and what looked like medical gauze, two pads of it. Was that a chemical smell?

The bag and its contents weren't soaked in seawater. It was oddly dry.

We think that the owner, unable to pay for the medical needs of a sick cat, might have chloroformed and drowned it. The paw-printed pants make us think this might have been the case. People are desperate up here, and have to make hard decisions for family members.

OR, somebody did this to somebody else's cat. We turned over the body (no, I'm not saying "carcass" about somebody's pet) to local law enforcement. For one thing, we can't just go bury it in the woods, because unless we put it down 6 feet or so, something hungry will dig it up - and if not for reasons of decency, then that domestic animals can spread diseases to wild animals, and back again.

The police sergeant said the Sheriff's office has a vet that will examine the animal to discover the cause of death.

He also said the Sheriff's office been dealing with a very nasty business with pet deaths in a neighborhood in Forks.

We lived in a poisoning neighborhood in Bremerton. Back then, the cops didn't care about animal abuse. But since then, the link has been made between animal abuse and someone psyching himself up for abusing humans. 

Cat in bag, and pants. Junior helping.

There's been a rash of missing cats around Clallam Bay, including our neighbor's beloved "Gus," a little tabby Manx cat.

We assumed this was the result of the refugee predators trying to find food after being driven from their homes by the nearby clearcut, but we don't know of any mountain lions or coyotes that use plastic bags. So, if somebody is killing cats, the cops know, and you don't need that grief.

Paw pants

No, we don't know the gender of the cat. We didn't poke around in the bag much, because we have cats ourselves, and diseases can spread, if any exist in the bag.

We're sorry this happened, especially if an owner felt so desperate, with no place to bury a pet, that he (or more likely "she," with those pants) had no other option but a water burial. The pants hint at affection, rather than revenge.

However, there is a strange logic in the minds of people with pets or even small farm animals around here. When an animal is sick or even if the owner can't keep them, they won't take them to the Humane Society, "Because they might kill them." These people miss the word "might." There's a BETTER than 50/50 chance an animal will survive, or find a new owner, or at least have quiet last days. If they kill the animal themselves, it's a 100% chance the animal will die. Do they think it's better to be killed by Mommy? 

There are resources in the area, and the Humane Society knows them all. Contact them.

Oh, and the woman on the beach who thought we were the kind of people who would laugh at the remark, "There's a lot of my neighbor's cats I'd like to do that to!" and "Well, don't you feel like that some time?" -- no, we don't feel like that sometime. The times we had trouble with marauding dogs killing animals in our yard, we used the police and fences. We're not the sort of trash who would kill our neighbors' pets and cowardly try to hide them - or think it's funny. What is WRONG with you?)

Hector's leaving
     These notes aren't really for you.  They're for us.
     He had a good dinner last night, then began to fade.  Last night he couldn't move any more, but he was breathing quietly.
     This morning, his heart rate is going up and down.  When I tried to re-adjust his head, he told me to stop it, that he was doing this himself.  He has begun to take the final deep gasps.
     19 years, doing whatever he wanted to do, and the last few being Top Cat with all the purr-ogatives.  He'll be buried in the back yard with Lina and Treat, lying together just as in this 1989 photo (Hector's the black guy, Treat the calico kitten, Lina the striped).  A fruit tree will be planted in the middle of their circle.
     We should all go so well. 
     He just left.  I've bathed him and the fancy funeral is later on, as soon as I dig the hole.  I'm the daughter and granddaughter of grave-diggers.  Explains my shoveling skills....

The Hector Report

    Hector's still here!  We think we've found the secret for turning around the don't-eat, don't-drink phenomenon at the end of a cat's life:  bathing.

     We'd given him meds, hydrated him, worked on his bad stomach.  Nothing really seemed to make him feel better.  Then I began, morning and evening, to scrub him rather briskly all over with a washcloth.  This was originally because it's becoming hard for him to walk and he's had some toilet accidents.  He's easily exhausted.  After the first head-to-tail scrub, he seemed better.  I remembered how I'd scrubbed our cat Lina as a tiny kitten when she'd gotten crusty from her food bowl.  So I started regular baths and bed changes for Hector.

      It seemed to turn him completely around.  He's purring, alert, and eating readily, even hungrily. No, he's not getting better, but he's enjoying himself, or at least sleeping, watching us and his food.  As long as Grampa can do that, he's not going anywhere.  It's not hard to keep up, either.  His brain and his heart are still good, so the rest can be supported a bit.
     Oh, and if a cat won't drink water, heat it up.  They come from desert areas and what little water they drank was probably from the hot edges of the oasis. When they weren't just getting it from the meat they ate (Don't feed your cats dry catfood if you can afford it -- they'll die of kidney failure for sure. Well, don't they?).

Basement Cat 
Hector is a LOL again.

Friend who left bag of smoked rabbit should know Hector just about stretched his eyeballs and neck out sniffing after the bag as I carried past.

He did NOT want little bits he could swallow (predators don't chew). He wanted a WHOLE BIG HUNK he could attack and shear with his back teeth.  He managed to scissor that big chunk in half and lick it all over.  Then he sat back, full of smoked rabbit grease and juices and looked happy.  Happy Basement Cat. 

Unwatered Wine

The Greeks said not to drink unwatered wine, for it would lead to madness. I'm snorking down the Gallo Paisano with no care for Homeric safety regulations.

Mostly it's because we're still on death-watch for Hector. I have a million things to do, and can only circle uselessly around them. Or watch Hector to see if he will even eat a smidgen of food. Or to see if he wants me to put on his green leash and let him all rickety pull me around the yard.  The other night he did it in the dark, three times through the working wood-pile.  No doubt to lose me so he could go die under the house.  I'm sorry, but it's the only thing I'm not letting him do.  Mr. Weird is now Mr. Flat-ass Stubborn. Anyway, after two and a half months, all the grief of my life -- humans as well as animal, including a terrible loss and a missed opportunity recently -- is circling my head and turning me into a vegetable (this is drunk writing, so I'm not taking responsibility for any of it).


Ran into a very dear friend on the beach today, who said that their household fell apart as their old dog died.  So I don't feel so lost and stupid about it now.

She had smoked rabbit.  We swapped for our smoked salmon.  Then we spent the evening blathering and laughing. She's one of the few people up here on my intellectual level, and her daughter is a living spark.  I, of course, did not recognize the kid.  How am I supposed to recognize someone I could once pick up and carry and who can now look me in the eye?  Some kid is going to figure out that adults -- especially we old farts -- cannot recognize them before and after the growth spurt and scam us to dead.


Next step, if I can just get anything done:  build the basis for the bee-hives.  I love honey.  The 3 hens are laying what comes to an egg a day.  The seeds just came in the mail.  With honey, eggs and veggies and the occasional fish, we'll have more than enough to eat and swap.

I may have talked myself into milking the old farmer's cows for him.  As he said, his 80 + years hands can't do it any more, and he's had to let the cows dry up.  If I do, it's half the milk, and I don't care how that makes me sound.  CHEESE.  And yogurt.  Which I'll share with him, too.  Fuck, I'm becoming a farmer.


And another shot of the young whale on the beach the other day. Note how close to the shore. It shelves off very abruptly.

Hector's still nibbling food, but he's getting water injections, Kaopectate before every meal, and Valium twice a day. He's very thin. He still likes his back rubbed, and even erects his tail a little.

He is constantly reminded he is still Top Cat, with a special place on the couch (it's actually my work place, but since it's Mommy's place, he considers it a Purr-ogative). He doesn't sleep on the pillow with me any more, and gets snotty about it if I try.

Mr. Weird still gets indignant at medicating. He's always done just as he pleases, and retains his stubbornness, which is amusing. It's HARD to see the black ones -- I have to study shadows to see if Hector is really there or not.

He was carried to the beach yesterday. He couldn't walk back, but he wanted down to sniff wet grass a little. As long as he can show any interest -- and glare at the dog -- he's staying.

Those of you who have been following Hector's story at the Desert Peach site, the old guy is still here! He's lying on the sofa beside me, munching his kidney diet bits.

Hector's Christmas video.

This is a shot at the beach the day after Christmas, 2009. Still pretty handsome, huh?

After he got down from my lap and walked on the log.

Hector walking back from the beach.

Today he can't walk back from the beach any more, but he appreciates being carried down and allowed to smell the bunches of grass down on the trail.

The neighbor's malamute, Echo, was begging to be taken to the beach today and stuck his head in the door. Hector gave him such a look: "If I could get up, you would get such a zetz!"