Good-bye, Miss Annie

I had Annie put down this morning. She'd developed a UTI, had blood in her urine, spent the night in the bathrom because she was peeing at random places in the house, including my bed (typical for Annie with a UTI, i might add). i thought--i could get the vet to give us some antibiotics and we could clear this up, but she was at the vet Monday, and two weeks before that, and two weeks before that, and--her body is just breaking down. We were at the point of taking 1 step forward and 3 steps back.

So I took her in, and she wasn't ready to go, she pretty much fought it all the way. Fortunately the drug is very quick acting.

It's just been so hard with Annie. With Nixie and Stella, it was an emergency, and it tore my heart out, but there was no question about what to do. Big Sam Kitty and Rusty both let me know they were ready to go. Annie--and this seems very Annie-ish--just kept hanging in there. If I'd had enough money and time i bet I could have nursed her through to 22 or 23.

Well. I asked them to cremate her, and I think I may plant a rose bush or something over her. She never lived anywhere else.

I went home and had a good cry and hugged Ts and took them out to play for half an hour, and then went back to work. Now I'm home, and it's very strange. I got her the summer I moved into this house. I could never remember when I signed the papers for the house, but I could always remember how old Annie was. She was this scrawny little kitty in a litter my sister's cat had, and if I can find it, I'll scan in the picture of her playing with her first GSD, Nixie. She and Nixie were such buds--Nixie was a very gentle, maternal dog anyway, and she just let this scrawny little kitty climb all over her and beat her up. Sometimes Annie would lie in wait for her, the way adolescent cats do, spring out and grab her by the cheeks and bite her ears and eyelids, and Nixie would whine, but she never lost her temper. They used to sleep together--I sure wish I had a picture of it. They were almost the same colors, and Annie would sleep curled up in the curve of Nixie's body. It was so sweet.

She grew up to be *round*--round face, round eyes, round body, and round little black-velvet feet. She had nice markings for a tortie, esp. her face--sometimes torties have such odd face markings it makes them look all crooked-- and a thick, thick, beautiful, shining coat. She loved being brushed. And she was a good cat--she never bit, never scratched, no matter what you did to her. She never minded having her claws clipped. Not much bothered her. She was very social and always came to greet visitors and paused in each lap to be petted, and she always supervised every workman who came into the house to be sure they did it right.

She was on a strict diet for years, because otherwise she would have looked like a furry basketball with a tennis ball stuck on one end and a wiggly tail on the other. She once ate four days' worth of food for two cats in a day and a half. Talk about Miss Piggy! That was Annie. She liked ice cream and pepperoni and when I got into raw feeding with Stella, she thought that was great. The past year or so she's been getting about a third of a raw chicken liver every night and always ate it first out of her dinner bowl.

Annie was never the brightest bulb in the box--it took her about 2 years to figure out that Stella wasn't Nixie. And Stella wasn't Nixie. She never hurt Annie, but she had a lot of prey-drive, and she loved to pester Annie and poke her with her nose. And Annie would fall over on her side and look at me and whine: "She's touching me! Make her stop!" I'd say, "Well, bite her nose, and she'll leave you alone," but the silly cat never did. But she used to sit on the back of the couch and look out the window, and when Stella barked at the mailman, Annie would growl, too.

I was so, so glad that Taenzer and Timber were so gentle with her, and she could live out her last years more peacefully. Timber was particularly long-suffering: up to last winter she was still liable to grab him by the cheeks and chomp him when he stepped on her, and just last night he was snuggling in my arms, upside down, and she decided she wanted to lie down in a certain spot and just tromped right across his belly. In both cases he looked at her, then looked at me, clearly wishing to say, "This is a very strange creature." And Taenzer learned to find her. I was always so afraid she would die somewhere and I wouldn't be able to find her, so I taught Taenzer to look for her when I said "Where's Annie? Go find Annie!" And Taenzer would trot off looking for her, nose-poke her when she found her, come back to get me, nose-poke her again. She could always find Annie.

She outlived 2 German Shepherds and 2 Maine Coon cats and triumphantly and smugly oversaw the departure of my beautiful Marty-Smarty, who wanted to be an only cat and insisted on marking everything in the house. I feel like an era of my life has ended.

I want to get another cat. I'd esp. like to get a young adult male, cause I think the Ts would love having a lively, playful cat to lay with. But I think I'll give it a while.

Good-bye, Miss Annie. I'll really miss you.