off the cuff

She was (not) a good cat, but I loved her anyway – an off-the-cuff-joint.

In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray exhorts the groundhog to not drive angry. It’s good advice. One should probably also not post a blog post late in the evening when one is half into a bottle of wine, but here we are.

Props to my decision to partake in paralegal training. It included keyboarding back in the day, and now I type like I breathe. Slightly worse than I do it sober, but I blame that on the alcohol. But imagine how much worse things would be if I was inebriated, and training-impaired.

I had my cat Lizzie euthanized today. She has been struggling with arthritis for a few years now. I gave her medicine every day, but it had been getting worse. She limped on all four legs. She hurt. And she’d gotten a little mean with it at times despite the pain control. Things had taken a turn for the worse of late – she’d become quite aggressive, and not in a charming way.

An aggressive cat that’s attacking you is a rather terrifying thing. She’s come out me a couple of times now, requiring me to retreat behind a door until she calms. She attacked a visitor – she slashed their leg repeatedly and with intent. Luckily they were wearing jeans.

I spoke to the vet about the increased aggression. He gave me instructions on an increased dose of the pain control so I could bring her in, but it she shook it off as soon as I approached with the carrier, and a rather miserable twenty minutes for both of us ensued, with one of us ending up bitten and bloody.

If it was a dog, we wouldn’t even question. We write off harmful behaviours in cats more than we should, especially when they start to scare us. For “we,” read “me,” perhaps. But what is clear in the abstract is harder in the personal, and I loved my Lizzie. My pretty girl.

She wasn’t the warmest and cuddliest of cats – much of that is nature – she was a feral cat. But she like to be me-adjacent, and she’d chirp along as I played piano, and she liked to sleep on my bed at night. But that last thing stopped a few weeks back. She started keeping very much to herself even as her water consumption increased and her food consumption tapered off. The kidney problems she’d also been struggling with were amping up.

I hate knowing things.

I procrastinated on doing what I should for longer than I should’ve to the detriment of all. If only cats weren’t so stoic.

I took her in after this morning’s attack, and I spoke to the vet, and we agreed. It was time. She growled and lunged at everyone even sedated with the gabapentin, so they took her to the back to sedate her more, so I could hold prior to the final injections. I hate that she was so distressed leading up to the sedation.

They brought her to me all bundled up. I sat with her for about ten minutes before I called them in for those last shots. She was calm in my arms, and peaceful. I told her she was a good girl, and a pretty girl, and that I loved her. I stroked her over and over, and I was reminded again of why I’d never wear fur.

I forgot to call my son. I regret that, but the level of communication and consultation changes once people move out. You don’t think to include them in the day-to-day anymore. Besides, my brain is a little bit fractured of late. Maybe 2025 will be my year?

As I sat with her, holding her wrapped up in a pink blanket I’d brought, I realized how long it had been since she’d been really relaxed. The pain of the arthritis had been every-present for some time, even in sleep. Which was some comfort when it comes to this kind of decision. She was in distress.

The gave her the final shots as I held her in my arms. I’ve always held my pets as they’ve left this world. I consider it part of the responsibility of ownership. You don’t let them leave alone with strangers.

The staff at the vet clinic were great. Her ashes will be returned to me, like those of my last cat, for scattering, though the where is a bit of a mystery – she was an indoor cat, and the outside scared her on the few occasions she managed to make it by obstructing legs and hit the front yard.

Did she ever growl on those few occasions she achieved front yard freedom. She took the vastness of the sky very personally.

Lizzie was a very independent cat, living life and bestowing affection on her terms, but she consented to hang with me for thirteen years, and I loved her, and I will miss her quite desperately now that she’s gone.

Lizzie at about six weeks, February 2012.

33 thoughts on “She was (not) a good cat, but I loved her anyway – an off-the-cuff-joint.”

  1. It is tough to euthanize a pet. It’s tough whether toy have the time to get used to the idea or not. My cats and I are sending your our condolences.

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  2. Awwe. So sorry of your loss. Lizzie has had a good life with you. It’s never easy when the time comes to say goodbye to a beloved pet, whether expected or not. And when they fight before they are calmed with a little sedative before the time comes to pass away makes it difficult too.

    Sending my condolences to you. Take it easy on yourself. Every grief for a beloved pet is different and unique to you. X

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  3. I know your pain. I had to put down my beloved cat, Jack, three years ago, & I still miss him. Anyone who follows my blog knows that I still have two cats who fill my days with love and laughter, but Jack was truly special.

    Lizzy sounds like she was a truly special cat. Hugs

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  4. We worry your loss might feel compounded, intensified, as you are still in high grief with the loss of your mom

    We imagine Mournings feeling entangled

    Stability needs maybe spike when loss and radical change spike

    The analogy we think of (thank you neurodivergence, as you once told us?) is that when we feel motion sick, it’s supposed to help to focus our eyes on the horizon. Maybe you can identify and rely on your metaphorical horizon

    We’re here, too, to lend support and compassion, as are the others whose comments we just read💕

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    1. Thank you. That’s a good analogy – I am feeling untethered of late.

      I am also in high grief – a brilliant way of phrasing it.

      I appreciate the concern and friendship greatly.

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  5. I’m really sorry for your loss. It sounds like you made the right decision. I feel like society tells us we’re not allowed to grieve for animals but that’s nonsense, it’s hard to lose someone you love no matter the species. I dread the day I have to say goodbye to my Poppy cat. Try and be extra kind to yourself in this season. Sending much love.

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  7. I am so sorry. 😭 Yet another hard, personal loss for 2024. 💔 My 17-year-old Domino kitty is nearing the point that I’ll have to make that decision too. It’s heartbreaking. I’ll do in-home euthansia so she isn’t so stressed out by being caged up in the carrier and driven to the vet’s office. I hope she makes it to 2025…

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    1. Thank you. I’ve decided 2027 is going to be my year. That will give the universe time to get its ducks in a row.

      I’m sorry about your cat. I think in-home would be a great choice. It’s so awful when they’re traumatized. On both parties.

      I hope she does too.

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      2. She was a very pretty kitten. … Non-cat-people should realize that cat-people love and cherish their pets as much as dog-people rightfully adore theirs. And it’s a cat’s qualities, especially its non-humanly innocence, that make losing it someday such a horrible heartbreak.

        In the meantime, human apathy, the throwaway mentality/culture and even a bit of public hostility toward cats typically result in population explosions thus their inevitable neglect and suffering, including severe illness and starvation.

        There apparently is a likely-subconscious yet tragic human-nature propensity to perceive the value of life in relation to the conditions enjoyed or suffered by that life. With the mindset of feline disposability, it might be: ‘Oh, there’s a lot more whence they came’.

        Therefore, only when their over-populations are greatly reduced in number through consistent spaying/neutering, might these beautiful animals’ potentially soothing, even therapeutic, presence be truly appreciated rather than taken for granted or even resented.

        Meanwhile, leave it to classic human hypocrisy to despise and even shoot or poison those same suffering cats for naturally feeding on smaller prey while municipal governments and many area residents mostly permit the feral cat populations to explode — along with the resultant feline suffering within.

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        2. This mentality, atrociously, is also applied to humans.

          Human beings can actually be perceived and treated as though they are disposable and, by extension, their suffering and death are somehow less worthy of external [our] concern, sometimes even by otherwise democratic and relatively civilized nations. It’s like an immoral consideration of ‘quality of life’.

          The inhuman(e) devaluation is especially observable in external attitudes, albeit perhaps on a subconscious level, toward the daily civilian lives lost in prolongedly devastating war zones and famine-stricken regions.

          In other words, the worth of such life will be measured by its overabundance and/or the extended conditions [i.e. usually years ] under which it suffers and/or perishes; and those people can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page of the First World’s daily news.

          For example, with each news report of the daily death toll from unrelenting bombardment, I feel a slightly greater desensitization and resignation. I’ve noticed this disturbing effect with basically all major protracted conflicts internationally, including present Ukraine, ever since I began regularly consuming news products in 1987. And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this nor that it’s willfully callous.

          This effect is likely exacerbated when there’s racial contrast between the news consumer and news subject. Therefore, when that life is lost, even violently, it can receive less coverage.

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        3. Good and important points. I would also suggest that we also ignore the complete disregard for life necessary to sustain the capitalist consumption system in its current iteration. We don’t look to closely at the where, what, and how of things much anymore.

          Desensitization is a thing, and I suspect it’s a feature, not a glitch. Though I wonder, sometimes, at the space between the conscious and unconscious with many of these behaviours.

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        4. It’s also true with the natural environment.

          Way too many people continue throwing non-biodegradable garbage down a dark chute or flush pollutants down toilet/sink drainage pipes as though they’re inconsequentially dispensing that waste into a black-hole singularity where it’s compressed into nothing.

          Societally, we still discharge out of elevated exhaust pipes, smoke stacks and, quite consequentially, from sky-high jet engines like it’s all absorbed into the natural environment without repercussion.

          Then there are the corporate-scale toxic-contaminant spills in rarely visited wilderness. … Out of sight, out of mind.

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  8. Oh, Michelle, I’m so sorry for your loss. You tell the story of Lizzie so well and she was lucky to have you hold her throughout. Sending lots of comforting wishes.

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  11. Many people cannot relate to pet owners finding preciousness and other qualities in their beloved animals, including a non-humanly innocence, that make losing them someday so extremely painful.

    For example, I came across a newspaper editor’s column about how disturbed she was by an opinion poll’s results revealing that more than a third of surveyed adults “would, under some circumstances, choose to save the life of their dog over the life of a human being, if they could save only one.”

    She was astonished and dismayed by this regardless of the hypothetical other person being a complete stranger. I, however, was/am surprised the percentage wasn’t much higher!

    Of course, I wrote to her that, to me at least, it makes perfect sense: Especially with their pets’ non-humanly innocence, how could the owners not put their beloved animal’s life first?

    The same editor had also written about courthouse protestors in Sarnia, Ontario, who were demanding justice in 2014 for a cat that had been cruelly shot in the head 17 times with a pellet gun, destroying an eye. Within her piece, the editor rather recklessly declared: “Hey crazy people, it’s [just] a cat.”

    In a follow-up column, the editor expressed surprise at having then received some very angry responses, including a few implied threats, from cat lovers and animal rights activists.

    Apparently, she couldn’t relate to the intensely heartfelt motivation behind the public outrage, regardless of it being directed at such senseless cruelty to an innocent animal; therefore, the demonstrators were somehow misguided.

    The court may have also perceived it so, as the charges against the two adult-male perpetrators were dropped.

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    1. I always find it strange when people harm animals for ‘sport.’ It makes me wonder about them in other ways.

      I’m annoyed the charged were dropped.

      I, too, am surprised the percentage isn’t higher.

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