MSI Press Blog

  In last week's Caturday post, I shared our death watch over Happy Cat . At 11:52 pm, I updated the watch. At that time, we lost Happy Cat. He had been dozing on the bed beside my paraplegic daughter, Fawn. Suddenly, he urgently scrambled to get into her arms. Then, with two big, agonizing gulps of air and a shudder, he crossed the Rainbow Bridge while cuddled in Fawn's arms. We hope he is now cavorting with his pals Snyezhka,  Bobolink ,  Intrepid , and  Murjan  who crossed before him. Happy Cat taught us some important in his last days, some important for cats and some important as well for humans: Near the very end, cats sense when they are going to die, and they prepare by looking for dark places. Happy Cat would go into cubbies that he was never interested in before. (It's a tip-off for owners.)  Near the end, owners sometimes are allowed a sense that their journey to the Rainbow Bridge is reaching its goal. I felt an otherworldly presence the day bef...

  Happy Cat in one of his dark places Happy Cat's days of valiantly fighting his brain tumor are drawing to an end. We are now on death watch for him as he valiantly trues to stave off death even though he knows it is hovering over him, calling. Happy Cat was one of those cats who never asked for anything, not even for a home. He was an alley cat, and he would wait until all the other street cats had finished their turn at the handouts from local residents, including us, before he would approach and finish up the remnants. We got to know Happy Cat from afar, seeing him every day hunkered down under the juniper bush, watching the other cats eat. (One of those cats was Snyezhka , his pal, whom we captured and adopted.) He would only come eat after they were done and he thought we were gone. Then, he became very ill. Something prompted him to trust us to help, and we found him spread-eagled outside our second-story entrance door one morning as we were departing for work. Cat lifted i...

  A cat rescuer friend called urgently. She had just been told by the local shelter that she had to take back and find a barn or some safe street local (Those exist? Right?!) for the tiny kitten who was "unadoptable." He was so scared in his tiny cage that he would not move from one spot -- not to eat, and, ugh, not to pee. Could I take him, asked my friend? After all, I do have a reputation of domesticating feral cats and integrating new cats into our healthy, bonded cat family.  I thought I was at the limit of household cats - 6. But the house is big, and one never notices the lot of cats because we have a cat room and a catio as well as five other rooms. And they are quiet, well integrated, happy. I am pretty good with the patience required to integrate a new or shy or feral cat with the others. So, the little black-and-white kitten moved in. We called him Moo because his coloration was that of a Holstein cow.  Within a couple of hours, he was following Bear aroun...

how Happy Cat began sleeping post-stroke and our first big clue as to what had happened Diagnosing strange -- and altered --  cat behavior can be quite difficult, if not impossible. Our Happy Cat turned into Sad Cat overnight. We knew he was missing Snyezhka and Bobolink , who had suffered major medical trauma/issues and crossed the rainbow bridge. After perfect results from a physical check-up, the vet admitted that the picture of Happy Cat sleep was odd, but she had no idea as to why he would be doing that. He also walked unsteady, crossing his legs instead of walking with a straightforward gait. His sight dimmed; again, the vet confirmed that he was not seeing anything much but that physically his eyes looked okay. He walks around in a fog, quite unlike our blind cat Simone , who manages admirably. Perhaps if we lived closer to a major medical (animal) center, more diagnostic procedures would be available. But, like probably most Americans, we are too far away from such levels o...