An Emptyness in the House

The Gimp Twins, Kali (left) and Doppler.  Doppler's left forepaw is bandaged.

A more personal post than usual; please excuse me, readers, who come to It Just Comes Naturally for news about the natural world in my part of the northern Piedmont.

On Thursday, we had to euthanize our 17(?)-year-old cat, Doppler.  I added the (?) because we don't know exactly how old she was because we brought her indoors 17 years ago; she may have been older.  Doppler got her name because she looked exactly like her mother (or her sibling?) - another stray cat that used to hang around outside the house with Doppler but who disappeared one day;  Doppler stuck around, and "Doppelganger" got shortened to Doppler.

Doppler entered our lives with a bandaged leg, and she exited the same way.  We originally had to bring her indoors because she'd gotten into a fight with an animal outside, which left her with a badly injured leg.  Because the animal with which Doppler had had a tussle could have been rabid, our vet gave us two choices: (1) euthanize the cat or (2) bring her inside and isolate her for four months to make sure she wasn't rabid.  Obviously, we chose the second option, so the vet bandaged Doppler's leg and we took her home.  She lived in the basement for those four months; it must have felt like a prison to a cat that had been used to living outdoors.  We gradually became acquainted and she was fully domesticated at the end of her confinement.

Doppler generally was a good cat, but she definitely was "queen" of the household.  We've had two other cats during the time Doppler lived with us, and she just barely tolerated them.  The other cats quickly learned their places in the pecking order.

Doppler loved Kali more than she did me, even though I fed her, cleaned her litter box, and groomed her.  She looked forward to "lap time" with Kali every evening, and she let us know if we were late going into the living room to watch television for an hour before bed.

Doppler began to decline about two years ago.  She developed thyroid problems and had to be medicated twice a day.  She also developed gingivitis and some tooth loss, but she was getting too old to sedate for a tooth cleaning.  Then, three weeks ago, she started hobbling around the house, clearly in pain if she put her left forepaw on the floor.  One of the vets in the practice we patronize couldn't definitively diagnose the problem and gave Doppler pain medication, but the problem worsened.  A second vet diagnosed the problem as either a tumor or an infection in a toe.  He bandaged the leg because her foot was bleeding profusely and put her on a course of antibiotics.  After a week, it was clear that the antibiotics didn't help, so the vet recommended amputating the toe; he said there were really no other options.  So, we scheduled the (risky) surgery for Thursday morning.  However, when I went to get Doppler to take her for the operation, I found her crying pitifully, back legs splayed out and useless.  When I tried to move her, she cried out in anguish.

I called the veterinary practice, cancelled the surgery, and begged for an immediate appointment.  They saw us an hour later and said that most likely a blood clot had lodged in the arteries serving Doppler's hind legs.  There was nothing they could do for her, and we decided to euthanize her.  I'll admit I blubbered uncontrollably.  I buried her that evening alongside the other cats with whom we've had the privilege of sharing our lives. 

Oh...about the image of the Gimp Twins.  Three weeks ago, Kali slipped and fell down three steps.  She twisted her ankle and broke a bone in her right foot.  She's been in a "boot" and on crutches ever since, and has limited mobility.  She goes back to the doctor on September 16 - not a day too soon for either of us!

Chilly Sunday Walk

Kali and I took a 5-mile walk on Sunday afternoon in the city park downstream of the preserve.  The park embraces the same creek that flows through the preserve, but the stream is larger in the city, having been augmented by the flow of several sizable tributaries en route.  The day was cold (in the mid-30s F), but the sky was perfectly clear and the park was uncharacteristically deserted.  We had a fine walk.

 Cooper's Hawk perched on a beech limb over the creek

We bought a digital SLR two few weeks ago--a Canon T3i body fitted with a versatile Tamron 18-270 lens.  Kali simply could not see what she was photographing on the screen of our Nikon S10 point-and-shoot, so she desperately wanted a camera with a viewfinder and an all-purpose lens.  I want to take close-up images that can rival those of some of my fellow Bloggers, so I wanted a camera on which I could fit a closeup lens.  I'll have to wait to get the closeup lens for a while, though. The two images included in this post were taken with the new camera setup.  I was at least 200 feet from the hawk, so I'm not surprised that the image isn't great, but it was an experiment.

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My holidays this year promise to be not very merry.  Most immediately, one of my cats is on death's door.  She had a good life with us, but arrived as a stray and remained nearly feral despite sharing the house with us for over 10 years.  It has only been in the last two years that I've been able to touch her (and Kali has never been able touch her).  Because she is so skittish, we've never been able to take her to the vet; if we were to try to corner her or put her in a cat carrier, she would go berserk--we've tried.  So, once it became clear last week that she was in very serious decline, we figured we were just going to have to wait it out.  She's clearly miserable.

Then, last week, I learned that my 86-year-old father, who lives in San Diego, is receiving hospice care.  He'd had heart surgery in August 2010, never recovered adequately, and has been in and out of the hospital ever since.  I'm going to California right after the New Year to bid him adieu.  Needless to say, I'm a little subdued.