My Old House

What is it about old houses that makes cats seem to go with them so well?

Last night, we had to put-to-sleep our oldest of three cats, Sealy. She’s in the picture below, the Siamese in the back.:

My wife originally picked up Sealy at a Veterinarian’s office, where some previous owner had simply dropped her off. She was really young at the time. We got her shortly after we were married, which was just under 13 years ago.

Sealy’s nickname was “The Crab” because of her meow (which always sounded like she was highly-annoyed with everybody) and because of her aloof nature. She was very loving, though, more so towards me than towards Terry.

For a while there, in this house, she would come up to our bed at bedtime, plop herself down on my chest, butt facing my face (ACK!). She’d want me to pet her for a good 10 minutes before she’d then jump off the bed and leave us alone for the rest of the night.

She certainly enjoyed this old house, but near the end, her aching legs would limit her to the first floor.

She was highly unusual in that during her life, she “came down with diabetes….twice”! Yes, she came down with it the first time and we started giving her insulin shots daily. But eventually, her weight and her coat indicated to me that perhaps she didn’t need the insulin anymore. We stopped giving the shots and her blood sugar remained stable. A good two years later, she came down with it again.

Frankly, I didn’t think she’d make it past last Christmas. She had come down with some illness that caused her to be very hungry almost all the time. She would insist on being fed every 2-3 hours if we were awake. And yes, she was losing weight steadily. Last fall, she suddenly stopped eating. We had some tests run. They said she had some problem with either her pancreas or her liver, but we would have needed to invest another $500 for an ultrasound to get more information. We’d already spent about $400, so we balked at that.

I got her to eat again by putting tuna water on her food, and eventually bits of tuna too. She never could resist tuna and would meow VERY LOUDLY for it if she smelled it in the air.

So, the tuna bought her a few months more of life. But in the end, she was losing bladder control several times per day all over the place (whereas previously she had been kind of limiting her travels throughout the house), which is not a good thing for old house floors and furniture. Her legs (and possibly back) kept her in an obvious state of pain, as for the past several months, I noticed she would never let her rear touch the ground when she “sat”. Plus, she’d sleep with her back legs pointed straight out.

We will miss her greatly, despite the fact that she had sort of a “low key” personality.

I fondly remember how she used to rise up on her hind legs and then quickly dive down to nip at the tummy of one of our old male cats. And I remember her watching a leaf on the ground at our old house…. watching it intently, until I noticed the leaf start to wiggle… more… then more… and then suddenly… WHAM! She pounced to eat an emerging mole.

I’m mad with myself for not taking photos of her. It would seem that I only take photos of the cats when I see them doing something cute. And that just wasn’t really part of Sealy’s personality. She blended in with the quiet, low-key atmosphere that often exists in our old house.

Sleep, old girl, you were good to us… and you will be missed.