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| Coco the Cat, aka Fuzzy Girl |
Toward the end of a rough month of vet visits and enduring the indignities of forced medication, Coco lost her taste for food and stopped eating. Even her absolute favorite treat, tuna, no longer held any appeal. At 18 years of age, her body was shutting down, and even though we could see it coming we still burst out in tears when our vet recommended euthanasia to stop her suffering a slow death by starvation.
The vet who came to our home to ease her suffering forever brought a taste treat to give Coco before administering the first injection, and even at that point I knew that if Coco ate any of it, I was going to call off the euthanasia. But she didn't even acknowledge the treat, and minutes later we were in tears over her lifeless body.
Although I download photos from my phone from time to time, I hadn't done so since March, and when I checked, Coco was in practically every other photo I had on there. From within my grief, I share my joy.
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| I snapped this shot about a week ago, but this is very close to how I first saw Coco about eight years ago, when she was a semi-feral neighborhood cat emerging from the neighbor's yard to accept some kibble, but too wary to come close enough to touch. Over the years, she became part of our family. |
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| I was always amazed at her total fearlessness around heights. She liked to be up on the railing to have her loose hair brushed off (I would send the tufts floating away on the winds), and the weathered beam made a great scratching post (although she might have liked the corner of our couch even better). |
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| Enjoying the afternoon sun in the front entry way. |
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| Taking refuge in her cat cave, a repurposed Chewy box. |
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| A couple of retired pals chillin' on a sunny afternoon. |
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| Coco used to wander all over the yards and streets for blocks around, but she rarely set foot outside the front gate for the last year or so. Here, she walked out to the curb and appeared to look wistfully down the hill before turning to go back inside to safety. |
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| She often snoozed on the floor next to my chair as I worked at my computer desk, sometimes pressing right up against the chair's legs. |
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| One of our favorite routines was doing a little gardening together, or maybe just hanging out on the cushioned bench at the base of the stairs. |
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| Hanging out on the bench for the last time. |
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Coco first appeared in one of my yard cams on December 23, 2015, when she was caught in a stand-off with another neighborhood cat. I used to put out kibble for the cats in the probably vain hope that they wouldn't go after birds if they weren't hungry.
Over the next few years we sort of adopted each other. Then the pandemic lockdown, followed by my retirement, gave us a lot more time together. My wife is allergic to cats, but she could never resist Coco despite all the Zyrtec and asthma inhalers.
Coco was always an outdoor cat by choice, but she liked to stay in our basement during cold or rainy weather. More recently, as she got older and her health declined, she wanted to stay in every night. We were apprehensive because she had never taken to using a litter box -- until we found out about Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract litter, which (thankfully) she took to. Sometimes we even let her in the apartment for a few hours, and we have the cat-clawed furniture to prove it. Now those little patches of shredded fabric just remind us how much we miss her.
A couple of my first blog posts featuring Coco are here and here. |
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