Boundary issues featured today. A big, brown greyhound came leaping up the drive chasing my cat Willany and Chapati the rescue cockerel, so I clapped and shooed it back and shouted to ‘put your dogs on a lead please!’ twice but no one responded. I will take the chance to speak to the owners if I see that dog in the area again. Not least because of my smaller animals in the garden, but Robbie the goose tends to go after dogs if they stray near his patch. I don’t want a fight ensuing! Coincidently, this came up in the reading last night too. Feeling woozy and swimmy today, but have had little sleep as a late night, and the gale noises waking me up every so often as well.
Sadly my cat having gone downhill very quickly and off his food, visited the vet this afternoon and was put to sleep. We thought, based on the evidence, that it would be kinder to let him go than trying to keep him with us any longer, when we knew he had genetically inherited issues like his brother. I knew he wasn’t himself, he was sleeping much more in different places and not interested in food. He had stopped talking, and as he was a very vocal cat, this rang alarm bells as well. He still enjoyed the brush outside the other day and responded to me when I stroked him and he was padding on my lap, but he had declined so quickly and I couldn’t put him through what his brother had suffered towards the end of his life, knowing that the decision ultimately would be the same one. I remember Stripe being just as loving when he was very sick, when his jaw wouldn’t open and he couldn’t eat; when he couldn’t manage a jump onto his chair, when he coughed so loudly I jumped and when he lost his voice completely.
No, it’s not fair to make an animal suffer so we can still enjoy their company. It is never an easy decision, it is got to be one of the worst decisions anybody ever makes, but we do have a responsibility to our companion animals not to increase their suffering and we have to honour that.
My only regret was that I let the vet take him away to another room to have his catheter put into his paw. He didn’t deserve to be taken away from those he loved and whom loved him in his hour of need. We were with Wolf the entire time until he took his last breath and for that I am grateful.
I had given Reiki to Wolf on the journey there and he had settled down, occasionally nuzzling my hand dangling into the cat basket to illicit some more strokes or holding. Reiki had allowed me a deeper connection to him over his last days, and I can only hope that it helped him pass over peacefully, knowing how much he was loved and cared for. He may have left one physical body behind him now, but his spirit shines as bright as it ever did.
RIP Wolfgang.