The Barn Cat and The Duchess. Not a fable.

 

Jersey died on Thursday, with my help. 

He was about 18 years old, my oldest and longest lived Barn Cat. He was a "reject" from the adoption program at my Animal Hospital. This was unusual. The techs and assistants at GAH have a way with cats, no matter how feral. Most of them become quite lovely in a relatively short time. But, that experience also tells them when to "cut bait".  And, from the time I brought him home to the Cowfeathers barn at a year old in 2004, until about 2019, Jersey held no love for me. I would take photos of him looking at me and you could see the "despise in his eyes." I was good for food. Not to be trusted with anything else. There was a short moment in about 2008 where he spent a few months letting the inferior humans pet his shiny pelt. It wasn't worth it. He gave that up and went back to long distance stares of disdain. 

His only health blip was a bout with ear issues about 8 years ago. I trapped him, boxed him up and optimistically packaged him off to work with me to get "treated". Well, now. Even working with the most difficult of cats for 20+ years didn't make treating Jersey possible. No way. Not today, Not ever. I heard his message. Loud and clear. And, never again did he allow me to trap him for any reason. Thus the "cauliflower ears" he sported for the rest of his days. 

In 2018 his hearing started to fail him. By early 2019, you had to stomp on the barn floor boards a bit to warn him you were there, because if you touched him he would launch straight in the air, all claws, teeth and venom. I brought home two more just like him in looks and temperament from the Animal Hospital where I had worked. Two more drop outs from the adoption program. While not considered "adoptable" by pet animal standards, they were quite happy to adopt Jersey as their shaman. They did everything together, as long as it was close to home for the old guy. They slept in a pile of indistinguishable kitty paws with three heads. The youngsters would go wake him up for feeding time and were mostly respectful if he was too slow eating. 

I thought the move to Virginia might be his undoing. But I snuck up on him while asleep, shoved him in a carrier and hoped for the best, placing him right next to the younger cats. He seemed to take the move in stride, finding the hay loft right away, and figuring out his routes for escape, food and water. Jersey at 18, sleek, a bit robust, but deaf and losing his sight. 

But, a few months ago, he started dropping weight quickly. By then I was feeding him wet food, and he also seemed to like me (coincidence? Probably "calorieinfluence" plus senility. But wet food offerings had never before influenced his economy of affection.) We had a ritual a few times a day where he would follow me around the barn area meowing at me-ish( he couldn't see that well, so where I actually was and his perception was variable.) I would feed him canned cat food, off the tip of a spoon. It was always ONLY the tip of the spoon, and if I didn't put the loaded spoon tip in front of his mouth, he would turn and bite my hand. But as the weeks went on, his breathing got worse and worse. I wanted to help him, and would decide what I would do medically and therapeutically, while also bearing in mind that the treatment shouldn't be worse than the disease in an 18 year old cat. I would ask myself where his cancer was, for that is what I think it was, cancer. And try to surreptitiously palpate his abdomen, or inspect his oral cavity, expecting to find the tumor. I could smell it. All while following his rules of minimal engagement. 

Then, on Wednesday, time for Jersey lunch, he could not eat. His breathing was such that compromising oxygen for eating was not viable. I called Old Dominion Animal Hospital on the recommendation of a fellow veterinarian with whom I foxhunt. I got an appointment for the following afternoon. Of course, that evening, he was spry and trotting around the barn yard after me, asking for his canned food buffet. This was a good thing. I did not want to wait until he had no care for anything but where the next breath would come from. 

It was only in the light of the euthanasia room at the Animal Hospital that I got to do a better inspection of my extant friend. He was super skinny- this I already knew. His coat was still pretty shiny on the top, but I was appalled at finding flea dirt. EEEK. He smelled worse ( of cancer- and I don't know exactly how to explain smelling cancer, but sometimes you can smell the reek) in the room than he had in the open air of the barn yard. And he behaved like a tame kitty gentleman. The doctor and assistants at the animal hospital treated him with dignity and care. He took his last breath quietly and softly. And, the tough old guy is now gone. The mice shall rejoice. And the remaining barncats shall have to submit to flea eradicating Revolution. 

A loss of one of our animals is also a change in the daily routine. An adjustment. Learning to count one less chicken, or in this case, no need for squatting to feed an elderly cat- I had tried putting him on a counter, but nothing doing. I was to squat. It got easier. I guess if I did yoga three times a day, I would be more flexible. 

That adjustment was still fresh, when yesterday, the sun was up over the hill, and Huz said looking out of the large window over that field; "The Duchess' blanket is askew." I really think he said "askew". We truly talk like this. I had been enjoying a cup of tea before heading out to start chores, but I had a terrible feeling when he said this. See,  The Duchess is not her real name, it is a name she has earned, as she would never choose to have her blanket askew. Or be dirty. Or be caught eating. Or be groomed ungently. Or scratch her own itch. Just not to be done. 

So, I hightailed it out to the field. I climbed the fence, and could see immediately as I jogged towards her she was not right. Firstly, she had eye boogers. And she was stiff in her hind end and did not look at me. I had become her lodestone. She had learned to trust me and she always payed attention to me- not enough attention to not injure me- I'm still sporting a bruised toe, but she kept her eye on me always. By the time I got to her, I knew she was in real trouble. When I got her to move forward she staggered and nearly fell, such was her pain. I got her into the field's run-in shed, out of the wind and in the sun. Her respiration was way too high, her heart rate a freight train. The vet was on her way, and I was already numbly charting out plans. Surgery, transport, where? WHY??? This horse was the most difficult horse to care for I have ever had. EVER. Getting her to eat when she felt good was an exercise in observation and obfuscatory prevention. Don't touch her grain...make sure the bins (she had to be fed from three different bins) were clean, never wet...the hay had to be in a hay net and down on the floor, she needed grass hay and alfalfa, all horses on the property had to be visible for eating to commence...the rules were vast. If she was irritated, cold, hot, wet, lonely, scared or painful to any extent, she would not eat. How would I get her through a small bowel resection? She had to have everyone in the barn with her at once in order to not race around her stall. If she was out of her stall she would gallop back and forth for hours. How am I going to keep her confined post surgery? And, if she was in her stall for more than 5 hours, she would "stock up". A history of cellulitis meant her hind limb circulation was a fragile ecosystem that had me wrapping her twice daily for months and months when I first took her on.. how was a difficult surgery going to work? 

In the end, the wonderful Old Dominion Equine vet and my masterful in-house radiologist/husband helped me make the decision. It looked like a small bowel obstruction with likely enteritis. My third gray horse to do just this in 28 years. I had sent the first two to surgery. Neither had made it. One was young and strong. One was old and tough. 

This is a heartbreaking decision. Send her to surgery, with a poor prognosis, or choose euthanasia, here, in her field? Nelle, her pasture mate had been by her side for the whole day, worried, kind, servile. Very unlike Nelle. She knew it was bad. 

And, everyone looked at me. Everyone, but my Duch. Because she was too painful to see, just buried her head in my chest and groaned periodically. Heartbreaking. 

I held her head as she was injected with the euthasol, and quickly, seamlessly, folded her legs and lay down gracefully. No theatrics for The Duchess. She laid down in a Gloria Swanson silent picture swoon. I stroked her face and rubbed her ears and told her how much I loved her crazy and her demands, and her giving nature and her opinions. 

Nelle spent the afternoon next to her body while we waited for generous neighbors with a backhoe to come help. It is so important to let the friends be together in death. Horses mourn deeply. Baily and The Duchess have been fast friends, too, and Youngest led Baily over to attend her before burial. He was very suspicious, as he circled her body. Then he approached, he went right to her head, ears pricked and concerned. He tried to nudge her to rise. When she did not, he whoofed his hot breath into her nose, over and over. He began to nuzzle her with his lips, and licked her with his tongue. You could see him as he understood it was no use. 

We are all subdued. Pearl and Jules, the dogs, know I am sad, and try their best to earnestly cheer me with their hot horse-poop breath. Pearl, who does not see well( congenital blindness), even attempted to do stairs to find me last night after I went to go tub. Huz had to help her off the stairs. 

The farm feels a bit unmoored. Much of our daily routine was centered around this two spirits, the elderly cat and the dogmatic mare. How does a day go without these two to show us what needs be done?

Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow it will make sense.