Near the end of August, 1988, we drove to a nearby town and brought home with us a 1/4 Abyssinian kitten whom we named Cami (in honor of my dad, who used to call all of the various cats we had as we were growing up "that cam dat!"). She turned out to be a very intelligent, though generally ornery cat, and she was always begging us to let her play outside. (We'd had her declawed, so we were sure that was out of the question.) She'd stand with her paws on the screen of our storm doors and cry, "Let MEOWt!"

Near the end of August 1992, we got another kitten, this one, we were told, was part Manx (she had a stumpy tail, but she looked Siamese), and we named her Kitsa, a name one of my daughters came up with for the "next cat" she was sure we'd get someday. We were hoping that Kitsa could be friends with Cami and that Cami wouldn't be so lonely when we'd go away on trips.

Oh, well, Cami was too ornery to get along with any other cat, and she managed to get out finally, when we opened a door without watching for her. Over the next fourteen years, she would come in for a while, but she always used very foul language when Kitsa would come up to her. (Kitsa was fascinated by Cami's regular-length tail). I don't know if she learned the foul language from being outside, or if she learned it from the dogs and other cats she was living with before she became part of our family, but she was always swearing at other cats if they dared to come into her territory outside, and she certainly swore at Kitsa a lot as well. The lack of claws was not a problem for her; she managed to kill mice and birds with ease. She just couldn't climb trees.

In February of 1999, Cami must have used a particularly nasty swear word at a dog, because she got bitten. The dog's jaw was about the same size as my hand, because I could put my hand on Cami and feel where the lower teeth had gone in with my thumb while I could feel where the upper teeth had gone in with my fingertips. Both sets of teeth tore her flesh, but the lower part of the bite, the one on her underside, tore her abdomenal wall, and got infected. We took her to a vet, and he prescribed antibiotics, and said that he could sew her up, but the tear was large enough that she might be all right. We couldn't afford the surgery, so we were grateful when it appeared that she was all right, except for the intestines that poked through the hole in her abdomenal wall, though not through her skin. I believe that is what is known as a "hernia." I worried that she might get into a kicking fight with some other cat and have those intestines shredded, but that never happened. Maybe she learned not to use that particular swear word any more.

Cami lived to just over 18 years, and she died, we think, of kidney failure on a rainy night the first week of October 2006. She wasn't very friendly to anyone but her family, and she loved to have us come outside and sit with her. We'd stretch out on the grass on our stomachs to read, and she'd curl up under our chins and purr. It was hard to have her go, but I think she had a good life.

Kitsa managed to get out one night and was lost for several days a few years ago. We put signs up all over the neighborhood, and I checked the animal shelter. We found her one night, after I'd been out calling, and turned to go in, and then turned around to look, one more time, and there she was. We suspect that she hadn't gone very far, even though she didn't come out when we called during the day. I crept up to her, trying to make myself small so I wouldn't spook her, and carried a bowl of food that I shook so she could hear it rattle. She let me get close, and I was able to grab her and take her into the house again. What a relief!

She developed a food allergy and couldn't keep regular food down, so we had to buy special (expensive, of course) food for her from our vet. It was "green peas and duck," but I usually couldn't remember what it was called, so I tried to keep the empty bag to take with me when I went to get more. If I forgot the bag, I'd tell them that I was there for "green eggs and ham, or whatever it's called," and they seemed to know what I meant.

A year ago, in the spring, I took her in for her annual check-up, and they did some blood work that determined that she had the potential to develop kidney failure. The vet recommended that we change her diet yet again, to something that would help prevent kidney failure, but she couldn't keep it down, even though I introduced it slowly with her "green eggs and ham." In fact, it seemed to make her sick, so sick, that it scared me, and I switched back to the "green eggs and ham" immediately. Kidney failure someday later was less of a risk than starvation then.

For the past month, she has begun to have problems again. She seemed weak, she wobbled when she walked, and she wasn't eating very much. She started having accidents, and we began to worry that "someday later" was close. I bought her a new bag of her allergy food, and a couple of days ago, after she'd finally finished off the last bag, I gave her a handful to eat. The next day (yesterday), I gave her another handful, and she threw it up rather spectacularly. So I called the vet to see if maybe she'd developed an allergy to this food, too. (It looked different from the old bag, so I wasn't sure the formula was even the same, though it really said "green peas and duck" on the outside.)

She has never really liked drinking water from a bowl, and when she does, she has to "approach" the bowl just right. She much prefers drinking water from the bathroom tap, so whenever we'd use the bathroom, she'd come in, and jump up, and we'd turn on a trickle of cold water for her. Lately, we've had to lift her up onto the counter, and she's had trouble "approaching" the trickle as well.

She's also lost weight (she'd lost weight at her last checkup--Spring 2007--which is why they did the blood work in the first place), and has become "skin and bones." I talked to the vet about all of this, and he said that they needed to see her. She hated going to the vet, and I was reluctant to take her, because I was sure I wouldn't be bringing her home. But I made an appointment for this morning, and my husband came with me. She was my birthday present all those years ago, but she has always liked him better, and he has been great to help clean up her accidents (from her allergic reactions to food, and so on) through the years.

She had a harder time that usual this morning, getting a drink of water, and she wasn't interested in food, but I still wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. She really hated going to the vet. (She'd cry as soon as she got in the car, and she'd try to hide her face in my elbow or under my arm, when we'd go in.) I held her, and my husband drove. Usually I'd take her in a pillowcase on my lap, so she wouldn't get loose in the car, but though I took the pillowcase, I didn't put her in it. I just let her sit on my lap, and she was very interested in looking out the window as we drove along.

We had to wait in a room with several big dogs and a couple of other cats, but no one was crying, and Kitsa was very calm. When it was finally our turn to go to an examining room, she cuddled a little closer to me, but she still didn't try to hide. The vet who came into the room was the one I talked to on the phone yesterday (we go to a clinic with several vets, so there was no guarantee he'd be the one we'd see), and he remembered me. He checked her over quickly and said that her kidneys hadn't failed yet, but they were not sending any fluids into her system, so she was very dehydrated. He also said that her bladder was full, but she couldn't eliminate, and she really was in a bad way. So I knew I was doing the right thing to bring her in, and we asked him to help her.

We chose to stay in the room with her. They brought in a blanket and laid it on the examining table, then he laid her down on the table with her head toward me. He shaved the inside of her hind leg, so he could get a vein, and as I stroked her head, and my husband held his hand on her side so he could feel her heartbeat, the vet injected her with an overdose of anesthesia, and she was gone.

Your post brought tears to my eyes. I also had to put a furry friend to sleep last year, two days before Christmas. He, too, was suffering from kidney failure. He was a special cat in so many ways.

I'm not sure what we'd do without our cat and dog and their frequent shouting matches. I'm not terribly religious but I'm sure that wherever you end up in the hereafter, they'll be there waiting for you.

My Rosie was 19 when she died. It was hard. Some day I will write some stories to celebrate her life. Perhaps then she will live longer in memory than on this earth, but my furry, fascinating, obstinate, infuriating, selfish friend will still live on, somehow, somewhere... and so will yours.

I write this with tears, but . . .

"She wasn't very friendly to anyone but her family, and she loved to have us come outside and sit with her."

I'd take that as a great epitaph if my own family wrote it someday.

You have my deepest sympathies, but also admiration. Pets with personalities are one of the greatest things in this life. Their passing cannot . . . MUST NOT . . . overshadow the joys they bring and brought.

I don't know if they go to heaven, but I know they have often brought it.

Jericho.

P.S. That post requires no "Sorry". Thank you for it.

I look forward to hearing about the grand reunion in that giant pet palace in the sky some day.

This summer marks 7 years since my head-curler died (she'd sleep around my head. If I moved my head to change positions during the night, she'd slip down the pillow and we'd both get a surprise when I laid my head back down) and it's been 6.5 since my faux russian blue (she was so beautiful gray and soft, but she was really a tabby with barely-visible markings) died. They bookended the birth of my first child - one went 3 months before, one went 3 months after. Maybe the first went to help him find his way, and then the second went to make sure things were right. Something like that.

I had to put my own cat down last year, which broke my heart more than I have words to tell. But I've since been blessed with two new furry friends, littermates we got at the humane society, who are now coming up on two years old (still very kittenish). So I keep focused on them, and try to just remember the good times with my dear, sweet Callisto.

He was first diagnosed with bowel cancer last summer, and although the vet managed to remove the tumour we were warned it would grow back. In the end, he had many more months of good health that we expected, and I'm so grateful for that. Inevitably, a couple of months ago he started losing weight and passing blood. Then he stopped eating altogether, and from then on we knew what was coming.

Although he didn't show signs of pain - he was walking around and behaving fairly normally - we should probably have put him down a while ago. My mum, though, was determined to keep him going for as long as she could. It sounds terrible, but I don't blame her. Two years ago we moved from another country and had to put our dog down, for no reason other than she was too old to travel and no-one else wanted her. I still haven't got over that and I don't think my mum ever will.

I live a couple of hours from my parents' house. I went home at the weekend, so I could say goodbye, and I knew that would be the last time. On Friday, my mum didn't tell me until after it happened as she didn't want me to miss work. Although it breaks my heart that I wasn't there at the end, in some ways I'm glad. I don't want to remember him that way.

I lost my dog of 14 years a couple of weeks ago, and it came hard on the heels of other trouble. My boyfriend John was in a serious motorcycle crash on Friday the 13th (June), was Life-flighted to Portland and was in ICU fighting for his life. Then his 80 year old mother died unexpectedly the following Tuesday. And the following weekend, when I got back from home from visiting John at the hospital in Portland, I found out my dog Merlin died. Three blows back to back about undid me. Five weeks later now, John is now well on the mend - there was nothing broken that can't be healed. We are remembering his mother with love. And I am realizing that Merlin had the chance for one last romp. I had left him with friends who live on 5 acres, and we always called their place "Puppy Heaven" because the dogs loved it so. Merlin had gotten out of the house and taken a run down the hill and drowned himself in the neighbor's pond. I had known it was time to take him into the vet to be put down and I just couldn't bear to do it, so Merlin took matters into his own... paws... and did a little suicide run. I am comforted by knowing his last actions had been to have a last little fun romp.

His name and I kid you not was

Damn Cat.

He was a Persian and loved to smear his fluffy white goodness an anything that was black

I hate it when pets die.

We'd sit on the porch in the evening and it would show up and intertwine between our legs and make cat sounds of complaint and contentment. We'd joke about someone needing to feed "your cat".

I can say I never did. I wanted him to wander off back to whatever owner I was sure was looking for it. What I didn't know was when I went to bed it was a like a cat rave. My roommates brought out cream and tuna and steak and anything and everything they thought it would eat.

A couple years later when it was time for us all to go our own ways there were only two things they never gave that cat . . . a name and a home. So, by determination of me being the last to leave I got left with the cat.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I never considered myself a cat lover until I met Daisy 12 years ago. We were living in the back woods of Maine at the time. It was early winter, and Judi and I heard a sound outside. After examination, we saw a small tabby kitten in the bushes. The next day, after a few hours of coaxing (and about 1/4 lb of ground beef) I managed to get her into the house. It took her over a month to leave her hiding place under the furniture.

A few weeks ago, after two litters, surviving four adult daughters, three dogs, and several moves, she left the house and never returned. She'd acted sickly the few days before we last saw her, and I'm certain she was at her end.

As I said, we found her in the beginning of what was to be a tough Maine winter. I'm certain that if I hadn't coaxed her inside she wouldn't have survived. I know that we gave her a good life, and I miss her greatly. She was a good friend.

Tom

What I'm discovering is that I really miss having a cat around (surprise!--I've had at least one for almost 20 years straight), and I am more ready than I thought I would be to think about getting another cat.

But my husband isn't as ready. Pets are not all that convenient at times, and he is enjoying how convenient it is not to have one around any more.

My wife has found that the best times to ask for a new pet are occassions when I am having difficulty coming up with an appropriate gift, particularly anniversaries. Adding some story of impending peril for the animal tends to finish me off.

I believe that there is life after death and that it is so sweet that any pain in death or before death (as with my Kitsa) was relatively short and is swallowed up in the sweetness they are experiencing now.