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A Sad Ending and New Beginning [1]

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Date: 2022-10-19

Jiji doing one of his favorite things, being snuggled

A week ago this past Monday we had great sadness in our house. The Saturday previous our Jiji-chan had jumped from my lap to the floor as he had done probably thousands of times before. This time though, his back legs starfished on landing and he lost the use of them. With no emergency vet clinic locally we did our best for him and took him to our vet on Monday. He was seriously annoyed with the world on Saturday, eating and drinking as usual, and trying to get out of the laundry basket we had set him up in to drag himself to the litter box. A bit more subdued on Sunday ,off his food, though we still got a wet tube treat down him, and he was very interested in water. By Monday he was still complaining but had little interest in anything. The vet told us that there was no neurological response at all in his back end. We had feared that this would be his last visit to the vet, and it was. He was 20 years old, and we brought him home and buried him in the rose bed. Next spring we will plant a rose over him.

Jiji in his Christmas hoodie

When Jiji came to live with us from the the shelter (who estimated his age at 1 1/2), the family wanted to call him Sprite. That went right out the window when a few days later he came flying through the house and dived under the couch with our 4 year old son in pursuit clutching his Nimbus 2000 and calling “Jiji! Where are you?” When the small child names the cat so clearly, it is over and done, no other name is possible. He tried to get Jiji to ride on the back of that broom for weeks, we had to rescue the cat repeatedly. “Jiji Where are you?!” is still one of the only phrases our non-verbal autistic son can say clearly. Sadly, he has been saying it all week. (If you are puzzled by the reference Watch “Kiki’s Delivery Service”, a Studio Ghibli Film. It has always been one of our lad’s favorite films.)

Jiji was a good mouser, an absolute snuggle bug, and an amazingly tolerant cat. He was facebook friends with Betty White whom he made “Squee!” last December when “he” told her his shelter assigned birthday was the day after hers. He would be 20 which is 100 in cat, and they should get there together.

We loved him a lot. Our other adult cat Jericho still looks for him, he misses Jiji too.

There are other cats on our property. We have been allowing some friends to keep their horses in our barn. What a way to destroy a friendship. They are clueless to the point that I am hoping to call animal control and report them for ignorant neglect. Not just the horses either. She asked if she could keep a barn cat for rodent control. This is sense, so I told her that so long as it was fixed and had it’s shots that would be fine. Honestly I expected her to get one from the shelter. Instead she got one from somebody she knew that was trying to unload an unwanted litter. It never saw the vet in it’s life. It’s short life as it wound up road pizza, after dropping 3 litters of kittens. The survivors have grown up and continued procreating and so on the cycle goes. I had to tell her to freaking feed them to keep them in the barn instead of wandering afield to find food. She had this notion that if you don’t feed your barn cats you keep your barn rat free. No, if you don’t feed your barn cats they wander off to find food, and often do not come back. I have been raging ticked at her, have gathered several cats up and taken them to the shelter, slipped in and fed the barn cats, and still she gives me this 1950’s BS. At least she is feeding them now, dollar store food, but better than naught. We have gotten info for the local Trap Neuter Release program. After explaining the situation the folk running it were more than happy to tell us barn cats are semi-feral and would qualify. We will be gathering up the remaining barn cats and taking them in for that. Except for the two youngest kittens.

For a few weeks now, a little black kitten has been following my husband everywhere when he is outside. Climbing up to the top of the wood pile when we are bringing in wood for winter, trotting along behind him when he is measuring out next years planting fields and mulching them, making brave attempts to follow when husband is using the garden tractor. Obviously this little one needs to live with us where he/she has full and safe access to my husband! We were discussing that and budgeting for the initial vet bill, then Jiji went down. Daughter3 has declared that she wants to save our kitten’s surviving sibling, a white and tabby particolor. So we “kitnapped” both of them. We found their mom pancaked on the road, and decided to grab them before something horrible happened to them.

Cosmic Creepers and Ziggy Stardust

They have been temporarily named Cosmic Creepers (the black one) and Ziggy Stardust (the particolor). Yes I have said “You know those will stick if they do not tell us their names very soon” nobody cares cause they are pretty cool names, but a mouthful! I hope they grow into them! The vet needed to put names on the paperwork though, and is just fine with it if those names end up temporary. They came into our care hungry, flea raddled, and full of worms. They have been tended to, are still in isolation pending testing and exam at the vet’s office, and eating like horses. Because we suspected they were in serious nutritional deficit, we have been feeding them small quantities every 4 hours or so. I am hoping that they start behaving a little less ravenous once they realize that food they can eat is now a regular thing for them. I swear that they have nearly doubled in size in just a couple of days. I estimate their actual age to be somewhere in the range of 8-12 weeks.

I am in conversation with the local Humane society to decide who to report to and how. There are very different standards when it comes to house pets and barn animals in terms of neglect and abuse. What is clear neglect to me, may not meet the legal standards for barn animals (gee, thanks Big Ag). Her horse’s feet may be the tipping point for the lot. I’m working on this.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/19/2129899/-A-Sad-Ending-and-New-Beginning

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