Caturday

John, Mike and I went to check out some places that did kitten adoptions on Saturday afternoon. We first went to the county shelter, which has only charges $60 for cats but doesn't do FIV testing. What's up with that? We went to PetSmart to see what organizations had kittens for adoption and there were some young cats, but no kittens. We then went to Wescott Acres, where Cujo and Bodhi used to go to daycare and where we've boarded the dogs and Odin before. They have an actual cat rescue now (when we were looking to adopt 2 years ago and eventually, fortunately got Odin we were interested in getting kittens from Wescott Acres but at that point they only housed cats/ kittens from another rescue organization that was over capacity and that organization totally dragged their feet on our application.) so hopefully we won't be in paperwork limbo like we were before. We decided to only get a kitten from Wescott Acres because we want to support them (they're totally awesome) and the staff and volunteers there know us, so we know that they would only call us if a kitten who would fit with Cujo and Bodhi came in.
John and I discussed it and we aren't getting a kitten to band-aid the hole that Odin's loss has left. The house definitely feels empty without a cat. We liked being cat owners and want another high energy cat who will have fun with two energetic doggie playmates.

I'm out on the sofa because John is sleep talking and calling out "Come here! Don't take him! Sugar, don't take him! Come here!" while rapidly patting his thigh. I don't know how Sugar (presumably Allie's dog) fits into the equation but he's obviously talking about Odin.

The right thing and the easy thing are so rarely the same.

That was horrible.

My biggest fear, since Odin became sick, was that he would die alone and uncomfortable. We took him to the vet tonight to have him put down and requested to be there when the sedative was administered. His liver was so far gone that his blood wasn't clotting and two vet techs and the vet couldn't get an IV in him, so the vet had to kill him by sticking the medicine directly in his heart and we couldn't be around to see that. He was bleeding so badly that they wrapped him in two towels.
His burial was what I wanted, though. This is so gross. I'm sorry. He was still warm and pliant so we let him sleep nice and wrapped up in a little box and he is deep in the ground. I didn't ever want to hold him when he was cold and stiff, or really anything that wasn't nice hot cat body temperature. I kissed his little dead head so much.

Last night with Odin

I'm going to miss this beautiful eye so much.

"Good night, sweet prince. And flocks of angels sing thee to thy rest." - Horatio in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act V Scene ii.

"To sleep, perchance to dream: - aye, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause." Hamlet in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III Scene i.

I didn't intend for both of these quotes to be from Shakespeare or Hamlet, but they seem the most fitting.

It's eerie. You can recognize firsts: first house, first kiss, first day of school. It's rare to know when something will be the last: last date before you break up, last time you see someone, last time you go to a store. This is Odin's last night.

Finding out how special my special needs cat is

Odin has a serious liver malady that his fantastic regular vet can't fix with the normal methods of heavy antibiotics and special food. Since the liver regenerates itself, most problems can be fixed by a low fat, low protein temporary diet and lots of antibiotics to keep the infection, whatever it is, at bay as the liver rebuilds itself. Odin is still incredibly sick and has all the signs of cancer but since his white blood cell count responds to antibiotics the vet doesn't think it's cancer. The vet has ruled out all run of the mill liver problems and suspects that it's a very large (or several large) abscess. She recommended Odin go to a specialist, internist vet and we have an appointment for next week. I knew that Odin had something unusual when the vet, who is not a young vet, kept asking us if he had eaten anything different or been outside because she had never seen symptoms like this in an animal who wasn't poisoned. Last week at the vet the vet tech said she had been working there 3.5 years and had never seen a cat with a liver abscess. Today I went online to look up information on liver abscesses in cats that require surgical intervention. Wanna guess how many articles I found?
TWO.
TWO.
Two articles about it. One was from a small animal vet textbook and one was from an article published in a scholarly journal about 5 dogs and 1 cat who had liver abscesses that needed surgery. WOW.

Faker

Odin thinks he has us fooled, but the number of dead cockroaches we've seen in our living room and kitchen in the past few weeks lets me know this "almost blind" thing is a ruse.

I still love you, cat. I'm not petting him out of love. It makes him uncomfortable. I pet him out of evil.

What John just said to Odin as he (John) was petting an obviously irked Toonces.

Second serving of poison, please!

That is what my animals would say if they could talk. Cujo's love of outside poison has been well documented. Today John sprayed inside the house for bugs and Odin is now meowing unhappily while locked in Cujo's crate because he thinks that poison is just so yummy scrum and wouldn't stop licking it. Poison companies, is it possible to make bug killer that my animals don't think is super delicious?

Covet covet covet

A friend and her traveling companion on a recent vacation. It is so hard to not troll through petfinder after seeing this picture.

Breakthrough!

I bragged to EVERYONE that having a one eyed (and scarring in that eye) cat is great because we can have 8 quintillion Christmas trees up and Odin won't destroy them, since he can't see the ornaments. This was disproved tonight.
I have no idea how much Odin can see. I thought that it was basically seeing light and shadows. If you put your hand between a light source and Odin (so he can clearly see where your hand is blocking the light), get him interested in watching your hand, then move your hand to a place where there is less light contrast, he can't follow your hand. Also, he seems to be extremely nearsighted. He can bat a toy in front of him for several minutes, but if he bats it too hard and it goes more than 18 inches- 2 feet away from him, he does not look to see where it went and loses interest. He definitely cannot perceive depth. Despite being in fine physical shape, he can't jump. At least two of his feet are on the ground at all times. He has figured out he can get on our table by getting on a chair, then manuevering to the table. When he gets down from the sofa or bed, it's quite possibly the least graceful thing ever. It is NOT a jump/leap/ pounce. It is totally a contolled fall. The best way I can describe it is that he is like a small child going off the diving board for the first time. He clings to the edge of wherever he is, then lets gravity take its slow course. We haven't tried this, but the wonderful woman who fostered Odin told us that he can't navigate around dog gates.
Tonight I had what may be my first heartfelt, proud, UNDERSTANDING moment with Odin. I was at my laptop and the Valentine's day tree was in front of me. (Yeah, I have a Valentine's day tree. Jealous?) He examined the tree, then used his paws and teeth to get an ornament off. He did this three times!!! HE CAN SEE!!! I mean, he's not going to be a fighter pilot, but he can see enough contrast to get an ornament off. This makes me especially happy/ hopeful because one of the things I assumed he needed to see was high contrast. There are pink ornaments on the pink tree, so he must be able to perceive sublter differences than I thought.
I mean, figuring this out while your cat rips apart your Valentine's Day tree isn't ideal, but OH WELL!!! I'm so happy! My little man can see! I took pics and video that my lazy butt will post later.

Talking Crap

In preparation for our feline friend, John and I bought one of those automatically cleaning kitty litter boxes. It arrived a while ago. (Sorry for the late post.) It is bigger than the average litter box, but the shipping from Amazon was a ton of overpackaging. I took a picture of it next to a full size Rottweiler to give it full effect.