Mom and I left the house at around 10:30 this morning. (Juu-ji han. ...I have to keep practicing.) It was a beautiful, sunny, totally-no-sign-of-rain day, with the requisite super-blue sky and puffy/wispy white clouds. I was in class or studying until 8:00, when Mom picked me up after a day spent at the doctor's in Connecticut checking out her foot (she won't need physical therapy anymore and she got drugs, which are always useful). We were joking around, talking about our day, admiring how beautiful the evening was. Traffic was a horror as they're busy putting in sidewalks. When we got to the house, Mom saw something fluffy by the side of the road in front of our driveway.
"Oh, my god, it's Floof."
"No!" Mostly 'cause it makes no sense that our indoor-only cat got out and got herself run over. Also 'cause I didn't want her dead. I figure she's healthy and should have some years left in her (she and Oscar turned fifteen this past May).
Mom made wide berth around the cat and stopped the car saying, "How did she get out? How did she get out?" while I kept saying "No! No!" Mom opened her door and peered at the cat in the orange-tinted road light as I leapt out of the car and ran around to see the cat.
It was dark and had a longer snout than a himalayan (our Floof is a blue-point himalayan). "It's not Floof," I said, only partially relieved.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. It's too dark. See?" It had the markings of a seal-point himalayan or siamese, the super-dark brown points (face, ears, legs, tail) with dark brown to light brown body. It looked like maybe a himalayan mix, as it had the coloration and the long fur, but not the super-long, super-fine fur Floof has nor the himalayan squat snout, inherited from the cross-breeding of persians with the siamese. It even seemed to have blue eyes, though I didn't look too closely. It was a beautiful cat.
It looked like it was just lying there sleeping. The only blood had come from the ear on the roadside and we didn't see that until Mom moved the cat onto the top of a carboard box which I'd brought from the garage. I couldn't bring myself to touch or move the cat, as I didn't want to feel the cat's body without any life in it.
Mom and I have no idea what to do with the cat. We've put it in a largish and solid file box with a removeable lid and put the box in the garage near the doors so it can stay a bit cooler. We don't have a freezer to put it into. We don't want to have this anonymous cat burned by the ASPCA/pound without the owner ever knowing what happened. But there's no tag on the collar. How can an owner put a collar on a cat they allow outdoors but not put a tag on it? We have no way of finding out who owns the cat to let them know where their cat is and that their cat is dead. We're hoping that the local vet's office will recognize it when we bring it in, which we can't do until they open tomorrow morning. But I can't help but feel for these people who used to have this cat sit on their laps and purr while they pet its soft, dark head and stroked its long fur. If the vet can't ID it, we'll have to bury it without the owners ever knowing what happened. They'll think it ran away.
Poor cat. Poor, stupid owners. Mostly, though, poor cat.
It was really lovely. It was still warm when Mom moved it to the box lid. It felt like it was simply very relaxed, maybe deep in sleep, when I moved it to the box. You couldn't tell what was wrong until you saw the eyes, which were starting to film over. I tried to put the cat in a position in the box like it was just sleeping, but it didn't quite work. The head hung funny. I tried to close the eyes, but I just mussed up the fur on the head. I hope it didn't suffer, but it's hard to tell. The bladder was still emptying when I put it in the box. What can we do? Whom do we tell? Someone's lost their lovely pet cat. I suppose, if we can't find the owner, we'll bury it tomorrow. I'll have to think of a name for the cat. I don't think I could bury it without a name.
When I finally got inside, the cats greeted me, wondering where we had been for so long and if they could please have some dinner, which was two hours late. I fed them and gave Oscar his medication and pet them and pet them and pet them. I just wanted to get the feeling of dead cat off of my hands, to have my hands remember what my warm, living, responsive, purring cats feel like when I pet them.
When I was petting Oscar, I thought, "I feel like I'm touching him with hands of death." Like somehow I'm spreading what happened to that anonymous cat to Oscar, who's been sick lately and making me nervous. I've death on my hands that needs a name. I wish that cat hadn't died, and I wish I could give it a more dignified end. I don't want my cats to somehow catch death from the death on my hands and the death in the box in the garage.
I just don't know what to do.
"Oh, my god, it's Floof."
"No!" Mostly 'cause it makes no sense that our indoor-only cat got out and got herself run over. Also 'cause I didn't want her dead. I figure she's healthy and should have some years left in her (she and Oscar turned fifteen this past May).
Mom made wide berth around the cat and stopped the car saying, "How did she get out? How did she get out?" while I kept saying "No! No!" Mom opened her door and peered at the cat in the orange-tinted road light as I leapt out of the car and ran around to see the cat.
It was dark and had a longer snout than a himalayan (our Floof is a blue-point himalayan). "It's not Floof," I said, only partially relieved.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. It's too dark. See?" It had the markings of a seal-point himalayan or siamese, the super-dark brown points (face, ears, legs, tail) with dark brown to light brown body. It looked like maybe a himalayan mix, as it had the coloration and the long fur, but not the super-long, super-fine fur Floof has nor the himalayan squat snout, inherited from the cross-breeding of persians with the siamese. It even seemed to have blue eyes, though I didn't look too closely. It was a beautiful cat.
It looked like it was just lying there sleeping. The only blood had come from the ear on the roadside and we didn't see that until Mom moved the cat onto the top of a carboard box which I'd brought from the garage. I couldn't bring myself to touch or move the cat, as I didn't want to feel the cat's body without any life in it.
Mom and I have no idea what to do with the cat. We've put it in a largish and solid file box with a removeable lid and put the box in the garage near the doors so it can stay a bit cooler. We don't have a freezer to put it into. We don't want to have this anonymous cat burned by the ASPCA/pound without the owner ever knowing what happened. But there's no tag on the collar. How can an owner put a collar on a cat they allow outdoors but not put a tag on it? We have no way of finding out who owns the cat to let them know where their cat is and that their cat is dead. We're hoping that the local vet's office will recognize it when we bring it in, which we can't do until they open tomorrow morning. But I can't help but feel for these people who used to have this cat sit on their laps and purr while they pet its soft, dark head and stroked its long fur. If the vet can't ID it, we'll have to bury it without the owners ever knowing what happened. They'll think it ran away.
Poor cat. Poor, stupid owners. Mostly, though, poor cat.
It was really lovely. It was still warm when Mom moved it to the box lid. It felt like it was simply very relaxed, maybe deep in sleep, when I moved it to the box. You couldn't tell what was wrong until you saw the eyes, which were starting to film over. I tried to put the cat in a position in the box like it was just sleeping, but it didn't quite work. The head hung funny. I tried to close the eyes, but I just mussed up the fur on the head. I hope it didn't suffer, but it's hard to tell. The bladder was still emptying when I put it in the box. What can we do? Whom do we tell? Someone's lost their lovely pet cat. I suppose, if we can't find the owner, we'll bury it tomorrow. I'll have to think of a name for the cat. I don't think I could bury it without a name.
When I finally got inside, the cats greeted me, wondering where we had been for so long and if they could please have some dinner, which was two hours late. I fed them and gave Oscar his medication and pet them and pet them and pet them. I just wanted to get the feeling of dead cat off of my hands, to have my hands remember what my warm, living, responsive, purring cats feel like when I pet them.
When I was petting Oscar, I thought, "I feel like I'm touching him with hands of death." Like somehow I'm spreading what happened to that anonymous cat to Oscar, who's been sick lately and making me nervous. I've death on my hands that needs a name. I wish that cat hadn't died, and I wish I could give it a more dignified end. I don't want my cats to somehow catch death from the death on my hands and the death in the box in the garage.
I just don't know what to do.
