Spider
August 21st 2006
RIP Big Boy Cat
Yesterday morning I noticed that Spider was having trouble
walking - the joints in his front feet seemed to have given way. From this
first sign of joint trouble, Spider deteriorated rapidly - within an hour
of first realising his pain, I had made the decision to let him go after he
looked at me and the pain showed in his eyes - he couldn't even stand up,
just drinking water hurt him. We saw the vet this morning, and he agreed that
my big twelve year old boy was in a massive amount of pain, and would not
get any better, only worse.
The end was very peaceful and quick, we stayed with him until
he was gone.
The little black kitten that came to me temporarily, just
until I could find him a new home, all those years ago will always leave a
big hole in my heart and life.
In August 1994 someone I knew was looking for a kitten. I knew of a litter nearby, so I took her to choose one. There were three black girls in the litter, though one had been homed two weeks previously (much too early) at the age of five weeks. The apartment where the kittens, their mother, and another young queen lived was far from ideal - it was dirty and flea infested, as were the cats.
My friend chose which kitten she wanted and we both went back to where she was living. The kitten was too young to be treated for fleas, but she was so badly infested that something had to be done. All I could think of doing was rinsing her stomach (the place where the fleas were most visible) under running warm water to wash off as many fleas as possible. Once the kitten was dry, warm and fed, I returned home.
I didn't sleep much that night, couldn't stop thinking about the last remaining kitten. The next morning I went back and picked it up. Just couldn't leave her there. I named her Spider because she looked like one. Spider was also riddled with fleas, she also had tapeworm and skin mite infestation. All easily treatable problems when people can be bothered to deal with them, which I did.
Once the infestations had been dealt with, Spider started to grow rapidly. At three months old she was the size of a six month old. But that's not all. One day, when Spider was three months old, I was playing with her - tickling her belly - when I noticed something unexpected. My three month old female kitten had suddenly grown testicles! I went to visit the other kittens, sure enough they had grown them too. I'm so glad I had chosen a unisex name - especially as I once knew a large tabby tomcat named Verity because his owners thought he was a girl at first!
Although Spider was meant to be a temporary resident, just taken in until a new home could be found, over seven years later he is still with me.
People often have to look twice when they see him because he is actually bigger than a small dog, currently weighing 20 pounds. Recently he has developed a weight problem (which he is on a strict diet for), but even if he was not overweight, he'd still be about 15 or 16 pounds. Spider is featured on Fredi Firebeetle's Heavies page at: home.clara.net/qinshi/text/tcats/tfredi/heavies4.html.
Spider is more often called 'Uncle Bidee' because he is so loving and protective towards the other cats. Unfortunately though, his health is currently not as good as it was. Although he has always been big, he has also been fit and active with it, he is very out of shape now and I'm worried his health will start to suffer soon. I have put everyone on a strict diet, it's very hard to diet just one cat in a multi cat household, and so far so good. Initially they did complain about getting half as much food each meal time, but now they have adjusted to it - and Spider has lost one pound in weight! :)
Within the next couple of months, all the Alicats will be visiting the vet for routine healthcare. I'm going to take the opportunity to have Spider put on a veterinary supervised weight loss plan. He won't like it and it'll mean extra work for me, but much preferable to losing such a wonderful cat and family member.
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