Yet Another R.I.P.........
I can hardly believe I am writing this. It's a Tuesday again, and it's not even 6 months since I was writing about Tigger's cruel demise at the hands or should I say TEETH of my neighbour's dogs, and I've just said goodbye to another of their victims.
Today I held Napoleon and stroked him for over half an hour watching the life seeping away from him. His lung was punctured, infection had set in already giving off a nasty smell, and he had so little blood left in him the vet couldn't even just give him an injection to put him out of his misery. Instead, he had to have a sedative, followed by a big dose of anaesthetic which would effectively put him into a coma, then an injection straight into his heart. And all of that took ages. Tatiana the vet cried with me. Erica the wonderful receptionist hugged me. Napoleon died, less than a month short of his 5th birthday and I was there just as I was when he came into the world.
He'd been missing a couple of days, but it wouldn't be the first time, and even when he's turned up worse for wear, I've always been able to get him fixed at the vets. Not this time. He's used up all his lives it seems and I'm heartbroken all over again. I've lost 7 cats in less than a year now and ridiculous as it sounds, I'm now into single figures for the first time in about 3 years. Although there is one working his way into the gang right now, but that was going to be another story. I heard a kerfuffle outside the other night but no sounds of feline distress, dogs scuffling for sure and one yelped, so I hope that one got a good scratch for his/her trouble as I'm now pretty sure that was when the fatal wound was inflicted. If only he had come home straight away; I've been looking for him and calling him but not a peep, not this time, but breath is hard to come by with a punctured lung. I tried again today when I got home from the market, and minutes later I saw him on the bank under his favourite tree, called him and watched him fall down the last few inches. I went to pick him up wondering what he'd done THIS time, and ended up rushing him to the vet immediately. Breathless, muddy, wounded and stinking already. Has to have been hiding out somewhere too exhausted to make it home, but he was trying today. If only I'd looked harder.
This is a country where a lot of bad things happen to animals generally, and cats get a pretty rough deal as hardly anyone seems to care about them as much as dogs. so in a way it's helped me see my lot as a bit of a rescue mission. If you've followed the story of how I got them all, the Spanish lot just mobbed me and moved in unasked, and Napoleon and his two sisters and his aunty came back with me after a trip to the UK when Ellie moved into a flat. They did seem to settle very well and like it here despite the dangers. Black cats are particularly vulnerable which has been a bit of a bugger since I've had at most 7 of those. Now I'm down to two and one of those hates me. (Stumpy the not so ex-wild cat and brother of Nelson who doted on Napoleon when he was growing up and followed him round clearly seeing him as a role model. The latest one to try to move in is presently doing the same to Nelson.)
So Napoleon was born on a Sunday in Ilkeston in Derbyshire, on the landing outside my bedroom at Ellie's house, along with his four siblings, two of whom got rehomed and I got the rest a year later. When I left, he was days old and blind. Next visit he was a naughty bundle of fluff and the three of them commandeered my bed at night. In fact he disgraced himself by piddling on it and even poohing on it, which got him properly shouted at and he hid under Ellie's arm and gave me a very temporary wide berth. They were totally delightful, the three which were left and I was sorry to leave them. Next visit I found myself taking people to the vets and getting mircochips and a whopping great travel cage which filled the back of the van, and off we went to Spain. I got stopped at the border between France and Spain and asked what I had in the back. "Books and cats", I replied, so they said "Show us", bemused, amused, they said "ok!" and on we went.
They settled in very quickly and established rights over the indoors whilst the Spanish lot stayed outside. Napoleon did a runner a couple of times, came home staggering once, trip to the vets, came home with a bite which got infected, trip to the vets, found him in a ditch with a noose round his neck, trip to the vets and didn't let him out of my sight for days (nor did he want to go for a while); when missing could usually be found down by the river amongst the bamboo menacing the frogs, developed a good line in emerging to follow me if I went past on my way out and had to be carted home and shut in on more than one occasion. Survived moving three times since then and had settled into a nice routine of up the bank, in the big fig tree and pulling faces at Irene's cats down the road who properly thought it was their tree since they were there first, aided and abetted the murdering of birds and mice and generally lived the life, occasionally took up night-time residence on my bed as recently as last week but there is always a bit of a problem over who's territory the left side of the bed is. Mostly it's who got there first although Nelson begs to differ. His last escapade of note in this house was me rushing him to the vets convinced he was bleeding only to find nothing wrong with him and it was blood from the latest murdered rodent which I hadn't seen at the time.
So, he's had a pretty good life I suppose but like kids, you still feel responsible and when you let them out there unsupervised you never fully relax. He was a big lad and right softie. I'd like to remember him as the naughty kitten and young cat he was but sadly that is now eclipsed by a big black furry boy on a blanket at the vets with his life ebbing away with each tortured breath, and at moments like these I fully undertsand how people can do violence in retribution. My mind says I wish I had a gun and those dogs wouldn't ever hurt another cat, but I haven't and I wouldn't. I am angry and upset and I think their owner should have been there and had to watch my cat die. He should be paying the vet and he should be muzzling his dogs. Keeping them in all day and letting them out for a walk twice a day off the lead is not working - they run, he can't keep up with them. They don't stay with him. He has to know what they have done, like last time, but he isn't about to come and tell me, clearly keeping his head down again. Last time I forgave him, since then we have railings and the terrrace is dog proof at least, and all winter I have kept a window open on both floors at all times so that a cat in need of escape can get inside the house. The windows downstairs are at street (or dog) level, and obviously the cats are not always going to be behind those railings or indoors. I can't express myself properly in Spanish to say what I feel so I've asked for help to do so - they have to be on leads, or muzzled when out, or I'll denounce him. After that the police visit and next time action is taken and you can guess what that means. Ironic, in a place where most of my friends are involved in rescuing dogs and indeed I support their work, that dogs are the single biggest threat to my cats. I'm not sure I can be so forigiving this time, he has to be aware of what happened but instead of coming to tell me, he has kept his head down and said nothing. My sympathy for his empoverished lifestyle and cramping living conditions cannot overtake the need for him to take responsibility for his murdering dogs. It's going to be a while until I can let go of the grief, again. This is not new, this is not fun. Yes there are 9 left now and probably a 10th as it looks as though Teddy is going to stay, and Nelson had better step up to his new role as senior lad. And I hope the lot of them learn to be even quicker and more alert.
It would be a shame not to have a look at the lad in better days; he was a gorgeous great big boy.
