I was at the club the other playing Scrabble with some friends. Sounds cosy doesn’t it? Sometimes I do activities other than working on the website you know ;).
Anyway, a friend of mine, an old gentleman, said he wanted to get a cat again. He’d had a cat years ago and missed him. He likes cats, which came as no surprise to me. You can tell who the cat lovers are can’t you?
He said his wife also liked cats. So what was the problem? There are cats all over the place who’d love to live with this guy.
He told me his wife wouldn’t get a cat again because she couldn’t go through the difficulties of a cat dying. My friend would probably die before the cat but his wife, being younger, would outlive their cat. She would have to go through that tough time when a cat dies.
As cats have a lifespan that is a fraction of the human’s we are bound to have to suffer the emotional torment of losing our beloved cat – if we love cats. I guess some cat owners don’t really love cats. They want to get rid of them.
That got me thinking. I understand the sentiment. I have lost two cats, one to an accident and the other to old age. I am yet to get over the first loss despite it happening almost 20 years ago. When my old lady cat was dying it was agony for me and her I guess. She was better at it than me, though. The whole emotional roller coaster spanned about 9 months before she died and it still hurts now after her death more than a year ago.
An added trauma with really caring for a cat is struggling with that most difficult of decisions: when to gently put her to sleep if that is the best course of action.
But are we to succumb to those emotions and allow them to present a barrier to adopting a cat that needs a home? A person who suffers when their cat dies will be a very good cat caretaker. There are lots of cats who need a very good cat caretaker. Good cat guardians/caretakers are a precious resource to be used.
Death is a part of life. Being sad is also a part of life. We need to accept these things. I feel that people are unwilling to accept sadness in a world that has difficulty in accepting the difficult bits of life. It is like depression. Back in the old days people called it being sad or melancholy. Today it is a medical condition requiring treatment – drugs. This is wrong.
My argument is that my friend’s wife is wrong. I am not being critical. I am sensitive to her feelings. When we adopt a cat we do it for the life of the cat. We factor in all the things that are going to happen including, the joys, the expense, the worry and the sadness when she passes on to a better world. It’s a bundle of emotions called living. We are able to adopt the right mindset to travel that journey. And the joy vastly outweighs the sadness.
Animals just don’t have a lifespan as long as ours, unless they are a tortoise or a large parrot like a macaw. It’s important to photograph your pets frequently during their lifetime so you will always have the memories of the good times you had with that pet. I too have loved and lost many pets; cats, dogs, horses, and even snakes. All of them died at ripe old ages too. My old Thoroughbred horse died at 34 years of age–his passing was very hard—not only that he was elderly, but it was also the realization that I was getting older too, and would someday leave this world myself. I do have other horses now (minis), and other cats and dogs. Time goes on, we can’t stop it, but there should always be room in your heart to love another pet when one passes.
If I had not befriended Monty I know he would have died before me. He’d be dead already. I never managed to catch his sisters who lived wild for a time outside. Doubtless they are dead now. Which will hurt more? The knowledge that cats I failed to help died before me or having Monty die before me after living a long and happy life with me? That cat is probably going to die before you do in either case. Don’t give him a home and he dies after a short, hard little life. Maybe some people can live with that. I’d rather live knowing I made the life of a cat better and longer than it would have been.
I meant to say the resident is unlikely to outlive the cat. I know of one case where the cat’s caretaker died and the cat was given to another resident, a very lonely man who really needed a furry friend. But if the cat dies it is true that the humans in that situation can comfort each other. It would be a shared loss.
Interesting comment. It makes me think about true “community cats”. If a cat can share human companions that would seem to me to ease the difficulties of loss when the cat dies.
Some nursing homes allow the residents to have cats. Twice now I’ve worked with a resident for physical therapy who has a cat. One for sure I know has his claws, which I was happy to see. I’m not sure about the other one. Back claws for sure, but I didn’t see front ones. Doesn’t mean they weren’t there. That’s my biggest concern when nursing homes have cats or a resident in the nursing home has a cat– that someone will have thought the responsible thing to do is to declaw the cat. That’s just cruel and wrong. But otherwise, having animals around is great. In the nursing home setting the resident is likely to outlive the cat, who can then go to a different resident. The cats seem to give the elderly people a new lease on life. The nursing home I was working at today has a resident dog. He is not declawed. Why should any resident cat be? But maybe I am making too much of that, because I don’t know for sure that any cat I’ve seen in a nursing home was declawed and one for sure was not.
Lora, I hope your nursing home has visiting cats allowed. They bring much comfort.