Beech Tree News Network

Our pets are part of our family.  Our pets understand.  Whatever our mood, our pets are always there.  They’re there to comfort.  They can and will instantly put you in a good mood when things are going rotten.  Plain and simple, our pets are our friends. 
Last Wednesday, I lost my friend.  He was my 17 year-old cat. His name was, appropriately, Buddy.  Check out this serendipitous story.  In 1998, we were having my great grandmother’s house painted.  One day, we heard a repetitive little kitten meow.  I mean it was so nonstop you wonder how this little kitty harnessed all this energy.
He was the cutest and tiniest gray kitty we’d ever seen.  One of the painters remarked that, if the kitty were still there by day’s end, he’d take him home as his own.  We weren’t having any of that.  If we were going to keep the little fella, we had to think of something to call him. 
We thought of every name in the book (assuming there is indeed a book).  We called that cat everything.  We couldn’t think of anything that we liked.  So, it was always “hey buddy” this and “hey buddy” that.  Even though it was a bit blasé, we decided on calling him Buddy. 
The first thing we had to do when he was of age, and for the sake of the furniture, not to mention ourselves, was to take him to the vet and get him declawed.  Buddy was a fun kitten.  He soon grew wider the older he got.  I mean, this cat liked to eat! Poultry was his game.  He couldn’t get enough.  Obviously it was to our discretion to decide when he’d had enough.  And of course, he never agreed.  Oh, and he grew to love popcorn.  He was certainly a people cat.  We love our pets as if they were humans, you can’t deny.  And what’s wrong with that? So, Buddy always got his fill, in moderation of course, of chicken, turkey, tuna, popcorn.  And he drank like a fish: only water. No RC for cats. 
A few years ago, Buddy got a nagging cold: sneezing, hacking, wheezing and all that accompanies.  Our plump friend also began losing weight.  What little he would eat, he wouldn’t keep down for long.  To say I was getting worried would be an understatement.  But hey, you can only do what is prescribed by your vet, just like a human can only do for themselves what is prescribed by their doctor.
He didn’t like his medicine.  In fact, I remember him running off under the bed after we finally caught him and fed it to him.  He’d stay hidden for a bit until finally re-emerging.  At this point, Buddy had gotten slower in his movements.  He didn’t run anymore, just a slow stalk.  The addition of our kitten Ruby did get him moving faster, mostly because she would jump him. 
The next thing that came was his equilibrium messing up, he didn’t walk straight.  His back toenail would get stuck in the carpet.  More than a few times I had to help him out.  Towards the end I became a pro at cleaning up accidents.  You couldn’t get mad at him.  Last Tuesday night, I knew time was growing short.  When I went to bed, poor guy couldn’t even stand up to get a drink of water.  He was laid down drinking out of the bowl.  So, we called the vet who happens to be family and asked her to come down.  I went in the pantry where he was and said my goodbyes.  My first post-Buddy popcorn snack that Friday felt a little weird. A cat living almost two decades is pretty remarkable, right? To think, some of the best years of my life were because the painter never came back to pick up that little kitten.  R.I.P Buddy.  You’re all better now.