This happened a few months past, but funny none the less. I was home visiting mother (shortly after the last post after she had been discharged home). Again, this is not for the faint of heart as this post can be icky for those not used to bodily discharge.
Now, I am a farm kid and with that comes experiences. You grow up loving animals, naming your piglets (forgetting which one you named later that day because...well... they all look the same), picking out your favorite puppy out of a litter, rejoicing when a mama cat has kittens. Then something changes (well for me it did). You start realizing that that piglet becomes the onry pig refusing to go into the trailor at 6:00 a.m. before you have to leave for school and his smell does not come off your hands even with multiple washings; that puppy turns into a dog that grows grape sized ticks, shed all over, slobber on your favorite jeans, loves to hunt skunks (bringing home their smell), and not long after you get him, gets hit by a car/tractor/grain truck; and those cute kittens reproduce like bunnies!!! So needless to say, animals in general are not my favorite thing. Again, no offense to animal lovers :-/
On of my childhood cats 'Boots' has managed to survive the farm for a good 15? years. And by survived I mean he still has a couple teeth left (though rotted), 1/2 an ear on each side (thanks to various fights and most thanks to frostbite), a rotten stomach, and has managed to live through all the ridicule of having excessive saliva... drooling on EVERYTHING!! But he did enjoy his excursions- trips to who-knows-where. But in the last few years, his 'excursions' increased from day trips, to weekend trips, to week-long trips, to month-long trips, even a two-monther! using my parents house as, essentially, a Bed & Breakfast 'come in after his excursion, sleep for 10 hours, eat, and then leave again'. Until this last fall when 4 months past and there was no sign of him. We all said our good-byes (ok... not really) and their other cat 'Maddy' was happy for all the attention.
After 4 months, my cousin visited an uncle down the road and saw Boots! Alive and well! He had decided to live with my uncle who very willingly gave him back. So my parents took him back. He had aged, now throwing up, pooping in the house, really showing the signs of his age, drooling even more. Mom had found more abcesses (which if you have never dealt with this, its disgusting!!) doctored him up using her fantastic nursing skills.
I was home with mom when she was discharged from the hospital which required some 'doctoring' from me as she needed wound changes on her stomach twice a day. I thankfully have worked in a hospital in rehab for 3 years and don't get grossed out very easily at all so took on the task easily, changing her dressings, getting her breakfast/lunch/dinner.
One of those days, I look over to Boots coming down the hallway only to see him scratch his neck and chunks of fur/skin go flying and something spray all over. I went over to him and saw nasty goo flowing from an abcess in his neck. I yell (of course) MOM!!! BOOTS RIPPED OPEN HIS NECK AND THERE IS GOO RUNNING ALL OVER!!!! Meanwhile gagging. She told me I had to wash it up with peroxide and put stuff on it. I went over to him to look closer only to gag harder. How is it that I could tolerate changing dressing on my mom that morning which had goo running out of her, but the minute it comes from a cat....? No, I tell her. Can't do it. She said to wrap him up and bring him to her. So I grabbed a towel, wrapped him up, bring him to her and she said 'Yep, nope, that's bigger than I'm willing to do.' Understandibly so as she has an open wound and does not want infection anywhere near.
So she calls our vet who conveniently does not have any openings while I'm trying to stuff him into a cat carrier (which by the way, need to be bigger!), yelling at him to quit wiggling. I finally get the door shut and he begins his 'annoyed cry' which does not stop!!! Its like the monotone teacher that gets stuck on one word. My mom calls another vet who does have an opening but would have to charge us for a 1st visit (rediculous amount of money) but we make the appointment anyway. I look at mom with a look of sad disgust and tell her that it really is ok if she wants to put him down (not sure why she needed my permission since he hasn't been my cat for 10 years) but she got a look of relief on her face. We decided it was the right thing to do as she would have to do the cleaning and putting ointment on him after I left and didn't want to do that with the open wound herself.
So I go to the vet with him meowing angrily in the back seat. I turn the music up. We get to the vet and I tell her that we've decided to put him down instead as he's getting old and has rotten teeth and bad stomach, etc, etc. and she gives me the 'feel good' information about how they put animals down. So she asks if I would like him to be cremated and put in a box for me to take home. I almost laughed (apparently they really do that). I said no. She asked if I just wanted to take him home and bury him. I said no (that's a lot of work). I said that they can just do whatever they do with them (I'm really not sentimental, at all...) So she's filling out the bill and $45 for the euthenasia and $48 for 'group cremation' I said 'WHAT?! 48 bucks to have you take care of him?! And its free if I take him? Ok, fine, I'll take him' So she does it and hands me the box. 'I put him back in a sleeping position' '...ah, ok...' (really?!)
I put him in my backseat thinking 'now what am I going to do with him?' This was my first stop for errands... So I make my 2nd stop, then my 3rd-to a grocery store where I was sent on a wild goose chase by my mother for groceries including something she was craving- Bramble-Berry Tea (which apparently they don't sell anymore!) but being the good daughter I am, I look, and look again, and look again because she's sure its there! I finally tell her 'Mom! There is dead cat in my backseat!! How bad do you need that tea?!?!' Good point. By the 4th stop, my car was starting to smell as if something was... well.. rotting in the back seat.
I get home with box in hand. Now what? Mom said dad could dig a hole with the skid-loade when he gets home. So I wait. He gets home at 9:00... only to have to go to work the next morning at 5:30 a.m. I couldn't ask him. So my cousin stops by to say hi. He walks in the door, starts taking off his boots. I hand him a beer and say 'don't get too comfortable, we gotta go bury puppa-cat' So we grab our beers and shovels and the box and head out back. (No we're not from the country...)
We both start breaking ground and he (who has obviously dug more holes than I) was making a lot more headway and since he was doing such a great job and I obviously was more in the way, I stepped back.... and held the flashlight. After we (well... he..) got the hole dug, we put Boots in, filled in the hole. He asked 'any last words?' as I was stomping the sod back in.
"Whelp, see ya later" Hehe. I do give him credit. He was a good cat, I mean, not bad for a cat.. :)
What I learned that day? When putting a cat down, make that your last errand stop of the day.
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