Last week, I was reading the PostSecret blog when I came across this postcard:
It hit me “right in the feels,” as they say.
I can’t remember any time I actually didn’t stay with my cats as they were euthanized. I’ve always felt like it’s my responsibility as a cat guardian to be with my furry friends until they draw their last breath. It’s heartbreaking, yes, but when you’ve shared a life with your cat friend, it’s worth the tears to see them off on their journey to wherever cats’ souls go after they die.
I did it with Dahlia. I did it with Siouxsie. And I did it with my first-ever cat, Castor.
Castor’s euthanasia was particularly heartbreaking. We had adopted him and his brother, Pollux, from the animal shelter on my 13th birthday. They were both kittens at the time, and, as was usual back in the early 1980s, they were both indoor-outdoor cats. Pollux was the first to suffer from his outdoor life: I went out to wait for the school bus one morning and I found his body by the side of the road. He’d been hit by a car the night before.
Castor, on the other hand, grew up to be a robust tomcat who probably fathered quite a few kittens in the neighborhood. He was a scrapper, too, and he often came back with scratches and the occasional abscess. But back then, we didn’t think much of it. We just cleaned out his abscesses and looked upon the chip he got taken out of his ear as a badge of honor. Again, back then it really wasn’t a thing to spay or neuter your cats. When our little calico, Iris, had litters, we found good homes for them and went on our merry way.
Looking back, I’m surprised that I didn’t imagine life for cats to be any different, despite Bob Barker’s repeated exhortations after every episode of The Price Is Right: “We’ll see you next time, and don’t forget to have your pet spayed or neutered.”
In any case, when Castor was about 10 years old, he began getting recurrent mouth infections. He’d get better on antibiotics, but as soon as the antibiotics were discontinued, the infection would come back again. Both my family and the vet thought this was odd, and after several rounds of this, the vet recommended that we test him for this new disease called feline immunodeficiency virus. Back then we called it “kitty AIDS” because, well, it was the early 1990s and the AIDS crisis was still making news. And AIDS was caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, so it just kind of made sense.
I’d moved away from home after I graduated from college, and I was living with friends in another city. Mom called me one day and said that Castor hadn’t been doing too well. I came back to visit with him and found out that “not doing too well” was an understatement. He barely moved from where he was sitting, and he hissed and growled when I tried to pet him. I cried as I looked at him, thin and pain-wracked, and I knew what I had to do. And since he was my cat, I was going to take care of it.
I called the vet, I made the appointment, and I took him there.
Back then, they didn’t do all the preliminary insertion of the catheter and sedating before the euthanasia drug was administered. Instead, it was just an injection of the drug directly into a vein. Castor fought the injection–no matter how sick he was, there was still some part of him that wanted to live, I guess–but I knew I couldn’t let him suffer any longer. “I love you, Castor!” I said with tears in my eyes as he died before me. It was heartbreaking and gut-wrenching in every possible way, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I took his body home and we buried him at the family homestead. But not before I spent half an hour crying in the car before I could drive anywhere.
I’ve sat with two other cats as they were euthanized: Dahlia and Siouxsie. The experiences were light years different from my experience with Castor.
With Siouxsie, on the other hand, euthanasia was more of a sacred occasion. I’d originally thought of having it done at home, but I just couldn’t bring myself to have her die in my living room. My friend Carmen took Siouxsie and me to the veterinarian’s office. I brought her favorite blanket with me. The vet tech took me into a dimly lit exam room with another blanket on the table. As I took care of the business end of things, the tech brought her into the treatment area and placed the catheter in her foreleg.
Then the vet came in and gave came the sedative. I hugged her and held her on my lap as the sedative took effect. I had time to tell her how much I loved her and how grateful I was that she’d been a part of my life.
Carmen took this photo of me giving Siouxsie one last hug and kiss.
This was the last time we’d spend together as “mama” and cat–at least this time around. I made a point of remembering all the good and wonderful things about the 19 years we’d had together and thanked her for getting me through some of the hardest times in my life, too.
I stay for euthanasia because I want the closure. I need to know for sure that my cat is dead and isn’t half-alive somewhere and wondering where her person went. I stay because I want the last thing my cat to feel is me gently stroking them as they sink into the sleep from which they won’t wake up. I stay because I believe it’s my responsibility to do so.
Not everybody can stay during a euthanasia, though. I’m not going to lie, it’s freaking hard to do, to watch your beloved cat die. So no judgment from me if you’re one of the people who has to leave the room. I’m just saying, I stay and that’s why.
Do you stay during your cat’s euthanasia? If so, why do you choose to do it? What’s it been like for you? Let’s talk in the comments.
We stayed for our Cory and it was heartbreaking but the right thing to do. Thanks for a very thoughtful take on this topic.
I stayed with both my girls, Tippear, then Purrscilla. Both had been thrown away and both chose me in their own ways. They had been abandoned in life and I could not abandon them at the end. I felt my Mom brush past, taking each of them, and I know I’ll see them again. Going home with an empty carrier (I had them privately cremated, so they could come home), one less dish at mealtime, the absence of cuddles and purrs, the huge void in my life – unbearable, except I realized that releasing them from their suffering was the ultimate “I love you”. And then, in time, another cat in need of a loving home would find his or her way into my life. I will always love my girls and will never stop missing them, but the lessons they taught me and the love they shared with me made it all worthwhile.
I trapped our friendly feral Sammy, because his mouth was messed up. The vet said he was in a bad way, and even if she could fix his mouth in a dental, there was no way to administer medication. So, his euthanization was a surprise and the first one I’d done. I held him and cried in his fur. When a co-worker’s cat was ailing, she had no family in town and I went with her. A kitten, who was never going to see his first birthday. Then, our Chuck was diagnosed with a bad heart. We cared for him for a couple of years, then he stopped eating. The Hubby could not/would not be present for Chuck’s end, and they didn’t give him that first shot; just one long, slow push. Chuck drew a breath, and I almost lost it. That wasn’t pleasant, and I won’t go back to that vet clinic ever, ever again. If they are part of my household, then I’ll hold their hand or paw during their last moments. That’s love.
How can you not stay? You owe it to them to hold their paw and give them comfort. Tears are OK.
We just euthanized Shmuzie, our beloved 10 y/o flame point Siamese. We got him right after my husband died, and he was our consolation in those very dark days. Our three boys were only 7, 8, and 10, so that kitten slept w/them and soaked up their tears. When IBS took him from us, and we watched him lose 1/3 of his weight & begin to isolate? I made the call & rounded up all the boys. We chose to hold him & love on him as the sedative was administered. I would want to die like Shmuzie died, knowing only love until the end.
I had to put to sleep my ocicat Ziva last September about a week shy of when she would turn 14 months old due to having lost our battle with FIP. It was heart-wrenching, but I felt it was the final act of love I could give her.
I’ve always stayed with my animals. My vet came came to my house when my dog (1996) could no longer stand (macKenzie husky). All my kitties, I’ve stayed and then had cremated. I make a shroud with a pretty piece of fabric from a fabric store (1/2 to 3/4 yd), and a flower tucked in between their front paws.
Because I live 3 hrs from my vet, my CRD kitty of 8 yrs died on my chest in his sleep in the wee hours of the morning after he’d had a stroke that day (I’d been gone all day). That was uber hard for me but he was pretty much in a coma state.
Euthaniza is a gift we can help our babies with especially when they’re suffering.
Four of my cats have passed at home, “naturally”. Vince had diabetes and oral squamous cell carcinoma. The night before, I dropped his insulin bottle and it shattered on the tile floor. It was a sign. The next morning, I went to see him in the bathroom (he needed to be isolated at that point). I heard him stand up the next morning to greet me, then a clunk. He’d collapsed. I called in to work and stayed with him. It was peaceful. I suspect he was in a coma.
Zander was 18.5 and Ophelia was 21. They died a year apart in July and they were simple: I went to work and they were fine; came home from work to find them “heading out”, already half-gone, so I just stayed with them until they left.
Blue’s was the hardest. CKD. Developed breathing issues. ER said he needed to stay overnight in the oxygen tank but I was too broke. I could barely afford the fee to get in the door. My vet the next morning said it was time. I couldn’t do it. I took him home and we had a horrible weekend. I put him through five days of suffering, gasping for air. The day I made up my mind to end it, I came home and as with Oph and Zander, he was already half-gone. The vet was already closed. The ER a half hour away. I was not going to make a panicked drive with a dying cat and have him die that way. It was the hardest death I’ve ever seen, and I’ve regretted it every day since 2014.
So when Stanley declined sharply this past week, I suppose in the back of my mind I knew what the outcome would be of this vet visit. He was five. Just turned five. He’d been diagnosed with herpes when I took him in for the once-over before introducing him to the “general population” after he turned up on my deck and I mistook him for a different kitten I’d been planning to bring inside. He developed stomatitis, had an FME, was on antibiotics and steroids until March of 2018 when we switched the steroid to Famciclovir. Every time we discontinued antibiotics, he’d flare up. There were high fevers. Hospitalizations. And then in October, the “routine flare” turned into “his kidneys are done, it’s time to PTS”.
But I looked in his eyes and I saw fight, so the vet gave him something to “boost him” over the weekend, cautioning that he didn’t expect him to still be here 24 hours later. Stanley kept eating, drinking, looking terrible, but TRYING. I gave fluids as advised. Within a week he developed CHF–I’d nearly killed him. The NEW vet I took him to diagnosed HCM, CKD and severe anemia. She tried a Hail Mary and the CHF cleared up without killing his kidneys. And so we adjusted his meds, added a couple new ones, and he bounced back and was FINE, save for a minor flare on New Year’s Eve after withholding the 100mg Doxycycline for a few days “to see how he did”. The vet upped his dosages even more, and he bounced back within a week.
And he was doing great.
And then all of a sudden he wasn’t. Even the meds weren’t helping. Then I couldn’t get meds into him because he’d just dribble out the food and not eat.
He looked worse than ever. His buddies made him the stuffing in a cat sandwich on the sofa–I should have recognized, they were protecting him from predators. I took him to the vet. The CKD was off the charts. The only treatment was IV fluids. But he had no RBCs. He was that anemic. Pushing fluids would flush out any remaining RBCs, and the only possible way to MAYBE save him would be blood transfusions, steroids, and fluids, and steroids and HCM and CKD don’t mix. Especially in a cat who had lost so much weight and muscle mass he was down to four pounds. Without treatment, he had maybe another week.
Remembering Blue’s excruciating death from CKD and breathing issues, I couldn’t put Stanley through this for a few more days just to let him go naturally. It would be cruel.
And so I asked him if it was OK if I released him. He mustered up one slow blink and a woeful meow.
That was Thursday. It was the hardest and the easiest thing to do. When he passed, an immense vibration of joyful relief flooded the examination room.
On the way home from dropping him off at the crematorium I use, a car entered my lane and I almost drove off the road when I saw the license plate:
LUV BLUE
It felt like Blue was telling me he had Stanley now, it was all OK, and this time, I passed the test.
It’s so hard to go through the deaths of multiple cat friends. Sometimes it seems like a “natural” death can be real suffering, and sometimes it seems like it isn’t. And what a lovely message from Blue, too. <3