… is when it’s time to say goodbye. RIP Harry Paget Flashman, 2003-2017.
Our cat population has now shrunk down to a single, elderly survivor (that’s Ash in the right foreground … he’s 17 now). Ash is now partially deaf and quite frail and had been looking less and less interested in life lately, and had developed an aversion to using the kitty litter, so we’ve been trying to prepare ourselves to say goodbye to him. Instead, around midnight on Sunday, it was Harry who suddenly needed to be taken to the emergency vet for evaluation. We’d had him in for treatment of a urinary blockage last fall, and it seemed that the problem was back. The vet was unwilling to operate on an elderly cat for this, given that Harry had also developed a heart murmur, so we crossed our fingers that the (expensive) treatment wouldn’t be necessary again. That was not to be, so we had to make the decision for euthanasia rather than put him through more stress and pain with no guarantee that the problem wouldn’t be back in a week’s time.