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#1
11-26-2007, 06:51 PM
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Re: I [censored] up
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] I'd say there's a very good possibility that he crawled under there to die before you closed it and that you didn't do anything at all. [/ QUOTE ] Hate to just QFT something, but this is very likely the case. Don't beat yourself up over it, especially considering the age of your cat and the effort you put into finding him. If he wanted to be found he would have made himself heard, or, in healthy catlike behavior, gone sprinting out of the door the moment you opened it. The mere fact that he stayed probably meant it was just his time. [/ QUOTE ] I agree. If he wasn't making all kinds of noise when you were poking around in the crawl space, it was probably already too late to help him (and it may have simply been his time, at his age). 
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#3
11-26-2007, 07:11 PM
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Re: I [censored] up
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] I'd say there's a very good possibility that he crawled under there to die before you closed it and that you didn't do anything at all. [/ QUOTE ] Hate to just QFT something, but this is very likely the case. Don't beat yourself up over it, especially considering the age of your cat and the effort you put into finding him. If he wanted to be found he would have made himself heard, or, in healthy catlike behavior, gone sprinting out of the door the moment you opened it. The mere fact that he stayed probably meant it was just his time. [/ QUOTE ] I agree. If he wasn't making all kinds of noise when you were poking around in the crawl space, it was probably already too late to help him (and it may have simply been his time, at his age). [/ QUOTE ] +1
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#4
11-27-2007, 12:07 AM
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Re: I [censored] up
Thank you all very much. It has been a really, really hard 24 hours for me. I thought that I killed Dante. Hell, I still might have. But everyone I've spoken to today, including animal rehabbers and vets, told me that there is basically no possible way he was healthy and trapped for any significant amount of time and I don't hear him. All the vents were open in the crawl space, and I live in a quiet space, and went outside many, many times calling for him. Everyone has told me that he had to be sick, and went off to find a quiet place. They told me he probably pulled down the insulation not because he was trying to get out, but because he was trying to make a nest.
I am still broken up. I wish that I had just gone under the house that day I noticed the crawl space door was open. Even if he was sick, he might still have been alive. I might have gotten him to the vet in time to save him. Now I'll never know. But I don't believe there was any way that he was trapped and healthy and I didn't hear him. He had to have been sick, sick enough to find a quiet dark place to pass away. Dante:  Goodbye old friend. I miss you terribly. I'm sorry I didn't find you in time, and that you had to go all alone in such a cold, dark place. I'm so lucky I had you for 13 great years.
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#5
11-27-2007, 01:46 AM
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Re: I [censored] up
Borodog,
Awesome posts. I think your big regret is that you weren't able to go about it on your terms, but look at it this way: it appears he did it on his. I know you would prefer last moments with him, but isn't this better than were he to suffer pain and be subjected to countless medications and the equivalent of what people go through with life support and such? We should envy being able to go out with such dignity. By the way, VERY cute cat. Just awesomely, perfectly black with bright green eyes and a nice shiny coat.
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#6
11-27-2007, 01:54 AM
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Re: I [censored] up
Boro,
I had to put my cat down 7 years ago. I would have much preferred if she had just found somewhere comfortable and familiar to die instead of a vet's office that scared the [censored] out of her.
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#9
11-27-2007, 08:49 PM
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Re: I [censored] up
[ QUOTE ]
Borodog, Awesome posts. I think your big regret is that you weren't able to go about it on your terms, but look at it this way: it appears he did it on his. [/ QUOTE ] I had a cat get poisoned once. I kept trying to comfort it. Stroke it, keep it warm against my body, just lay a hand on it so it wouldn't feel completely alone in its pain, anything that I imagined could feel comforting. Eventually I started to feel bad, in a way. No matter how gentle my touch, even when holding perfectly still, the cat kept squirming to try to get away. I finally more or less admitted to myself that the cat just wanted to die alone. However they face pain and fear and death, sharing it must make it worse. But for a long time in her dragged out death, I gave her no other choice. I think I may have made a good chunk of her last hours more painful rather than less. It didn't make me feel good about myself. Maybe my own feelings were more important to me than I realized at the time, and I was focusing too much on myself. If so, I didn't feel any better for it either, so my efforts weren't a success either way. If that happens again, I am going to try to let the animal's feelings direct me and not do anything as if I knew more than it did what would make it happiest. If it doesn't want me around, I'll just go. I think I'm probably a lot like the cat was too. I would feel worse dying if I knew I was pulling everyone down into sadness with me. I think I'd like to believe in a heaven for their sake, not mine, just so they wouldn't have to worry about me anymore. Maybe I'll pretend to have a deathbed conversion when the time is ripe, even though I'd really rather not be bothered. You can't choose the terms of somebody else's death, and it's probably bad to try to impose them anyway. It's probably the last thing they need at the time. Boro, there's an excellent chance that your cat chose the best possible death that was within its understanding, and in its own way found a kind of satisfaction in it that there's nothing you could do to provide anyway.
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#10
11-28-2007, 01:43 AM
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Re: I [censored] up
I just realized I didn't actually post it in my response above, but I definitely empathize with losing a pet.
Our cat had gotten sick last year in mid-November with some sort of urinary infection. We took it to the vet and it was clearly in a ton of pain. 10 days or so passed and the vet said that he should be getting better. Woke up Thanksgiving morning '06 and went downstairs and he had died lying in his little cushion that he liked to sleep in. I had to start Thanksgiving last year by burying our family cat. It was not pleasant, but much worse was seeing my mom bawling because of how close she had gotten to the cat that she originally found annoying a few years earlier. Definitely feel the sorrow for your situation, Boro. Hope things get better for you.
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