Cubby

This is Cubby on the left and Pebbles on the right. They were sisters. They came from the same mom, but from two different litters. Today I had to say goodbye to Cubby. She was 16 almost 17. I was hoping I would have her around for at least a year or two more but she started to decline about a week ago. This was not good considering I just lost Kid. She began crying constantly...loud...really loud. When the vet called with an update he said, "We got a sampling of that meowing you were referring to and boy that sure is a meow!" According to the vet her blood work looked exactly like Kid's blood work. Her kidneys had gone haywire.

Cubby was the most dog-like cat you would have ever met. One time she ate an onion off a piece of pizza. Whenever dinner was cooking she was in the kitchen looking for scraps. If you called her she would come running to you, anywhere in the house. She was solid gray, but she had the coolest glistening shade of silver on her snout and the contrast against the solid black of her nose was really cool. She was also the friendliest, easiest, and bravest cat I have ever met. Maybe because she was littlest of the bunch and had to be scrappy. Although strangely enough when Duke came along about two years ago, Cubby had the hardest time adapting. She hid out for about two months and wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. The few times they did run into each other during those few months she would howl and hiss almost to a spit. It was shocking because we thought she would take to him right away. When she finally got over it and learned to accept him they were total buddies, totally. He would try to play with her, but because he was pretty much ten times bigger than she was he always was too rough and she would have to whack him a couple times in the face. Mostly though, she would rub up against him so he could nudge her with his snout, back and forth, back and forth. She couldn't get enough of him. I keep looking for a cat, any cat. I'll catch an object out of the corner of my eye and when I look it's either one of Jake's toys or one of the dog's towels on the floor. There is still kitty stuff all over...their food plates, their bed, the kitty litter. Everywhere I look is a reminder of them and yet there isn't one cat left. I don't seem to understand it all and now I'm concerned, pretty convinced that it is something in the walls and we have some sort of toxic problem.

My nerves are now officially fried.