Failing Feline

Our homestead cat Cecil seems to be, as the saying goes, “on his last legs.” His age is uncertain, because we selected him as an adult, at the local animal shelter, over 11 years ago. He might be 15? Maybe more. That's a reasonably long lifetime for a feline. Over the last couple of years he's been demonstrating that his time is running out. He's been failing at his homestead duties: keeping rodents at bay. His cognitive abilities—never very impressive—have been failing also.

He appears to be suffering from some kind of feline dementia, among other possible ills. He wanders about the house aimlessly, frequently pausing, as if he's lost his train of thought. Was he about to eat, or scratch, or lie down, or go outside? Wandering across the floor, he'll change his direction suddenly, as if an opposing thought pops into mind. I'm trying hard to avoid calling him a dumb cat. 

We humans adopt a wide variety of critters whose minds are quite diminutive and then project onto them cognitive abilities that are far beyond what they're capable of. For example, a few decades ago some people even wanted to ascribe emotions to their pet rock.

So our resident feline has been delivering the message that his health—both physical and mental—is failing. As we would do for any member of our human family, we've tried to do for Cecil: allowing his increasing eccentricities to be. The process has often tested our patience—as well as his. He recently crossed a line that saw us choosing to designate him as a full-time outdoor cat—primarily in an attempt to preserve our sanity, as he demanded to go out or come back in, for what seemed to be more than a dozen times a day. Shortly after crossing through the doorway, he'd look around in confusion, and quickly demand to go back. In addition, he'd occasionally decorate a corner of the house with a deposit of cat poop. The urge probably came upon him too quickly to take it outdoors. It simplifies things for all of us, if he remains outside.

Cecil is slowly wasting away. He eats a fraction of what he once consumed, sleeps most of the time, keeps close to the house, and gets skinnier each day. We pet him to comfort him, noting every protruding bone on his scrawny body. His coat is disheveled and dirty looking. He's loosing hair. He no longer does much grooming. Fortunately, he does not exhibit any signs of pain. He simply looks confused. His meow—once loud and insistent—is now soft and pleading.

In other words, we have been engaged in a kind of death watch—hoping that Cecil, with the assistance of Mother Nature, will soon decide to let go and peacefully pass away. He's taking much longer than we expected. (Longer than we wished?)

As another incredible example of Cecil's decline, last evening I looked out the window, noting that he was in his current favorite position: lying on his side, dozing on the patio. When we see him recumbent and lying so still, we often pause to see if we can discern him breathing... to see if that spark of life is still present. What caught my eye at that moment was a bird—a titmouse—furiously pecking away at Cecil's back. How bizarre! A bird assaulting a cat? Was this bird expressing some sort of death wish? I quickly saw that the bird was collecting nesting material, as its bill was getting crammed with cat fur. My God! Cecil had died, and the bird was the first scavenger to come calling!

I went outside for a closer look, just as Cecil demonstrated that he still possessed a spark of life. He suddenly awakened, and turned around startled, as the bird flew off with a beakful of cat hair. Cecil looked at me, slowly turned back, and again fell into deep sleep. I guess his demise will wait for another day... and maybe another nesting bird.

[Postmortem: Cecil did finally pass away a few days ago. He died in our arms, peacefully.]