05/12/2025
Hello, Everyone. It’s been a while. A lot has happened lately, primarily sad news.
This post is about Rosie, a friend’s cat that I have been watching for a long time, while he travels for contracts.
On Monday afternoon, May 5th, I found Rosie on the side of the house, injured. I rushed her to the vet to find that she was in critical condition. We theorized she’d been attacked, possibly by a bird of prey. She was hospitalized there, then later transferred to an animal hospital for overnight care. The next day, she was taken back to the vet making small improvements, but just as quickly regressed. Rosie’s condition worsened to the point that there was nerve damage, and it would’ve taken too much time, money, and care to not even guarantee that she’d make a substantial recovery. My friend and I made the tough call to end her suffering, on Tuesday afternoon, May 6th.
Speaking from my experience, Rosie was a difficult cat. She preferred people over animals, but over the years, I’ve seen her change so much! That 1 year old cat vs the almost 6 year old cat of today? Totally different. Our relationship took work and time to craft: she liked to be pet a certain way, at certain times—eventually I was able to read her body language and we figured out how to coexist. Over the years, she grew a tolerance to dogs since I had Zeus & Odin, boarded and did daycare. She grew curious about the outdoors, since she saw the boys go out a lot. Rosie was brave and tried new things. I realized she was rather talkative when comfortable, so I would mimic her sounds by rolling my tongue at her. She’d acknowledge by flicking her tail, even when half asleep. I used this technique to either call her, to let her know I was nearby, or that I was wanting to pet her. Depending on her response, she’d let me know if I had her permission. She didn’t like being picked up, but suddenly would jump in my lap, climb up my left shoulder, hanging on with her front paws, and would have me cradle her lower half like a baby. She’d make herself comfortable and purr away, without a care in the world.
In her final hours, even when she was struggling, I’d still make that trill sound to let her know that I was close by, and she’d still acknowledge me with her tail. I didn’t want her to be alone, so I did my best to cradle her without hurting her…and then…she was gone. Just like that.
I have never experienced euthanizing a pet, and I won’t mince words, for me it was traumatizing, on top of finding her in her wounded condition. I knew she meant a lot to me, but losing her really proved how much. Though she wasn’t my cat, I still felt that she was. It was a relationship that took patience and actual work to figure out. This month was her birthday, and she would’ve been 6. I will miss her so much—it was too soon for her to go. I hope she made it to the Happy Place and will know peace. Thank you Rosie for being in my life, for all the memories, and allowing me to care for you.
Also thank you to Fort Smith Animal Emergency Clinic for keeping her overnight and offering to go out of your way to help take her back to the vet, when I wasn’t able to. Thank you to Best Friends Pet Clinic, as well, for doing what you could for her, being transparent of her condition, and helping my friend and I through this difficult time.
I will have a few more posts in the future, one in honor of another client that we lost, and an update on Mellow, who I have been “fostering” for 2 months now.
