Family Pets

For anyone who has ever had a pet, you know they play an important part in your life. They are your companion, your confidant, your comforter, your constant.

I don’t know anyone with a pet who hasn’t talked about how it feels to come home to a pet who is SO excited to see you. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been gone for 10 minutes or 10 hours – when you walk through the door you are greeted with unconditional love. This is more common with dogs than cats; but whenever I would sit down for more than 5 minutes, our dog and both cats would show up. It’s like an alarm would go off or something. The cutest part is when they figure out who gets to sit on my lap. Lately that honor always fell to Sam – our oldest animal who was also the alpha animal in our house. There was a certain amount of respect the other animals had for her that I can only assume was due to her age. 

She was born in a barn on a farm and we brought her to the city when she was old enough to leave her Mom. One of our funniest memories was when we introduced Sam to Bodhi, our 90-pound golden retriever. John was sitting on the couch with Sam on his chest and Bodhi walked over to sniff her. Poor Sam was so scared that in an instant John had kitten diarrhea all over the front of his shirt. Sam soon learned that Bodhi was a gentle giant and she would sleep curled up next to him. She would even attempt to clean him, a very large job for a very small cat. 

Sam was neutered and declawed but that didn’t stop her from wanting to be outside. She was great at catching mice; but luckily, she did not bring us presents. When we first let Sam outside, she stayed inside our fenced-in backyard. After a few months, she figured out how to jump up on the grill and over our 6-foot privacy fence. Sam would wander the neighborhood on occasion, but she really enjoyed laying on the sidewalk in front of our house where she could receive free pets and attention from people walking by. She even received a postcard from a neighbor who walked by our house and visited with her often. 

Sam was a talker. If you meowed back at her, she would “talk” for quite a while. The last two years Sam started losing weight (she was always a small cat – her top weight was around 6 pounds) and had trouble grooming herself. We switched her to soft food twice a day and I started brushing her and using a dry shampoo on her fur to help clean the areas she couldn’t groom any more. She loved to be brushed! 

A few weekends ago Sam stopped eating on a Friday and she died sometime Saturday night. I’m so sad that I wasn’t there to hug and comfort her, but our son said he just knew what was happening and he gave her lots of extra snuggles and pets. She was even purring Saturday night before he went to sleep. Sam had been with us for over 19 years. RIP sweet girl.