Laura reminded me that George had a good life. She saw him in a cage at Pet Smart. She likes the blond male cats. George reminded her of her Jarvis who had died. He wasn’t there when we returned but we hunted him down at a basement cat shelter.
A lovely women kept all these poor rejected boys and girls. The whole basement was a refugee camp for cats. George was there in the corner, a real scaredy cat. Terrified of everyone and everything, including his shadow.
Laura loved him.
I prefer female cats and cats without the schizophrenic unloved wild dangerous look. Laura and her love of bad boys.
She brought him home and he was mean. Jesse James all guns blazing,afraid and angry. Not going to take this any more. last stand.
He shit and pissed everywhere.
It was a nightmare. Laura was changing her bed every night after long days of work and by the weekend exhausted.
« I just can’t see keeping him. He’s too wild and dangerous. »
George after shitting and pissing everywhere hid under the bed and hissed.
Poor George.
He was in heaven with this crazy cat lady all set to love him but he was unable to get his head into the present and out of his awful past.
I got under the bed, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, rubbed his nose in the poop and put him in the clean litter box full of sand. held him there till he stopped trying to bite and claw me.
I know, CBC, Huffington Post and countless SPCA associated activists were lodging million dollar law suits against me. I was a bully. They’d rather neglect. Especially where they can be virtue signalling critics, their only solution euthanasia. It was a ‘last ditch’ effort. Do or die. George had no more chances.
I’d left utopian academic classrooms and Monday quarter back scenarios decades ago when I stopped wearing short pants and got a pair of jeans. George was at that ‘wake up and shape up’ or ‘die’ Place. Laura, his only hope, was crying. She couldn’t cope.
He had some sort of chronic feline disease too, like Cat Aids, we were told. Not a particularly attractive guy in the marketting world.
« That’s why we had him alone on display at Petsmart. It was kind of a last ditch effort to find him a home. No one cared for him. When he wasn’t hissing he was hiding.’
George and I talked. I told him the pissing and shitting on the furniture and bed had to go. I knew he knew about litter boxes. He’d not had the problem in the basement. This was dominance, territory stuff. He was making Laura his bitch and Laura was way too sweet for her own good. While I held him I talked. He stopped hissing and snarling.
George stopped shitting and pissing on the furniture after our frank discussion. Thee ancient nose shit and then show the proper place, only to be used as a very last resort, worked. There are far greater easier ways and superior ways to train a normal animal with proper time.
Laura was fine then. I didn’t know how. She couldn’t be doing laundry every night. Once that had stopped and George was no longer in attack cat mode, she put up with this ass of a cat. He slowly came out and ate the food and drank the water when she was home then returned to his cat cave. This went on then for months. I’d come over and drag him out and see he was okay. He was getting fat with Laura’s feeding. He didn’t have brain disease. He was a very smart cat.
When nothing bad happened, Laura said, ‘I’d just talked to him when I came home. Eventually he started coming out. Then he would sit on my lap. But if I moved he’d bare his claws and snarl. I’d let him go then. He’d come back. He liked my petting him on my lap and talking to him. »
I’d come by and see this. The crazy wild scaredy cat, all big guy and roughness, now just a mewling little sweetheart when Laura was around. I’d come and he’d leave. He’d taken to sitting in the cupboard about the refridgerator , his perch. He watched me, jealous now. He was curious about Gilbert though.
He came to Laura. He tolerated me. Gilbert and he began to play. Gilbert loves cat. He was raised by his cat mother Angel. He doesn’t know that cat’s aren’t dog’s best of friends. George swatted him a few times. I was concerned for Gilbert. We’d not been able to cut George’s claws. I worried he’d hurt Gilbert who is fearless and foolish. They worked it out. Friends but not best friends for then.
Laura loved her cat. I’d hear about George all the time thereafter. George did this. George did that. George slept with her. George woke her up. George liked his tummy rubbed. George and she played.
Years of this girl and her cat shit. Meanwhile when we visitted the dog and cat hung out together. Laura and I would even leave them alone pretty sure that they’d survive. We’d go for dinner and come back and all was well.
Then Laura had the rent eviction. She was able to find the last apartment in all of the Lower Mainland, closets go for a few millions daily rent, gangs fight over the money laundered homes, bankers and lawyers are homeless, millionaires line up for shelters unable to afford Vancouver rents. Laura wasn’t rocking the boat. She was allowed in but no cats. Small dogs maybe eventually but no cats. It looked like George would have to go again.
I took George. He wasn’t happy with me. He sure liked Gilbert. Gilbert and he shared the place. Laura brought over the scratching post he liked to sit at the top on. I had a litter box and separate food and water. It didn’t matter. George ate Gilbert’s food and Gilbert ate George’s food. They both thought this was a good deal. They really began to like each other.
We got into the Safeway chicken nights. Gilbert and I had these where I ate some and he ate some and now George joined it. A bonding session every week or two. Laura came every weekend or so and hung out with George and Gilbert. I was the room mate then. Gilbert and George would drape themselves over Laura who loved ‘her boys’.
A year or two passed with George being loved by Laura and Gilbert and liked well enough by me. But then Gilbert developed a hereditary glaucoma. He had to have his eyes removed. He became so depressed. I was beside myself, unable to do anything to comfort him. He was so afraid when the second eye was removed. But there was George. George became his constant companion. He never left Gilbert’s side when we were at home. Constantly being his eyes and constantly lying up against him. It took weeks but Gilbert, thanks to George, to calm right down. Eventually after all George’s nursing, and after running again on beaches, Gilbert began enjoy good life after being blind. What he’d gained was George. They’d been friends before but now they were the best of buddies. On their Facebook account the called each othe BFF.
I’d wake in the morning to George waiting for Gilbert to get up so the two of them could roll around together. I’d have George walking over my face as a feline alarm clock if I tried to sleep in. He’d get Gilbert to join him and next thing I’d have a wet cockapoo licking tongue alarm clock coupled with cat paws on my face. The two of them were ever together. I fed them in the morning then my usefulness was over and George would play with Gilbert.
Time passed and George got sick. It began with coughing. He became frail and isolated but he was drinking and eating. I thought it was just a ‘cold’ but after a week he’d stopped coughing but also stopped eating. I took him to Dr. Panel Biernacki at North Road Animal Hospital, great Vet. Gilbert and George had both visitted him for their shots and really liked him and his team. Dr. Biernacki sent him home with antibiotics and fluids to be given subcutaneous.
Laura spent the next week coming over and nursing him. Being a doctor I could do all these things but Laura wanted to and kind of suggested that I wasn’t ‘gentle’ and ‘caring’ enough for ‘her George.’ She’s one of those protective wild grizzly bear type mothers. Not even a doctor was good enough for her George. So she was doing the fluids and feeding him the antibiotics. I was watching.
George rallied. I got him this really good special expensive urgent care prescription diet from Hills. George ate it up. He put on weight again. He and Gilbert were rolling around on the living room rug. Laura had a cat in her lap and Gilbert draped beside her jealous. They let her read sometimes but both nudged her to keep petting and stroking them. She did. I was the room mate of this little love group.
A couple of months later, George slowed right down again. MostlyI noticed he didn’t get up to greet Gilbert first thing in the morning. He wasn’t waiting for us to wake. It wasn’t until I was having a cup of coffee before he’d join us. Moving slowly. Weak.
I talked to Laura. I talked to the vet assistant. I took him in.
Dr. Douglas was on an did a thorough exam of George, very kind and thorough. He said he was anemic and felt his kidneys were the problem. Good young guy, reminded me of me, hundreds of years ago. Offered to refer him to the hospital. Said he didn’t think he’d make it through the night, « He’s really sick, » he assured me.
I figured he’d make it through the night. I’d take him home and talk with Laura and talk to Dr. Biernacki the next day. Dr. Douglas had drawn blood and the results would back by the morning.
George was still around in the morning. He came out to rub nose with Gilbert and take a drink of water while I was drinking my coffee.
I phoned Dr. Bienecki. He answered in his soft sure voice.
« I’m afraid your cat is dying. » he told me, « He’s anemic and would need blood transfusions. There’s tests and hospitalization but I can’t guarantee he’d last much longer even with that. »
I had a clinic booked all day. Laura was in her clinic with her doctor. I called her. Told her what Dr. Biernacki had said.
She took the afternoon off , spent the day with George.
« He sat on my lap. We talked. He walked over and had some water. Then he’d come back and sit on my lap. I sang to him all the songs I knew from childhood. I even sang the Frank Sinatra songs my mother sang to me. » She said.
I’d came home with Gilbert late afternoon. Gilbert and George lay down together.
‘My boys’, said Laura, tearing up.
« I’ll take him now » she said. « if you can get him in the carrier. » She left off to get her little red Smart Car.
I gently picked up George for the last time. He let me put him in the carrier.
He knew. Gilbert knew.
When Laura returned she took the carrier from me and put him in the seat beside her . I watched her drive off with George. I’d offered to go but she wanted to be alone with George.
I shared some dinner with Gilbert. We were sad. The euthanasia was planned for 7 pm. Dr. Biernacki had kindly offered to stay late for Laura and George.
I called her after 8 pm.
« Dr. Biernacki let me hold him while he gave him the needle. I held George on my lap, praying. We sat for awhile. It was very peaceful. George was such a good boy. »
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