Letters to the Editor

Please accept my condolences on the passing of Allie. I'm sure Allie is safe, happy and completely purrfect at Rainbow Bridge, where my dearly departed Dennis now resides.

And there's an equally deserving furry critter awaiting your adoption.

We fear those who don't share their lives with a pet may have a problem understanding how great and grievous is their loss to a pet owner (as if anyone ever really "owned" a cat.)
Since everyone her at cc2day has several pets we commiserate with friend Bob.
Some of us knew Allie and Elizabeth, and also mourn their passing.

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons. ~Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills. ~Voltaire

"Alley Cat" was the first song that I learned to play on my piano, if you need an idea regarding how old my teacher was.

My cat Rollo was obtained likewise from the Brewster-Harwich. May of '93 I was still stinging from having to put my best old cat Percy to sleep in the early winter. My wife sent me to the B-H-- it was peak kitten season and I somewhat illegally went in and sat on the concrete floor amongst 300 kittens. Young Rollo climbed up on my knee, a classic Maine Coon with a black back and striped tail looking much like Percy's. He looked up at me and said "I'm back!"
My wife's health started to go sour that summer and Rollo helped me thru more than a dozen years of caregiving... then began to need caregiving himself with thyroid issues. Finally on Thursday, skeletal, with back legs barely working he let me let him go. Maybe I'll visit the B-H in May and seeing if any of the newbies have a message for me...

B,B, A, A, B, C, D... just in case you thought that the Smurf was fronting.....

Been there and I can appreciate the pain.
But, believe me, Allie's passing in her sleep is less painful to you than having her "put down: - a term I hate.

Well, Ned, I hope you are ready to join the League of Cat Owners again. And if you can have one, you can have two. If everyone who had no pets whatsoever got just one cat, and if everyone who had only one cat got one more, think how many fewer homeless cats there'd be.

They're the easiest pets in the world and forget about "my cat won't have another cat in the house." They ALL snarl at first and then they learn to get along after about two weeks.

We recently adopted a gorgeous male Angora, 7 years old, from the Animal Rescue League. My crabby old female cat intimidates him with a stare. Our 2 year old female and the new guy are in love (even though they are both fixed)and wrestle with neck nipping, etc. all day and night. They seem to know the motions but are unable to go through with it for obvious reasons.

I still possess two of the Sonntag/Dierlam family cats, males 6 and 8 in age. They were brought over as kittens by Personal Care Attendant employees, and are Norwegian Forests, not the very similar but more doglike Maine Coon. So I do have good feline companionship, but not the clingyness of Rollo, who literally picked ME out.

My cat Sheena sends her condolences abut Allie. Sheena was recently diagnosed with a stroke, a blood clot at her C2 vertebra, paralyzing her front legs. I have had MRIs, echocardiograms, sonograms, X-rays, spinal taps and all to find out if she could make it or if it was hopeless. (There goes my new car!)

The doctors said she could and we started physical therapy. Six weeks in, when she was just about getting to be her old self, she had another clot, lower down the spine, this time affecting her hind legs.

I am now giving her more therapy every day plus Plavix. She is getting to the point where she can jump up on the bed again. I will never give up on her as long as there's a chance of recovery.

I consider animals our "angels." And have added to "No man left behind" another phrase: "No cat left behind." You animal lovers will understand.

We can never replace them.

She was so cute!!! I am sorry for your loss. I am sure your office won't be the same. May her memory burn bright!

Bob, beautiful poem. Losing a pet is the worse. I have three dogs, ahh babies (they might have heard me type that) and I will be devastated when they pass. My sympathies to you and your 'cat' family.

There is a 'myspace.com' for pets... I have my doggies up there, lots of my friends do too... its called mydogspace.com
there's one for cats too, mycatspace.com

for all you seriously-crazy-about-your-pet lovers.