I’ve never understood how anyone could surrender or abandoned a pet. Yet, it happens all the time, so often that if you are a cat lover online you’ll see post almost daily.

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My first cat Skeamer, the pretty girl on the cover of You Had Me at Meow was with us for 17 years. The last 5 to 7 of those she had kidney failure and even went blind. We adapted to the necessary changes and loved her just the same.

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For the last 8 years, littermates, Tyler and Trinity have been our furbabies.  Tyler had a mass removed a few years back and he has a sensitive stomach. In 2014 Trinity started showing (not typical) signs of urinary problems. After some testing, the diagnosis was struvite crystals. Now my cats would have to be fed separately and not allowed to eat each other's food. Okay, that is a little harder than you’d imagine. We resigned to shorten some vacations we had planned and adapted to that.

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Then this year Trinity blindsided and scared me when she howled out then had an ‘episode’ passing out limp. After emergency clinics,  vet visits, tests, and some more tests, plus 2 more episodes,  she was diagnosed with idiopathic (unknown cause) seizures/epilepsy.  Now, this took a little more than just resigning to new medication or food. For one it is really scary to see and I felt pretty darn helpless, plus I felt the need to constantly watch her as she adjusted to the anti-seizure medication and to watch for more seizures.

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I’m grateful hers are not grand-mal and she doesn’t violently jerk but there can still be damage to the brain if they go untreated or if she falls when one hit. There is also the worrisome issue of what is causing them and hoping it is not cancer.

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I posted our story as it unfolded on my social pages and was shocked that I had suggestions to put her to sleep. People who have human children don’t put their kids to sleep if they have epilepsy and for us this is no different. Yes, the medicine causes some side effects. Yes, I am becoming a helicopter cat mom watching her and we canceled going on vacation to celebrate our big 25th wedding anniversary but my cats are family. I mentally run through her quality of life and weigh her more often.

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Then after the comments online to euthanize my girl and after hearing one too many times about cats being surrendered or abandoned for ridiculous reasons I decided since I was staying at home so much I’d do what I do and write a book about it.

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If it stops one family from moving and leaving their cats to fend for themselves; one adult cat from being surrendered because the new kitten is cuter, one cat from being taken to the shelter because the owner bought a new sofa it values more than their cat or one cat who when it needs extra medical care is let go—then I’ll be happy.

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I’d love to see a headline someday that the shelters are empty. That all pets have been altered, there are no more unwanted, homeless pets and pets are now living out their entire lives with the person who adopted them, loved and treated like family.

I hope to get this book on shelter, rescue and adoption websites. I will work on a print version as time allows. Any help, reviews or plugs would, of course, be appreciated.

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If you know someone who is thinking about getting a cat. Tell them, or gift them this ebook.  It’s a short read, it’s not expensive and you may just plant the seed that adoption of a pet is not to be taken lightly or done on a whim.

 

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$2.99 as an ebook. This website is atMeow.com and here's the Amazon link http://tinyurl.com/atMeow