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I am SO incredibly grateful for everyone who looked at, shared, and/or donated to my fundraiser for Guido. It's fully funded to the quote level, though I had set it a little higher to make sure any follow up or medication was also covered. There are just no words to properly express "thank you for helping me keep my cat alive a little longer" so... thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
This journal predates him by almost two years. In August 2005 my sister had moved out and taken her 2 cats, leaving me with just one, and a big void in my life. An acquaintance posted in early September? about having a kitten show up on her doorstep. She lived in the kind of rural community where the directions include "pay attention, blink and you miss it", and this tiny sassy ball of gray fur had invited himself in. He was clearly used to people, and was well-versed in litter box manners, and her mom wouldn't let her keep him. I had that void, so I offered to take him in.
That tiny sassy ball of gray fur became a large sassy ball of gray fur. Mid-november 2005 we found that his adult teeth hadn't fully come in yet so his presumed birthdate is early June. He is 16 years old, and in almost 2 months I will have had him for 16 years as well. There had been a time when I had considered rehoming him because of the two cats I had, he was very friendly and personable and would have NO trouble at all settling in with a new family. All of my neighbours and their guests knew his name and I didn't know any of theirs.
As I became more and more aware of my mental health issues, I realized how much Guido did for me as my companion pet. He insists on cuddles, and there have been so many cold winter days when I wake up and he's insisting on being fed, and I say to him that I have to go to work so I can afford to keep him in the comfort that he insists upon, since he refuses to go to work himself. Before I was medicated for anxiety, I would have sleep paralysis attacks, and finding him sleeping next to me was what kept me anchored in the present. On one particular day I woke up to the sound of grinding and beeping, and my sleepy brain could only think that the building was on fire, the beeping was the alarm and the grinding was the fire trucks hosing everything down. Guido was interested but unconcerned. It was snow removal trucks taking away the windrows from the snow plows.
His antics in chasing balls around the floor or laying in sunbeams has definitely slowed a bit in the last year especially as his health has fluctuated, but he is still the same sassy food-demanding ball of gray fur who now leaves trails of food and saliva all across the floor. I'm hoping once his teeth are out and he is no longer in pain from them, he will trail less.
He is my best bud, the cutest part of my day. I may not have saved him, but he has absolutely saved me.
We are booked for Wednesday next week. I'm taking a couple days off (at my boss's suggestion) to look after him, which happens to back on to a long weekend.
YOU made this possible. Thank you.
This journal predates him by almost two years. In August 2005 my sister had moved out and taken her 2 cats, leaving me with just one, and a big void in my life. An acquaintance posted in early September? about having a kitten show up on her doorstep. She lived in the kind of rural community where the directions include "pay attention, blink and you miss it", and this tiny sassy ball of gray fur had invited himself in. He was clearly used to people, and was well-versed in litter box manners, and her mom wouldn't let her keep him. I had that void, so I offered to take him in.
That tiny sassy ball of gray fur became a large sassy ball of gray fur. Mid-november 2005 we found that his adult teeth hadn't fully come in yet so his presumed birthdate is early June. He is 16 years old, and in almost 2 months I will have had him for 16 years as well. There had been a time when I had considered rehoming him because of the two cats I had, he was very friendly and personable and would have NO trouble at all settling in with a new family. All of my neighbours and their guests knew his name and I didn't know any of theirs.
As I became more and more aware of my mental health issues, I realized how much Guido did for me as my companion pet. He insists on cuddles, and there have been so many cold winter days when I wake up and he's insisting on being fed, and I say to him that I have to go to work so I can afford to keep him in the comfort that he insists upon, since he refuses to go to work himself. Before I was medicated for anxiety, I would have sleep paralysis attacks, and finding him sleeping next to me was what kept me anchored in the present. On one particular day I woke up to the sound of grinding and beeping, and my sleepy brain could only think that the building was on fire, the beeping was the alarm and the grinding was the fire trucks hosing everything down. Guido was interested but unconcerned. It was snow removal trucks taking away the windrows from the snow plows.
His antics in chasing balls around the floor or laying in sunbeams has definitely slowed a bit in the last year especially as his health has fluctuated, but he is still the same sassy food-demanding ball of gray fur who now leaves trails of food and saliva all across the floor. I'm hoping once his teeth are out and he is no longer in pain from them, he will trail less.
He is my best bud, the cutest part of my day. I may not have saved him, but he has absolutely saved me.
We are booked for Wednesday next week. I'm taking a couple days off (at my boss's suggestion) to look after him, which happens to back on to a long weekend.
YOU made this possible. Thank you.
