My friend Tabby

Thu, June 29, 2006 - 7:34 PM

Tonight I am sitting at my desk typing away, and my old cat Tabby is by my feet. He wants to rub against me and lay with his head actually on my feet, but it's way too hot. I'm already sweating and cranky, and I don't need that little furnace making me even hotter.

I looked at Tabby and smiled. This fourteen year old kitty and I have been together a long time, and he's used up most of his nine lives. He's also very smart, and I know for a fact that he's a lot more intelligent than most people would think.

When Tabby entered my life he was a little kitten, just a few weeks old, and cute as cute can be. I got Tabby for Claudia (my wife, since deceased) because she was just beginning to get ill with asthma, and needed company. (We had validated that cats had nothing to do with her asthma.)

At that time, her asthma was pretty bad, terrible enough where she didn't get out much, although no where near as horrible as what it became in her later years (and minor compared to the Chronic Lung Disease that she was eventually diagnosed with).

I had some tools for combating asthma: a couple of inhalers, and some shots of adrenalin if it got really bad. These were little bottles, one dose, and to use them I had to actually break off the top of the glass bottle, fill a syringe and give her a shot. Worked like a charm... except for the shakes and other side effects.

Anyway, I accidentally discovered that her asthma got worse when she got upset, and better when she calmed down. So I reasoned that if she was happy, she wouldn't have asthma so often.

I decided she needed a cat, and I purchased her a kitten from the local pet store. Now, I asked for a female cat, and the clerk swore this was a girl kitty. So I named her Tabitha and brought her home. Claudia was delighted and they bonded immediately.

Until one day Claudia was rubbing Tabitha's tummy, and discovered to her dismay that Tabitha was actually Tabby, a male cat. She was very upset for a few minutes, then looked at the sweat little kitten, and feel in love with him all over again.

Our apartment had two rooms, a bedroom and another room for my "office". This was a place where I could work, read and do whatever.

We had a television in the bedroom, and Claudia was in there watching it with Tabby. I decided to go into my office and do some work, but before leaving I said, jokingly, to Tabby, "keep an eye on her, and if she has asthma, let me know". The cat glanced at me, purred, and went back to attacking a dastardly piece of string.

I saw down and worked for a couple of hours, then noticed a very agitated cat sitting in the doorway. Tabby saw me looking at him, growled and ran back to the bedroom. I shrugged and went back to work. This was repeated three times, until it penetrated my brain that maybe something different was happening.

I got up and followed Tabby into the bedroom, and found Claudia laying down on her back. Her face was a brilliant color of purple and she was gasping for breath!
That was the worst asthma attack that she had had up until that point. I gave her a shot, which got her breathing a bit easier, then got her down to the car and to the hospital. She spent the next two days there until her breathing returned to normal.

So that's how I learned to love my cat. He watched over Claudia for many years, and warned me of problems on several occasions.

Some people think animals are unintelligent. I know he truth. They can be very smart, they care and they have feelings.

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Comments

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Auntie Pita (cause I am one!) (Fri, June 30, 2006 - 10:25 AM)

Isn't it amazing how intellegent the animals in our lives are... I know that their tollerance of us has to be immense, because it can some times take us quite a bit to understand what they are trying to tell us with just their body language

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