Paul Heising, 11/7/2004
I have had the honor and joy to be accompanied through the last
18 1/2 years of my life by my cat Dummy (Sept? 1985-Nov 6 2004).
Sadly, she left us yesterday as a result of worsening heart
disease. I decided I wanted to mark her life with this writing.
I don't know how many people it will interest but it makes me
feel better recording my memories.
I was living on the 3rd floor of an apartment building in Ashland in March, 1986. One night when I was unlocking my door I heard a scratching and meowing from inside the apartment across the hall. I recalled vaguely noticing this the night before too. I knocked on the door and got no answer, and then I went outside across the street and look in...the apartment lights were on but it was empty!
The next day I got the keys from the landlord and opened up the apartment and Dummy and I first saw each other...she was resting on a cushion in the middle of the floor. I whisked her over to my apartment and left a note for the owners, who never returned. (They were paid up for 5 weeks, and they had just left her locked in! My apartment was the only one positioned to hear her so I guess we were fated to be together).
Back in my apartment, I had a young cat and a litter box I had claimed, but no cat food. She must be starving, I thought.When I laid down a bowl of Bumblebee Tuna for her she failed to eat it. "That's food, you Dummy!" I said, which shows you how much thought I put into her name.
I was moving to my first condo (a townhouse in Millbury) in 3 months and was planning on getting a cat, so Dummy was just a bit early. I remember my excitement coming home from work that night knowing that my very own cat was waiting for me.I took her to the vet who told me she was a she and said she was about 6 months old.
The first few months were in Ashland, a tiny 2 room apartment with a balcony. Dummy was young and full of energy and would tear around the place, or hide behind my Boston fern (the only greenery in the place). She got to know Sheryl, my cat-loving then girl- friend. Dummy went into heat once, wow, what a pain! She was noisy and wanted something but she didn't know what. You better believe I had her spayed as soon as I could get her to the vet.
In July of 1986 we moved to a nice 3 story townhouse in Millbury where we'd spend the next 14 years. She immediately hid behind the fridge and didn't come out for 8 hours. Taking her outside the first time wasn't much better...all that open space freaked her out and she stayed crouched next to the building, meowing in fear, as I walked her from back door to front. But she got used to it quickly, and when I installed a cat door in the basement window at ground level she started going out ALL the time. It was a quiet cul-de-sac so traffic was not a concern.
Dummy had many adventures outside. She became an accomplished hunter of small game and was constantly bringing in "gifts", mostly chipmunks and field mice. I eventually realized that if I yelled at her for something ("Don't sleep on the clean laundry!") she would go outside and spend hours hunting to catch a "gift" to make up with me. That made me feel bad and I stopped yelling.
Once she brought in a young rabbit at 4 in the morning. She put it down in the bedroom. Unfortunately, like many of her gifts, it was not dead, in fact it was quite healthy and started running for its life. I woke up to the sound of the Indy 500 in my dark room, as Dummy tried to recapture the bunny. Eventually I figured out what was going on, and as the cat got the rabbit cornered in a closet, I put Dummy out in the hall and closed the door. Then I coaxed the bunny into my high school bookbag (was handy) and transported the bunny outside, after closing the basement door so Dummy couldn't go out and recapture it.
Dummy also brought in enough live field mice and chipmunks that I actually had to buy a (Have-a-Heart brand) mousetrap BECAUSE I had a cat. they'd take up residence behind the fride or dishwasher. I'd catch them in the trap and let them out alive into the woods.
Other cats learned how to use Dummy's cat door. I heard the sound of dry food being eaten and looked up from the couch to see a strange cat eating Dummy's food! I chased it out the way it came in and bought the first of many electronic cat doors; the latch would sense the magnet I attached to Dummy's collar and only unlock the door for her. Once she lost her collar and spent hours trying to push the door open with her nose before I came home and heard the door being pushed against the latch and found her! Poor kitty! I felt terrible. But overall it worked out quite well.
She would go out in the rain all the time. Actually I think she hunted better because the prey couldn't hear her so easily. And I would always dry her off with paper towels when she came in. She could handle snow unless it was very deep. After one big snowstorm she couldn't get out her cat door. So she meowed at the back door to be let out. She was very dismayed when I opened it to more snow. She turned back. Moments later she was meowing at the FRONT door. And I had to open it to show her there was snow behind that door also!
I talked to her all the time. She would pay close attention but always had this uncomprehending look on her face of course. But I eventually figured out she would answer to "Hey you!" since that's how I always called for her attention. She would also answer to a whistle I'd give when I fed her, a trick Sheryl showed me for getting the cat's attention. We were good buddies; watch TV together; she'd sleep on a corner of my bed (and sit up with me when I was sick or couldn't sleep); play "chase the wiffle golf ball" and various other games. In Millbury I had a bay window and she loved to sit in it and survey the neighborhood.
In 2000 we moved from Millbury to a nice "condex" (condo that was one side of a house) in Natick. She took to this rather well. I installed a cat door in one of the sliding doors (had to buy a special door) and we had the woods of Sherborn out back and yet another quiet street so she was fairly safe.
I ordered a lot of new furniture for the new place. One piece was a "chair and a half" overstuffed chair I could spread out in while watching TV. I forgot Dummy would take 1/3! Maybe I should have gotten a "double chair" but this was actually the right size for both of us to watch TV. She was right next to me when the Sox won the series, although I celebrated a lot more than she did.
In the spring of 2001 I took her to the vet because I thought she might need dental work. The vet concurred but we had to get a heart echocardiogram to ensure she could tolerate general anesthesia. We were all surprised to find she had Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, a heart disease that is characterized by a thickening of the heart walls that progresses until heart failure. I had to start her on meds right away and they had no idea how long she'd go.
I found it impossible to "pill" her, the process of holding the cat down and forcing a pill into her. I was supposed to do this twice a day! I wound up spending money to get the medication "compounded" with a substance absorbed through the skin. So I could medicate her by spreading the compunded cream inside her ears. Eventually she was switched to some not-terrible tasting pills so I could grind them up and put it in her food.
She went on like this with few symptoms, and regular echocardiograms, for years (much to the shock of the veterinary cardiologist). But the August 2004 echocardiogram was much worse. Then a few weeks ago she started coughing, an "end-stage" sign. My friend Bobbie had spent considerable time making friends with Dummy, and she noticed a decline in Dummy's energy.
The this past Friday (Nov. 5) I realized Dummy was much worse, she was struggling for breath and couldn't get comfortable. She hadn't been eating and thus no medications. Her pupils were very dilated like she was uncomfortable or scared. I managed to get some "pill powder" into her mouth and she settled a bit. But at the vet's yesterday, they tried their best to improve her with oral medication, shots and time in an oxygen tent. I went home for a few hours and left a message for Bobbie. And cried, when I realized this might be the time to let her go.
Bobbie was sweet enough to come right out and meet me at the vet. The news was bad. They brought her in and she was panting and in obvious discomfort. The vet explained that she was either in heart failure or had a clot in her lung. Neither would get better.
So, less than 24 hours ago as of this writing, the vet put Dummy sleep while Bobbie and I petted her and talked to her. She seemed comforted in her final moments by the attention Bobbie and I gave her. It's just about the hardest thing I've experienced.
I'm going to have her remains cremated and I'm going to bury them just out back in the woods. I expect to live here for some time and I like to think Dummy will be nearby in her beloved outdoors. And that right now she's in kitty heaven sleeping on a big pile of warm clean laundry.
Thank you for reading this. Thanks so much to Bobbie for being with me yesterday, and to Patty and Dave for listening to me on the phone. And to everyone who got to know Dummy, and you know how hard that was, since she was so wary of new people: Bobbie and my old neighbor Paul were her best friends, but she also got to know Sheryl (and her cat Hopeless, Dummy's only cat friend), Dave, Don, Elliot, Patty and probably many more I'm not thinking of. Thanks to the vets at the Natick animal Clinic.
And thank you Dummy for walking together with me through life for the last 18 1/2 years.
