Loyal Pet Loss

My name is Georgette Weitz and my husband’s name is Darrell.  We live in San Diego California and have been happily married since 1991.  We met when we were both put on the same bowling team in February, dated and were married three short months later in May. It was a whirlwind courtship but God must have been smiling on us because we were definitely meant for each other.  It’s such a weird and unique story that when we got married the minister actually talked about it during the ceremony. What a funny way to start a life together!  Just goes to show you that love can come around when you least expect it.  We both love to go camping and although in the beginning it was done in a tent, for us now, “roughing it” means in the motor home.  It’s only 26′ but we love it!  It’s the perfect size for us and Jordie (when she was still with us, I sure do miss her).  We also love to go on cruises.  It was always a dream of mine to go on a cruise, but Darrell never wanted to. He thought it would be boring stuck on a ship for seven days.  Then my two bosses gave me a cruise to Mexico for my tenth anniversary and Darrell loved it! (Thanks guys!) We now have been on a total of four, one to Mexico, one eastern and one western Caribbean, and one to Alaska.  It’s our favorite way to vacation.

With that little love tale being told, here is what I really wanted to share with you, the story of our 3 little misfits and the reason I started this Pet Loss site.  I wanted to tell others just how cute and special these guys were to us and how they enriched our lives, and why we miss them so much!

Darrell and I were never blessed with children (of the two legged kind) so our four legged friends were our babies.  When we first met, Darrell had a brown spotted Dalmatian whose real name was Chuck but we always called him “Spotted Dog”.  I had a beautiful gray long haired Persian cat named Noche.  We all moved in together and several years later we adopted our loving cat Jordie.  This is their story.

Beautiful “Noche”

Noche was originally my mothers cat that I inherited and brought with me when Darrell and I married.  Noche was a beautiful gray long haired Persian.  She was a sweet cat and very smart.  My mother actually trained her to go potty on the toilet although she never quite figured out how to flush!  If she got mad at you, she would “punish” you by not using the toilet and going potty in the bathtub.  Little did she know that that was not a big deal as it was easy to clean up.  Like I said, Noche was a very smart cat.  If you were on the phone too long and she thought you were ignoring her, she would start walking up and down on the piano keys just to get your attention.  She also loved to play “hide and seek”.  If you chased her down the hall, she would duck into one of the doorways and wait until you walked by and jump out, bite your ankle (playfully), and run away and hide in another spot and do it all over again.  However, you had to make sure not to get her mad or let her think you got the better of her because she had a memory like an elephant.  If she thought you won the game, she would wait until way later that night and then jump out and bite you, not so playfully, and then take off running.  Then the game was over!  Noche unfortunately got cancer several years later and there was not much that could be done for her except to keep her as comfortable as possible.  We had to put a humidifier in “her” room at night and I would wake up in the middle of the night and find Darrell in checking on her.  He wasn’t really that fond of cats before Noche moved in with him, but she was so sweet that she won him over.  Noche was the first experience that Darrell and I had to face together  with a loss of a pet.  We  asked the vet if  it was time to let her go but he said “no, not yet, you’ll know when it’s time”.  Well he was right.  We did know when it was right, and thankfully Darrell was off  from work at the time on “rain days” so he was home with her.  She would sit in his lap during the day (which she did not usually do) and finally one day when I came home from work we had to take her in and let her go.  Like so many of you, I wanted to comfort her until the end, so I held her while she fell asleep.  That was so hard.  Fortunately, we still had Chuck at home to love.

Chuck - "Spotted Dog"

Now Chuck or “Spotted Dog” was not the smartest dog around, he was a big dopey dog, but he was lovable.  He was the last pup in the litter to go and Darrell actually took him home out of pity after someone else had taken him, and then brought him back!   Chuck was to big to be a lap dog but that didn’t stop him from sleeping on top of  Darrell in the Lazy Boy.  This clearly was not going to work for me, so poor Spotted Dog was banned to his own doggy bed.  His true happiness was food.  The funny thing was, he didn’t like hot dogs.  What dog won’t eat hot dogs?!  We used to joke about the fact that we could leave the gate open and he wouldn’t run away from home because he wouldn’t get that far away from his food dish.  He also really loved Coors Light.  (Yes I know it was bad and we only gave him a little.)  He loved it so much that he could tell the difference in the cans.  We actually tested him one day.  We opened several different cans of soda and beer, but that dog could tell the one that was Coors Light!  On 4th of July, we would give him his own can, no not to celebrate, but to help calm his nerves.  He was so afraid of the fireworks.  If we were home, we would let him into the house and he would go hide in the back of the closet behind the cloths.  If we were going out, we would put him in the garage with the lights and radio on and even put tennis shoes in the dryer to make more noise inside than out.  He lived a good life, but then suddenly developed diabetes.  After only a few weeks of giving him insulin shots, he went blind within a five day period.  His blindness came on so fast that he would actually get lost in the kitchen and couldn’t find his way out.  Poor dog got so scared and we knew it was time to let him go.  We took his blanket in with him and we both stayed with him until the end to say goodbye.  Fortunately, we had adopted Jordie several years after Noche died and a few years before “Spotted Dog” died, so once again we still had a furry friend to come home to and love.

Jordie, our “camping” cat

We had adopted Jordie when she was about five years old. I didn’t really want another cat, especially one that would be so independent and want “nothing to do with you” like so many cats are.  The co-worker I got her from was trying to find a home for all three of his cats, and assured me that out of the three, Jordie was lovable and affectionate.  So we took a chance and brought her home. She was such a loving and even an adoring cat.  Jordie was the only cat I have ever had that really loved me.  She was so devoted to me and would follow me around like a three year old toddler, up and down the hall, back and forth until she finally would get tired and give up.  She would sit by the kitchen door and wait for me to come home from work at night.  Every night she would come sit in my lap while we watched t.v.  She would let me hold her on her back like a baby and would just purr and purr.  When we would go to bed, she would sit on top of me.  Darrell used to say she was like a billy goat.  She would actually “log roll” on me when I turned over just as long as she could stay laying on top of me!  When I would take a shower, she would sit outside the shower curtain and howl at me.  She would even jump into the shower sometimes and would always jump into the tub after you were done just to lick up the water.  (I don’t know what that was all about.)  Jordie loved to go camping with us in our motor home.  She was just happy to be with us wherever we were so she was never any trouble.  She would sit happily in the sun on the dash, on the bed, or even in the drivers seat (picture above).  We kept her potty box in the shower so it was out of the way.  She was always an indoor kitty, only traveling outdoors just to sit on the back patio in the sun, so when we camped she didn’t try to or want to get out.  She was, as they say “a happy camper!”  In her prime, her weight got up to 17 lbs.  So when she started loosing weight and not being as active I knew something was wrong.   She was diagnosed in July of 2008 with Kidney failure as so many animals (especially cats) are.  The vet gave her only about 6 months.  We started her on a variety of meds including daily IV fluids.  The vet called the IV a “crude form of dialysis” which would help flush the toxins from her kidneys.  So Darrell and I lovingly got into our daily routine, I think Jordie even knew when 6:00 pm rolled around.  We got the whole system down where we could give her her pills, the eye dropper full of the diluted powder, and the IV fluids in about 3-5 minutes.  I think she knew we were helping her because she didn’t seem to mind it too much.  I also think it probably made her feel better so she was willing to let us help her.  We still even took her camping and could administer her meds with no problem.     We decided early on that we would only treat her as long as she continued to be happy, and when the day came that she no longer wanted to go lay in the sun or walk around the house with me, that would be when it was time to let her go.  We were very lucky to have her with us for 13 months.  We had to make the hard decision on August 29th 2009.  This time it was just Dr. Teague, Jordie and me.  It hurt Darrell too much to go through it and I was okay with that because I knew how hard it was, but I wanted to be there with her.  Dr. Teague let me hold her a long time saying goodbye while she gave Jordie something to relax her and then finally, she was asleep.  It was very touching when Dr. Teague began to cry with me.  I have never had a vet that was so caring and loving.  Now that Jordie is gone, Darrell and I are alone for the first time in 18 years.  It was very hard coming home to an empty house that day.  We know we will someday have more furry friends, but we’re waiting until the right one comes along.  We didn’t go looking for these 3 little guys to start with, they just came into our lives.  After all, we could never replace that special love we had, only make room for the new love that will fill our hearts once again.♥