"Our Bobo" - a long story for an incredible cat
Bobo feeling icky last December - he spent a lot of time wrapped in his pinky blanket on my couch
Bobo playing with a Christmas catnip cigar - he regrouped from his icky slump and I knew he was feeling pretty sporty when I found him sucking and kicking on this catnip toy.
*****************
The part of Bo's story that he shared with us began about 2 and a half years ago, I can't remember exactly. I was in the shelter doing my feral cat rounds when a guy brought this black cat into the lobby. I asked him the circumstances and he said he'd just moved into the neighborhood and this cat was hanging out in the yard and scratching at his basement screen. So perhaps Boris used to live in that house, or maybe just was a cat of the street there. Regardless, I suppose the new homeowner thought Bo might lower the price of property or something, so carted him off to the pound. The man described him as "wild" and showed a scratch on his hand obtained while shoving Bo into the carrier, and Boris got relegated to the feral cat room for certain death.
I looked in the cage the following week and saw this goofy, big-head tomcat. Feral? No way. And though my real intention in my shelter work was getting ferals TNR'd to their neighborhoods, and this cat wasn't feral, he was labeled as such and was going to die. So I took him out and set him up at our storefront facility where we keep some cats.
First order of business was to fix this guy. Whoo-heee, he was a tom of the most stereotypical type. Reeked to high heaven. Giant jowly head, pure muscle body. He had this jaunty little walk and a funny way of holding his head and this goofy expression. We planned to adopt him out after neutering, but despite the neuter, Bo decided to hang on to a lovely spraying habit. He regularly baptized many areas of our storefront. I went out and bought a Feliway dispenser. He jumped up on the counter, sniffed the dispenser, turned around, and sprayed it with a very satisfied look his face. What a boy. So this exuberant, confident, superfriendly guy attended mobile adoption a few times but mostly we knew it would be tough to find him a home.
Due to the spraying (along with a longing he had for the backdoor of the storefront) we allowed him to be our only cat with outdoor access. He'd go out every morning, and then as dusk came, one of us would stop by to call him in. He would come trotting while calling back his idiosyncratic meow. It's hard to describe, and very unique. No other cat sounded like Bobo. Occasionally he would find himself on the other side of the fence behind the property and for some reason couldn't get back. We'd call and call and then hear a faint Bo-meow back. That meant you had to go out in the dark and wade through the weeds, find the part of the chain link fence that bends down, call Bo over to you, and scruff him over the fence. It was kind of a Marco-Polo Bo-meow game. Then by night we'd cage him, and he'd be ready the next morning for his day in the field.
Well, the caging led us to discover after several months that Bo was developing a problem. In February 2007 his litterpan would be soaked each morning. We took him in for a blood panel and urinalysis - ah, there's a story behind that too! - and the results came back as pretty bad renal failure. He was only 8 or so, but those kidneys were going. The doctor put him on a regimen of daily sub-q fluids and we re-tested a month or so later. Still kidney failure, but improved levels. We decided we'd keep him going as long as he was comfortable with his fluids.
(Urinalysis story: Bo was making a lot of pee in those days. In addition, he hated the car. Add to that, our rescue vet is a 45 minute drive. I drove him down there three consecutive days to try to get urine to the doctor, because each time, Bo would let his bladder go in the carrier minutes before arriving and would leave nothing left for the doctor to draw! Finally I got my vet tech friend to come over to draw the sample from Bo's bladder right here on my kitchen floor, and I drove the sample without Bo to Dr. Raj the next morning!)
Bo still wanted to go out, so for awhile we'd let him enjoy the spring sun... but by April or so, he needed daily fluids and my friend took him home. From that point on, he was indoor only. In early December he began to get really bad... she began forcefeeding him and added a drug to his routine... then I babysat him while she was away near Christmas. I hadn't seen him since April and was shocked at his weight. No longer a big boy, now he was just a big jowl-head on a skinny body. During his time with me he starting getting really bad - he wafted ammonia odor from his mouth, had difficulty walking, etc. I considered euthanizing him right before Christmas, but the vet schedules combined with my reluctance to do it without my friend being able to say goodbye to him stopped me. And he recovered from that slump, and was a joy to have as a houseguest, even with his nightly fluids, occasional force-feeding, and drug schedule. In fact, when my friend returned I offered to keep Bo at my house and so he spent the rest of his time with me. I knew it meant I'd get even more attached to this cat who only had a short time left with us. But he deserved it and he was just such an enjoyable cat.
We had a good time together. I always liked Bo when he lived at the storefront, but having him be a real housecat, I really got to know him in the way you only can when you sleep with a cat every night. He'd just wrap his front paws across my neck at night, and when my own poor cats tried to take up their spots in bed, he'd just casually extend one paw over me to tell them "Hey, mine". They'd usually listen. Towards mid-January he stopped wanting to go all the way back to the bedroom and took up residence on the livingroom couch. He had a spot there where he was found 95% of the time. Close enough for his frequent trips to the box, and close to the windowsill for a bit of sunning every day.
As February began he began slinking off to the kitchen cupboard and I didn't find him in the Bo-spot of the couch as much. He'd crawl over the cans of food and be sitting at the back of the cabinet. He began doing it more and more until he lived in there most of the time. Last week I gave it up to him and turned it into a bed for him. But he stopped eating on his own at all and stopped coming to me for headbonks and loverboy stuff. A few days ago he developed a blank look in his eyes and when I'd pull him out of the cabinet, he'd hurry away as soon as he could get me to release my grip on him. He was clearly uncomfortable. He was also sheet-white in the ears and gums despite the supplements I was giving him. He just couldn't get his iron back to normal. The last straw was last night... after agonizing about whether it was time to let him go, I checked on him in his cabinet and found he'd peed all over himself (and my wooden cabinet floor - landlord will love that!). I tried to get him to sit up but he collapsed on the floor. Waiting any longer just because I couldn't bear it wasn't an option anymore... he was a flat, weak cat in a skinny Bo-shell of a body. He called out all night from the cabinet last night, awakening me dozens of times. I brought him to the vet today (he rode on my lap and didn't notice he was in a car) and helped him over the bridge. His ashes come back in a week or so. I'm going to sprinkle a few of them over the chain link fence where we'd play Marco-Polo and keep the rest with me forever.
I asked the vet to look up the date of his diagnosis... I thought it was about a year ago. It was a year tomorrow - February 16, 2007 - that Bo got his blood panel that said "Kidney failure". I never thought when I saw those bad numbers last February that he had a year to spend with us. I'm so glad he did.
I don't know why his kidneys failed him so young.... he was a robust, happy boy who could have been around a decade more if his kidneys could have done it. But I think he had a good two years with us and a lovely two months at my house.
Edited by Suse: Added tags to OP.
Bobo feeling icky last December - he spent a lot of time wrapped in his pinky blanket on my couch
Bobo playing with a Christmas catnip cigar - he regrouped from his icky slump and I knew he was feeling pretty sporty when I found him sucking and kicking on this catnip toy.
*****************
The part of Bo's story that he shared with us began about 2 and a half years ago, I can't remember exactly. I was in the shelter doing my feral cat rounds when a guy brought this black cat into the lobby. I asked him the circumstances and he said he'd just moved into the neighborhood and this cat was hanging out in the yard and scratching at his basement screen. So perhaps Boris used to live in that house, or maybe just was a cat of the street there. Regardless, I suppose the new homeowner thought Bo might lower the price of property or something, so carted him off to the pound. The man described him as "wild" and showed a scratch on his hand obtained while shoving Bo into the carrier, and Boris got relegated to the feral cat room for certain death.
I looked in the cage the following week and saw this goofy, big-head tomcat. Feral? No way. And though my real intention in my shelter work was getting ferals TNR'd to their neighborhoods, and this cat wasn't feral, he was labeled as such and was going to die. So I took him out and set him up at our storefront facility where we keep some cats.
First order of business was to fix this guy. Whoo-heee, he was a tom of the most stereotypical type. Reeked to high heaven. Giant jowly head, pure muscle body. He had this jaunty little walk and a funny way of holding his head and this goofy expression. We planned to adopt him out after neutering, but despite the neuter, Bo decided to hang on to a lovely spraying habit. He regularly baptized many areas of our storefront. I went out and bought a Feliway dispenser. He jumped up on the counter, sniffed the dispenser, turned around, and sprayed it with a very satisfied look his face. What a boy. So this exuberant, confident, superfriendly guy attended mobile adoption a few times but mostly we knew it would be tough to find him a home.
Due to the spraying (along with a longing he had for the backdoor of the storefront) we allowed him to be our only cat with outdoor access. He'd go out every morning, and then as dusk came, one of us would stop by to call him in. He would come trotting while calling back his idiosyncratic meow. It's hard to describe, and very unique. No other cat sounded like Bobo. Occasionally he would find himself on the other side of the fence behind the property and for some reason couldn't get back. We'd call and call and then hear a faint Bo-meow back. That meant you had to go out in the dark and wade through the weeds, find the part of the chain link fence that bends down, call Bo over to you, and scruff him over the fence. It was kind of a Marco-Polo Bo-meow game. Then by night we'd cage him, and he'd be ready the next morning for his day in the field.
Well, the caging led us to discover after several months that Bo was developing a problem. In February 2007 his litterpan would be soaked each morning. We took him in for a blood panel and urinalysis - ah, there's a story behind that too! - and the results came back as pretty bad renal failure. He was only 8 or so, but those kidneys were going. The doctor put him on a regimen of daily sub-q fluids and we re-tested a month or so later. Still kidney failure, but improved levels. We decided we'd keep him going as long as he was comfortable with his fluids.
(Urinalysis story: Bo was making a lot of pee in those days. In addition, he hated the car. Add to that, our rescue vet is a 45 minute drive. I drove him down there three consecutive days to try to get urine to the doctor, because each time, Bo would let his bladder go in the carrier minutes before arriving and would leave nothing left for the doctor to draw! Finally I got my vet tech friend to come over to draw the sample from Bo's bladder right here on my kitchen floor, and I drove the sample without Bo to Dr. Raj the next morning!)
Bo still wanted to go out, so for awhile we'd let him enjoy the spring sun... but by April or so, he needed daily fluids and my friend took him home. From that point on, he was indoor only. In early December he began to get really bad... she began forcefeeding him and added a drug to his routine... then I babysat him while she was away near Christmas. I hadn't seen him since April and was shocked at his weight. No longer a big boy, now he was just a big jowl-head on a skinny body. During his time with me he starting getting really bad - he wafted ammonia odor from his mouth, had difficulty walking, etc. I considered euthanizing him right before Christmas, but the vet schedules combined with my reluctance to do it without my friend being able to say goodbye to him stopped me. And he recovered from that slump, and was a joy to have as a houseguest, even with his nightly fluids, occasional force-feeding, and drug schedule. In fact, when my friend returned I offered to keep Bo at my house and so he spent the rest of his time with me. I knew it meant I'd get even more attached to this cat who only had a short time left with us. But he deserved it and he was just such an enjoyable cat.
We had a good time together. I always liked Bo when he lived at the storefront, but having him be a real housecat, I really got to know him in the way you only can when you sleep with a cat every night. He'd just wrap his front paws across my neck at night, and when my own poor cats tried to take up their spots in bed, he'd just casually extend one paw over me to tell them "Hey, mine". They'd usually listen. Towards mid-January he stopped wanting to go all the way back to the bedroom and took up residence on the livingroom couch. He had a spot there where he was found 95% of the time. Close enough for his frequent trips to the box, and close to the windowsill for a bit of sunning every day.
As February began he began slinking off to the kitchen cupboard and I didn't find him in the Bo-spot of the couch as much. He'd crawl over the cans of food and be sitting at the back of the cabinet. He began doing it more and more until he lived in there most of the time. Last week I gave it up to him and turned it into a bed for him. But he stopped eating on his own at all and stopped coming to me for headbonks and loverboy stuff. A few days ago he developed a blank look in his eyes and when I'd pull him out of the cabinet, he'd hurry away as soon as he could get me to release my grip on him. He was clearly uncomfortable. He was also sheet-white in the ears and gums despite the supplements I was giving him. He just couldn't get his iron back to normal. The last straw was last night... after agonizing about whether it was time to let him go, I checked on him in his cabinet and found he'd peed all over himself (and my wooden cabinet floor - landlord will love that!). I tried to get him to sit up but he collapsed on the floor. Waiting any longer just because I couldn't bear it wasn't an option anymore... he was a flat, weak cat in a skinny Bo-shell of a body. He called out all night from the cabinet last night, awakening me dozens of times. I brought him to the vet today (he rode on my lap and didn't notice he was in a car) and helped him over the bridge. His ashes come back in a week or so. I'm going to sprinkle a few of them over the chain link fence where we'd play Marco-Polo and keep the rest with me forever.
I asked the vet to look up the date of his diagnosis... I thought it was about a year ago. It was a year tomorrow - February 16, 2007 - that Bo got his blood panel that said "Kidney failure". I never thought when I saw those bad numbers last February that he had a year to spend with us. I'm so glad he did.
I don't know why his kidneys failed him so young.... he was a robust, happy boy who could have been around a decade more if his kidneys could have done it. But I think he had a good two years with us and a lovely two months at my house.
Edited by Suse: Added tags to OP.
Boris 
Boris 
& Callie
It is so hard to lose them, but have peace he knew
he was loved, and well cared for.
