Every time I would go outside to look for him to bring him in for the night, I would always worry that he had been hit by a car. I would look up and down the street just in case, worrying that I might actually see him in the middle of the road.
Well, tonight I wasn't looking for him.
I had just let him back out, because I knew he would go crazy if I tried to keep him inside.
He was always a good kitty, but inside, he just wasn't an inside cat. He was feral in his core.
He liked to be out. He begged to be out early in the morning, came in for the afternoon to sleep in some corner, then went right back out for the rest of the night. Well, until his dinner time. Then I'd go outside, call him, and hope he came in.
Every night practically he wanted to stay out later an later, until finally we settled in on him coming in for the night at 10.
He was a good kitty. He'd come in almost every night and often sleep next to me, or on my windowsill behind my head.
When he was attacked by something when he was almost still a kitten, he slept in the crook of my arm, and didn't go outside for days.
I got used to it. When he came in early and wanted to be fed wet food, I just let him back out. If I had just fed him and seen if he'd go crazy, he'd probably be alive still.
But I didn't. I was inside, on my computer, when I got the knock on the door, telling me that my cat was hit by a car. I went running around looking for my flashlight because it was dark.
When I got down there, there was a crowd of people and a police officer.
It was so horrible. There was blood on the road. His face was all bloody.
Some random guy lent me his plastic tub and a blanket. I put him in it and took him to the vet.
It was horrible. It was just waiting for a long ass time.
They gave him oxygen. They said he had a broken arm and some of his skin was torn from his lip, but they weren't sure if he had any other injuries. They were going to have to do a full body x-ray.
Then it was more waiting.
And then he went into arrest.
And then there was more waiting.
Asking what we wanted him in.
A fucking "body bag". I asked what it was made of. "To be honest, it sort of looks like a trash bag."
Fucking hell man.
I had him put in a cardboard coffin and took him home and buried him in the back yard.
Right next to my other cat that died years ago.
I've lost count of how many cats I've buried.
FUCK MAN!
I love you Kai. You will be missed. I'll always miss you and your soft fur. You were the best of kitties.
Ohhhh noo! Sorry to hear bout ur cat. It’s def a big loss and I’m sure you’ll miss him. :(( what a tragic way to go too fuck that’s sucks! Hope you feel better soon
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Oh, GP.... :( I know no amount of words will help. I'm just really sorry about your kitty. I know how much he meant to you; you talked about him all the time.
Don't blame yourself for anything. Sure there are people who say cats belong inside for this reason... but there are cats who are happy as indoor pets, and then there are cats who need to roam the outdoors. Quite clearly from your description, Kai was of the latter variety. I have no doubt that you did the right thing by letting him explore. Just think of all the adventures he got to have. That was where his heart was, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.
Hugs. :(
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He wasn't an indoor kitty. When we got him, he was feral, and his brothers and sisters got eaten by a large snake...he was the last one that was alive, thanks to being smart enough to sleep in the branches of a bush rather than on the ground.
He was a good kitty though...and he listened enough that I could at least get him inside at night to be safe from most things...he just didn't want to be inside all day and night.
He would have been a lot happier if I had sat outside with him all day. I did some days when it wasn't so hot, and he would just sit next to me and play in the bushes near me. He just couldn't do the same inside. He went crazy inside.
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Eaten by a snake!! My gosh where was this?
Our Bob-Rotten began life feral and 8 years later he's still feral at heart. At 5 months he entered the pound, where he was passed over for 3 months, until he figured out that QUIET cats get adopted, so he didn't make a sound (other than purring) when we arrived. Oh, he made up for it at home... demanding that we let him outside. And in. And out. And in again. And out. I've seen so many memes on this, I know it isn't just Bob-Rotten pulling these antics. We are told NEVER to let cats go outdoors, but I'm pretty sure Bobi would explode if we put him to that test.
Your ginger tom was awesome, a survivor, a wise guy, smart enough to escape a snake attack, but cocky enough to saunter down the road as if he had all nine lives ahead.
I feel your pain.
It's not your fault. You can't look back and imagine he'd be alive if only ---, if only this, if only that.
You've buried a lot of cats because they don't get the long lives we get, and you'll likely meet and befriend more of these capricious creatures. They steal our hearts, the steal our sanity, and we just can't imagine life without them, right?
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Honestly, I think it's really stupid that some people say you shouldn't let cats outside. Cats are still very feral. At least a large number of them are. And they have a HUGE area that they usually prowl. I know that some of my previous cats would often go a mile or more on certain days. I remember seeing one of my cats a few miles from my house one day when I was out doing errands.
That's natural. That's what they do. They don't stay in small little houses. They don't like it. It's actually kind of cruel.
I personally think that the cars are more in the wrong tbh. They might get attacked by wild animals, but when they get killed, it's probably most often by cars. Why is that? Because we have to have roads EVERYWHERE, on ground level, in front of every house. Couldn't we have just alleys to our houses and park a block away? Or use public transport more? If we even had it here...
At the very least, people really don't need to drive as fast as they do through communities. Everyone's impatient these days.
He was mostly good with crossing the road and staying out of it, but every once in a while he'd run across it without looking. We can't expect animals to know about cars. We kill tons of animals all the time with cars, because we put the roads everywhere, including right through natural animal crossings.
I hope the ones that do hit animals because they were going too fast at least think about it and realize maybe they need to pay more attention and not go so fast, or next time it could be a kid.
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I hear you and I totally agree with you. Confining cats to an indoor life may extend their lives, but you call that a life?
Too many roads. Too many vehicles.
We destroy wildlife habitat, then complain about the deer hits, which are expensive, and sometimes fatal to humans as well. A local woman lost her eye when a deer hoof went though the windshield. Totalled cars, broken bones, lost loved ones - because we keep expanding and taking up more land with housing developments instead of building up, living in cities, taking up less room.
It may be no consolation, but I'm with you (so to speak). Your cat is not. (And you didn't need me to remind you. I know. I know.)
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There was a plan to build a high speed rail down through the everglades on pylons. I think perhaps we should do more stuff like that. Sure, it will be expensive if we do it right, but imagine never seeing animals dead while you're travelling between cities. If we actually went with public transportation everywhere, it might be more expensive at first, but pretty sure there's no way it could top $40k per person, plus occasional gut punches of a few thousand dollars, and a regular trickle of a few hundred dollars every so often for gas.
There are tons of options for things that we could do now that we have all this cool technology. We could actually still have independence with small electric vehicles for local transport, then hop on a bullet train to go between cities. We could even have bullet trains we drive our cars onto.
I'm hesitant to say that we should necessarily do all this just to save a few animals...but it would be cheaper and faster than cars. It just would require more spending as a group, rather than individually.
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My condolences!
Years ago I witnessed my cat die almost inbetween my arms out of the blue. I was home alone and about to go for a walk with a classmate when my cat hopped on the window sill, let out a very weird and painful mrreeeoowww, his pupils got huge and he started having difficulties breathing, plus brought out weird sounds. I was in panic, called my parents, my dad rushed home from work, grabbed the cat onto the floor, tried to give him a heart massage and mouth to mouth even, then rushed to the vet who said basically idk what happened but there's nothing we can do, he's gone. We buried him in a nearby forest in a cardboard box the same evening. I had brought him home like 2 years prior as a little kitten from a smaller summer cottage area in the same forest.
The apartment felt really empty and depressing without him for a long time and one day about two months later my parents brought home a new cute fluffy kitten! I was so happy and excited! It really helped seeing a tiny fluffball jump around in directions you'd never think a cat could fly without having to accelerate!
Unfortunately she grew up to be a total asshole and hates me, lol! Chases after me and scratches me almost every time I visit. She even fights the parents sometimes. And she has had some health issues herself but the parents go to a new vet, the old one can't be trusted. And the new vet does a pretty good job, too!
Then there was another cat, all black, me and my guy got him together on Christmas Eve one year. He was such a mommy's boy, kept running after us meowing, didn't want to be left alone. Sadly there was something he didn't like or he felt competition in my partner so he started pissing in our bed and quite often. One day he pissed in our bed 3 times in a row when I was gone for work training in a forest, my guy kicked the cat out to cool down in the snow for a while, the cat ran away and never came back. I was heartbroken for a while but then again thought it was for the best, perhaps the cat found a new place he liked more and it'd be a mess anyway with our baby then coming (I was preg then).
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LOL! Your cats sound lovely. Even the dickhole that hates you. :P I hope your one black kitty did end up finding a nice home.
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Thank you for being here for me, so I can be here for you.
Enjoy your day and stay creative!
Botty loves you. <3
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Hello there, I am so very very sorry for your loss, I know how you must be feeling,
We have a cat like you had called Tomson.
He is partially ferrel too. Likes to be out all of the time.
He is friendly enough though but you still have to be careful.
He spends most if the summer outside, but knows where his bread is buttered on the inside in the winter.
We worry just like you but are fortunate in as much that there are farmlands and fields behind us.
Where we live though, there is still a chance he may be poisoned or accidently shot by hunters.
We also have anorher stray called PC.
Fortunately he is a very domesticated cat as when we found him as a tiny kitten we actually trained him to walk with a lead because of this fear we have with Tomson of losing him.
He spends more time here then he does out.
This could be an on going idea for yourself should you get another kitty.
I really do hope you feel better soon my lovely xx
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My dear,I feel so sorry for you.I can't really say how you are feeling right now but I hope you feel better.
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Hey geek, sorry about what happened to Kai :(
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Aww this sucks. I'm so sorry to hear about your cat... :( I can't even imagine my life without my cat. I feel like I have more empathy for cats than humans. A study shows that we feel sadder when we lose our pets.
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Sincere condolences, both for your loss and the hellish night you had! I’ve had a couple of cats who had some feral in them, and I always felt like it would be cruel to keep them locked inside all the time. Your cat knew that he was loved, and he had a great life which you let him live to its fullest. Condolences and respect.
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