Our best little buddy, from early 1990 to May 22, 2009
I needed to put up this page, not just to comemmorate the life of this pet who was so special to us, but to have a place where we can point those who care about our loss, and for the cathartic effect of writing and remembering.
Susan, May 25, 2009
Her Royal Majesty:
Queen Sputnik Bugbane Fanslayer the first
Yes, she earned all those names. Susan suggested "Sputnik" a few days after this tiny, street waif kitten adopted Richie, because she kept orbiting around our ankles. Early on, we figured out who was boss in the household, but she ruled with a velvet paw. Throughout her whole life, Sputnik was instantly on alert when insect prey blipped onto her radar, hence "bane of bugs"; she found moths especially tasty. She earned the "fanslayer" epithet when, on a very hot night in our Malden apartment, she knocked a box fan out of the window; it broke a blade, and lay thumping on the floor until it was shut off.
Thankful for every day
Sputnik was so tiny when she first adopted us that she fit in the palm of Richie's hand. I wish I had taken more pictures of her in those days, as she was truly an adorable kitten. As Richie wrote (below), she also turned out to be pregnant. I regret that her kittens did not live, as she would probably have raised them to be as nice as she was, but we were just glad she survived her emergency surgery. My elation at the news that she had come through the experience, was balanced by being told she would not be likely to live very long, due to FELV. I guess the good part of that news is that I then treated every day as a gift, since I expected her to die young. We kept her indoors and an only child (except for a brief attempt at giving her a companion) so that she could not infect other cats or catch something that would kill her.
A truly excellent cat
Sputnik had the best disposition of any cat I have ever known, and she had excellent house manners. She wasn't destructive with clawing or knocking things over, and the only times she left messes where she shouldn't have were when she was ill. She was playful her whole life, as the collection of toys around the house will attest. Whenever we went away, we tried to bring back something new for her to play with, so she'd forgive us for leaving her. Before she became a bit lame, I would often catch her chasing her tail; in typical cat fashion, she would stop and take a bath as soon as she realized she was being watched.
Over time
In her middle years, she had surgery for bladder crystals, and thereafter she ate special prescription food to prevent a recurrence. Except for some dental care and having to excavate the build-up in her ears a few times, her health was pretty good over the years. She had a pathological fear of thunder, and we would always know a storm was coming when we saw her crawling slowly along the floor on her belly, with her nose sweating and a panicked look on her face. For the last two years or so, she was deaf and thunder no longer bothered her -- though sometimes I suspected "selective hearing", since she always seemed to know when her humans came home or the cabinet door was opened where the treats were kept. Also, she became a bit lame in one back leg, which caused her to walk with a slight limp and to sit off-center with her front paws pointed outward for balance. The week before she started failing, she was still climbing stairs at my pace, and playing with her string.
Always there
Whether tucking us in at night, supervising us while we worked, licking our ice cream or mooching a treat, or sitting on a pillow near us while we watched a movie, etc., Sputnik was a part of all our daily routines. In my home office, she would sleep in a chair beside me while I did computer stuff. In Richie's recording studio, he called her his "independently mobile, self-cleaning diffuser unit", and she was often found snoozing next to his space heater. We'll never forget: how terrorized she was at meeting a parrot; how she would lie in wait on a high perch, like a mountain lion waiting for an unsuspecting goat; her gentle ankle attacks from under the bed; playing the "foot game"; how she would grab her catnip strawberry with her front feet and kick the crap out of it with her back feet; the way she would walk on us to wake us up in the morning because we were being "boring"; how she surveyed her domain (and her birds) from her window bed; and so on...
The last days
Sputnik had gradually slowed down over the past months, had lost more weight, had bouts of vomiting every few days, drank and peed more often, and slept more. She had been hyper-thyroid for a few years, and we gave her her medicine morning and evening. We had been giving her treats whenever she demanded them, just to get more food into her, and she was still eating her prescription dry food. She never liked wet food, and didn't much care for "people food", but tiny bits of ham or roast beef were always of interest, and she would lick a shrimp until it no longer existed; we continued to offer her such treats. Some time during the night of Saturday 5/16, she had the biggest vomiting session ever, and starting the next day, she ate almost nothing. She would not eat her regular food or treats. She was still drinking her water, and we got her to lick the gravy off some canned food. That was the routine for the next few days, but it was clear that she was getting weaker and thinner, and her walking had become wobbly. By Wednesday, she could no longer jump up on our bed or her favorite chairs, though she could still do the stairs, one at a time. Thursday night was when we knew she was not miraculously going to "rally". She got to her water dish for a sip, but plopped-down into it, and Richie picked her up. Later, she urinated in her covered litter box at the entrance, then went further in, fell over and cried; I took the lid off, picked her up, cuddled her, and set her down in a favorite chair to sleep. Richie and I conferred, and we both knew the time had come. Sputnik was existing, but not "living". It sure wasn't any kind of quality of life for her, and it was painful for us to see her in this condition. We resolved to call our vet in the morning to have her euthanized. That was one of the longest nights of my life. I couldn't sleep, and kept getting up to check on her.
Once the decision had been made, we just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, but the soonest the animal hospital could take us was mid-afternoon. I was glad to have some work to keep my mind occupied, and Sputnik slept in a chair beside me while I worked. Finally the time came, and I gently placed Sputnik into her fuzzy round bed. I carried her out to the car, and Richie drove us to the vet. Sputnik was so lethargic that the car ride and the dogs in the waiting room did not disturb her. Several people in the waiting area commented on how pretty she was, and gave their condolences when they learned why we were there. We were escorted into an exam room and took care of some paperwork, shared some Sputnik stories with the staff, petted her, cried a lot, and waited for the doctor. I was glad that the vet who had provided most of Sputnik's care over the years was the one to handle her final visit. Dr. Pocher told us he uses Sputnik as an example when he has to tell people that their cat is FELV positive, so that they know it's not necessarily a death sentence. He gently petted her and said his good-bye, administered the sedative, then the anesthetic to stop her heart and breathing, and she quietly slipped away.
Sputnik was curled-up in her fuzzy bed as if she was asleep. When we got home, I gathered up several of her favorite toys, and some fabric and ribbon. She was on a small flannel blanket, which I used to lift her out of the bed. I wrapped her up in the fabric with her toys and some catnip. Using a piece of copper I had etched with a celtic design, I engraved her names and the date, and tucked it into a fold of fabric. Then I placed the tiny bundle into a cardboard box and put it all in the freezer. I arranged with my sister, Nancy, to bury Sputnik alongside the cat friends she has lost. On Sunday, I drove up to her place in New Hampshire to find Nancy had dug the needed hole. We donned bug netting to protect ourselves from the black flies, and together we laid Sputnik's remains to rest. That evening, we raised a couple of glasses of strong drink in memory of "absent friends".
In time...
Every time I pass one of her favorite sleeping places, I expect to see her; when I don't, I feel a pang and tears well-up in my eyes. I get weepy whenever I realize I'll never cuddle her again. I know this will ease, in time, but right now there's a big hole in my heart. We won't be cat-less for long, and are already planning on adopting a pair of kittens, but Sputnik is a beloved friend that can never be replaced and will never be forgotten.
Requiem
Richie's post in "The Cat House" on HomeRecording.com:
A few of you know me, not many, and I've spent quite awhile on Homerec., asking dumb questions, answering a few, and handing out my patented clue-by-four's. But those of you who know me know that I'm neither a great sound guy, nor a great recording artist. What I am is a storyteller, and tonight I have a story to tell. The story of Sputnik. For, today, my beloved wife and I had to put down our best friend and roomate of twenty years. I thought I would take it like a tough guy, but I am sitting here with tears dripping on my keyboard, and I can barely see to type.
Sputnik came to me, as cats often do, when I least expected her. I needed her of course, I just needed to be shown. My wife and I had split up, and I was making do paying the bills of two working people on one salary, and I had to choose each month what bill wouldn't be paid. She had gotten the car (which was fair), and I had only my Ninja. My stupid (and how!) orange tiger Xenon, had been run over by a truck (I found that out later) as I had always figured he would, and he had been gone for a month. No wife, no cat, just -- bills.
As I packed my things onto the Ninja to go to work on the night shift, I spied the shadow of a kitten across the street, trotting along under the street lights. As any cat person will do, I attempted to entice her. Unlike the usual run of feral and semi-feral junkyard cats in the neighborhood, she made a dead run for me at a gallop. "Pet me, you fool," she said to me. She was a beautiful tortoiseshell cat, about 8 weeks old, no collar. She was starving, with ribs sticking out. (No wonder she was so friendly.) And, unbeknownst to me, she was also -- pregnant. The vets say she probably got knocked-up ten minutes after it had become possible. An unwed pre-teenage mother!
"Well," I said, “You've hit the jackpot, beggar, for I have a bowl full of crunchies, an unused cat box, many toys, soft flat surfaces, heat, and -- no cat." I let her in, showed her the bowl of crunchies, and she dived in. I had to go to work, and all night, I worried that she would crap all over the house, destroy the curtains, etc. But when I got home, the bowl of crunchies (which had been as big as the cat) was -- gone! There were several neatly buried piles of ex-crunchies in the cat box, and the waif was curled up in a ball on the bed, with her tail over her nose, purring like crazy. Well, I'm no cat napper, so I asked around, and was told she had been abandoned by a family that moved out, and when I opened the door, she refused to even think about going out there. The real world hadn't been that good to her. She preferred to watch TV and chase moths.
Well a few weeks later she started to show, and I figured I was about to have the pitter-patter of many feet. I had fallen in love with a woman, also separated, and the official dates of both divorces loomed near. By this time, the cat had revealed her name to my new love interest -- Sputnik -- because Susan said she orbited around her humans as they tried to walk with her underfoot. I figured the name worked, as it is Russian for "friendly traveler". Soon the blessed day came (Sputnik's, not ours), and the litter was stillborn. Worse, one of the embryos had died in utero, and was decomposing, being reabsorbed into one of the horns of her uterus. She was badly infected, and was too young and small anyway. She was too weak to expel the fetuses. In short, she was dying, and not in a pretty way.
Of course, it was Sunday, and she needed a full service animal hospital, IV's, antibiotics, and a hysterectomy. With as little money as I had, all I could have offered her is -- a bullet. Susan couldn't bear it, and suggested that we go halves on the bill -- our first joint purchase.
After the surgery, they told me she was FELV positive -- feline leukemia! The vet said not to waste any more money on medical bills, as she'd be dead within a year. I guess he didn't remember another famous patient with a fatal disease -- Typhoid Mary! It turned out Sputnik was one of the extremely few immune FELV carriers. She carried it, but didn't get it.
We never knew her exact birthday, but she was almost twenty when she failed. She wasn't in pain, but she could no longer eat. She had gone in three weeks from a small slender cat to a gaunt, cachectic wraith. She could stand, but would fall over. It was just a matter of a few days, and we couldn't watch anymore, as she became listless. She was deaf as a stone the last two years, and had become mouthy in her old age. Now she was too weak to even cry. All three of us knew -- it was time.
The vet and the staff were all very kind, and Sputnik awaits her burial in my sister-in-law's little private pet cemetery in New Hampshire. My wife will lay her to rest with her favorite toys. In the end, I don't know whether it is that the cat represented a living link between me and my wife, or that she was there for me at one of the lowest points in my life, or that the little scrapper beat the odds and lived, but I had no idea how much I cared for her until I had to say goodbye to her forever. God, this sucks.
Richie, May 23, 2009