This morning I opened my email to find a lovely letter from my oldest daughter, Shannon, who is back in the states with her husband Sam. Towards the end of the letter, she gives me the sad news that one of our beloved family cats, Meeney, is dying of cancer, and will probably not live to see his 22nd birthday, which is coming up shortly. His brother Miney passed away last year.
I am so sad today. The tears just won't stop falling. I know. 21, almost 22 years is a ripe old age for a cat! Although I knew these guys would not live to be 100, it never occurs to me that they will not be with us always. And now the time has come that I have to reconcile that both of them will be gone. Where did those 22 years go??? I distinctly remember bring these little tiny kittens home , they were 5 or 6 weeks old, little scrawny things. They came from the horse farm where I was taking lessons at the time, from a litter of 5: Einey, Meeney, Miney, Moe and Xerox ( who was the carbon copy of his father Ditto). They were in danger of being trampled every day by the herd of horses coming and going, so the owners were trying to find good homes quickly, before some untimely event occurred to one or more of these little creatures. I am not a cat person, but I had 2 little girls at home who needed a pet (that was my idea, not theirs!). So two of them came home with me- almost identical orange tabby little kittens.
Meeney and Miney have been faithful companions to my girls and myself over all these years. When I got divorced 11 years ago, the cats also moved out with the girls and me. When the girls moved to live with their father, they took the cats along with them. There has always been a special quality about Meeney and Miney. I find cats to be aloof, which doesnt suit me, but these two are not. They are people cats, Meeney in particular. Rather than be off on his own, he perferred to lounge around your neck. Or be right with you, whatever you were doing. There were even days when he wanted to drive the car with me. The girls and I often made long trips to our beach house in Delaware, with the cats along in our Dodge caravan. On the first few trips, we took them without cat carriers, loose in the car. Meeney insisted on handling the gas peddle for me. It wasn't long before they learned to make that trip in a carrier - safer for all of us!
And now today I have to face the incredibly sad news that this dear dear family member is suffering from cancer. I'm mad at myself that I am here having the adventure of my lifetime and my pet is dying at home without me. But I have solice in the fact that he has had a long happy lifetime with us, we have wonderful memories of him and his brother, and that Shannon is home with him making his last days comfortable.
Thanks, Meeney, for being a special part of our lives.
Showing posts with label pets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pets. Show all posts
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Monday, December 3, 2007
Living the dream- Sending Sam and Leo ( our dogs) to Italy
The move to Venice is about a month away, and I have been diligently ticking off items on the Extrication plan- well, let's face it, it's a giant To-Do List. One of the most pressing items left on the list is to work out how we will get our dogs Sam and Leopold shipped over. Everyone asks us if we will leave them here. NO WAY! These are our boys, no matter what herculean effort is necessary, they are making this move with us. But- I want the move to be as easy on them as possible. Sam is going on 12 yrs old-- he's the old man of the family. I need them to be handled with care and I need them to arrive safely.
Like almost every other item I've had to tackle, there has been a lot of information to plow through about how to transport animals, and subsequently a lot of decisions to make. Almost overwhelming. I've gotten through what appears to be the information gathering stage. I have one more phone call to Lufthansa to check out their policies. After that, I think we can make the decisions necessary.
First of all, we needed to learn the requirements for bringing the dogs into the country. The necessary documents have to be presented to the Italian consulate before we can take them. The dogs need to be micro chipped by our vet, and also the vet must complete a certification indicating the dogs are in good health and all inoculations are up to date.
Decisions about how to fly them over include a) fly them as excess baggage on the same flight we are on, b)fly them as unaccompanied cargo on a different flight, or c) obtain a transport service who will move the dogs from home to destination for us, and also handle the necessary paper work.
Obviously our preference would be to have them on the same flight with us. There's a huge level of comfort for us knowing that they will be with us the whole way. There's also a huge amount of nervousness about how they will do down in the cargo hold. We are learning that there are pet friendly airlines who will take care of things like walking them during flight layovers and making sure they are fed. Then there are other airlines who just make sure they are loaded onto the plane and that's it. Also, we are flying in January, and many airlines will not fly the dogs if the temperature outside is below 45 degrees. I can totally understand that. And that also creates a dilemma--- what if, on the day we have tickets for the temp drops below that? We can fly but the dogs have to be left behind. In the immortal words of Pietro Paprizzio (from my favorite Casanova movie)--- "Oh, Calamity!!"
When we have this one figured out ( soon !!), I'll post the results. And for sure I will post a picture of Sam and Leopold arriving in Venice. That will be a happy day for all of us!
Like almost every other item I've had to tackle, there has been a lot of information to plow through about how to transport animals, and subsequently a lot of decisions to make. Almost overwhelming. I've gotten through what appears to be the information gathering stage. I have one more phone call to Lufthansa to check out their policies. After that, I think we can make the decisions necessary.
First of all, we needed to learn the requirements for bringing the dogs into the country. The necessary documents have to be presented to the Italian consulate before we can take them. The dogs need to be micro chipped by our vet, and also the vet must complete a certification indicating the dogs are in good health and all inoculations are up to date.
Decisions about how to fly them over include a) fly them as excess baggage on the same flight we are on, b)fly them as unaccompanied cargo on a different flight, or c) obtain a transport service who will move the dogs from home to destination for us, and also handle the necessary paper work.
Obviously our preference would be to have them on the same flight with us. There's a huge level of comfort for us knowing that they will be with us the whole way. There's also a huge amount of nervousness about how they will do down in the cargo hold. We are learning that there are pet friendly airlines who will take care of things like walking them during flight layovers and making sure they are fed. Then there are other airlines who just make sure they are loaded onto the plane and that's it. Also, we are flying in January, and many airlines will not fly the dogs if the temperature outside is below 45 degrees. I can totally understand that. And that also creates a dilemma--- what if, on the day we have tickets for the temp drops below that? We can fly but the dogs have to be left behind. In the immortal words of Pietro Paprizzio (from my favorite Casanova movie)--- "Oh, Calamity!!"
When we have this one figured out ( soon !!), I'll post the results. And for sure I will post a picture of Sam and Leopold arriving in Venice. That will be a happy day for all of us!
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