I came across this story in the NY Times yesterday and it made me think of Barkley, about the sweetest old tom cat you ever ran across (unless you were another tom).  Barkley (who our son named for the dog on Sesame Street) started out life as a feral cat living in the draw along side our house when we lived in Vermont.  After spending a couple of weeks in the attic over the garage (a long story...perhaps for another post) he lived under the chair in the den for the next couple of months of domesticated life.  He would hiss and spit upon any approach.  To this day, I doubt if we would have tamed him except that he got deathly ill (one of those cat things that you never really figure out, provide support, and they get better or they don't; if they get better, they've used up one of their nine lives).  He was so ill he couldn't effectively fend us off and so we were able to begin handling him.  After about four months of this uneasy co-existence, in the late winter, he was at least tolerating our presence and so we decided we had to test whether he had adopted us or not.  We put him out and left the door open.  Several hours later he came back.  A few months later he was on a plane to his new life in Pullman.

One of the things in the NY Times story that struck a chord with me was the end-of-life decision for Scuzzi that paralleled our experience with Barkley.  The author's description encapsulates well the issues surrounding euthanasia for which veterinarians must be ready to engage their clients.  However, it specifically resonated because of Barkley.  He used up a couple more of his nine lives in the 13 years he lived in Pullman, but there came that time when he was about 15 years old that a lymphoma reared up, and spread rapidly.  Our kids had grown up with him and so the decision was tough, but in the end he stayed home with us, getting general supportive care and fluids, until we agreed his quality of life was no longer there and if we kept him alive longer it would be for us and not him.  And, like Scuzzi, he got the shoebox burial in the back yard so we all could say goodbye and keep him around close.

He'll always be a great cat.