I've told the story before of how we got all our cats. I won't go into it again. But I will share that today we had to put down Freddie the Cat. He had kidney failure and a very large tumor on his side, and the most humane thing to do was to put him down. We adopted him and his sister Ginger sometime in the late 1990s. We were initially just going to adopt one cat (bringing our menagerie to 3) but when we saw Fred and Ginger at the foster care home I knew we had to bring both home.
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Even then we weren't sure of their ages, but we presumed they were both about 2-3 years old at the time. That means Freddie was most likely 14-15 years old when the vet put him to sleep this morning.
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He wasn't the easiest cat to take care of. For a while after we adopted him he would go to the bathroom all over our apartment in Queens. In the hallway, in the living room, against the wall under our bed, ON TOP of our bed – you name it, he'd go there. But we eventually broke him of the habit and for the most part he did his business where he was supposed to, until this past year when he began to get sick.
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When he was younger he had a mild obsessive compulsive behavior for a while where he'd overgroom himself and give himself bald spots. But the vet told us to give him special food for a while and sure enough, that helped alleviate the problem. After a few years we switched back to the cheap food and his overgrooming problem never came back.
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He was a crazy cat. He was the cat in our household who would randomly begin talking very loudly at midnight. He'd pace through the house, braying at the top of his lungs, for no reason. He'd do it several times a week.
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He was a big cat. At one point I think he tipped the scales at 19 pounds. We have pictures of him laying down that show how he would just SPREAD. He earned the nickname Big Fat Freddie for his bulk.
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He was a sweet cat. He loved to sit on Denis's lap. He enjoyed sleeping under the twinkly lights of the kids' Christmas tree. He would give his sister Ginger sweet kisses when she least expected it.
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He will be sorely missed in the Cootie household.
Sorry for your loss.
So sorry for the loss of sweet Freddie. I know it’s hard.
I’m so sorry about Freddie. We had to put our old kitty down last spring, he also had kidney failure. They are part of our families, and I’m sorry for your loss.