The End of the OG Era – Goodbye, Mini

Tonight is a sad night in the Cootie household.  Tonight, our OG cat, Mini, was welcomed over the rainbow bridge.  We truly thought she would make it to 2019 – in fact, our Christmas card letters that went out in this morning’s mail hailed her longevity!  But her health took a sudden downward turn in the past week or two, and Denis and I both felt the most humane thing we could do for our 20-year-old kitty was to let her rest.

She came into existence in a hole in the side of our apartment building in Kew Gardens, Queens in the late 1990s.   The runt of a litter of at least 5 cats (that I recall), she was so tiny she fit in the palm of my hand.  Our neighbors Rob and Tara, who found the kittens in the first place, kept two of the kitties.  An elderly friend of mine who lived in the neighborhood took the other two, and we kept Mini.  Mini, the runt of the litter and easily half the size of her brothers and sisters, became very sick soon after we decided to keep her, and the vet determined she had a host of physical problems – ringworm, roundworm, upper respiratory infection, seizures – we truly did not think she’d live long at all.  But the vet worked a miracle, and Mini began to recover and make her presence known.  She may have been the tiniest cat in our four-feline home, but she was just as mighty as her housemates.

But even from the beginning, Mini was a loner.  The Cootie animal household had a hierarchy, and Mini abided by it.  As fourth cat in, she hid a lot, and didn’t really bond with us much.   She got along fine with the other cats, but didn’t spend a lot of time hanging out with them.  Multi-cat sightings that included Mini were very rare even when she was older and had been around for a long time.

Then slowly, as our other three OG (original gangster for those that don’t know the hip lingo) began aging out and crossing their own rainbow bridges, Mini began to become more social.  When she finally became the lone cat in the house in 2012, she became who she was truly meant to be: a lovely, friendly, very social cat.  Instead of hiding upstairs all the time she’d come and nap next to me while I was watching TV in the living room, or she’d wander the kitchen looking for falling crumbs as Denis made dinner.  She’d sit at the back patio door sunning herself for hours.  She tolerated the dogs in the house and they were very gentle with her considering they towered over her!

She was always our healthiest cat – even outgrowing the other three cats at one brief point in time.  But in the last few years her health changed – she began losing weight, and it was determined that she had a form of hyperthyroidism that meant her metabolism worked too quickly and no matter how much food she ate, she would still lose weight.  We began leaving food out for her 24 hours a day, and put her on some medication which enabled her to at least maintain the weight she was (5 pounds), even if she didn’t gain anything back.  At some point, though, even the meds could help her.  And at 20 years old, she could hardly see, was nearly deaf, and had really bad arthritis in her back legs.  She stopped grooming herself and looked like a seriously raggedy cat.

But she still had a sweet meow, and loved to sleep next Denis at night, and sometimes even acted like the kitten she once was.  Shortly before we adopted Jacob the Cat in 2017 she began exhibiting errant behavior – she’d sneak into the dining room and decide the rug made the perfect litter box alternative.  Or she’d decide our bedroom closet fit that bill.   It was once we adopted Jacob that we also made the decision to begin quarantining Mini.  Rather than have her be urinally destructive all over the house, we decided to let the master bedroom suite be her domain, and laid down puppy pads all over the place since she basically stopped using the litter box at some point.  We’d faithfully change out the used puppy pads, and never yelled at her.  After all, she was 19 going on 20, which is pretty darn old for a cat.

In the past few weeks we made the decision not to renew her meds.  We could tell she was struggling because her ability to jump on the bed went from a 99% success rate to 50% to 0%.  If she sneezed her whole back half would slip and fall.  She would fall asleep and then struggle to stand back up.  This morning we woke up to find she was struggling even more, and Denis announced that it was time to let her go.  All of the human Cooties said farewell to her this morning, and gave her a few last pets of the head before we left the house for the day.  This morning I called the vet to make the appointment.  Alas, Mini went out on her own terms, passing away gently in her sleep in her nice soft bed while we were at work and school.   I’m glad to know her last moments were peaceful and quiet and comfortable.

She was a fantastic cat.  She was a sweet cat.  She was the last OG, and she will be greatly missed.