Well it took me a while to be able to post this here, but the first thing I did when I joined this forum was to come to the Our Pets forum to read about all you all's pets. Z, I am so sorry to hear about Blackie's passing and how sick she was in the months before you all lost her.
Just before Independence Day this year (several days after I "Returned to Sender" the abusive jerk of an ex-boyfriend whom I'd brought out here w/me from Kansas, which yes, is relevant to this story) we had a terrible heat wave. Only the super-rich have AC in their homes here, as it is not generally ever necessary, so of course I do not. Usually because of how the house is built and because up in The Crow's Nest (the little loft that's the bedroom) there are six long, tall windows that let all the heat out, the heat is not an issue once a person has learned how to manage the fans, doors and windows and the like. On this and the preceding days however, it was just intolerable. I'd been sleeping downstairs because it was so damned hot upstairs and hadn't even gone up there for several days, so I had not noticed that the hateful, abusive, lousy excuse for an ex-boyfriend had shut all six of those windows, trapping all the sweltering heat into the house. In fact, I did not notice until a week after poor Kitty had been killed.
I always had a very strict rule for Miss Kitty to ALWAYS be back in the house and the doors (at least the screen and storm doors) shut at LEAST an hour before dusk so that if I couldn't find her (which was precisely
never before this night) I would have time to locate her and get her into the house before the predators became 99% more active than they are during daylight hours. On THIS night before dusk, I went to the front door and she was lying on the front stoop where she could nearly always be found at that hour. It was SO desperately hot in the house... about 100-degrees as I recall telling Az, hotter than it was outside (which now makes perfect sense to me), and after careful consideration for Kitty's health (as a feline's body temperature is much higher than a human's, so if I was suffering in the house, I could not imagine how she felt) and selfishly, my own comfort and peace of mind, I decided that after 16-years that I could take a chance JUST THIS ONCE to let her stay outside and leave the doors open for circulation throughout the house.
About 30-minutes after dark I went to check on her and immediately I felt sick and my heart dropped to below sea level. Not only was she not in her normal spot on the front stoop, but the front door mat was gone. I immediately grabbed my SureFire flashlight, her (fake) Tupperware food container, and put on a pair of Levis and tall boots (so as not to get Foxtails) and went out the front door. First thing I saw was the doormat several feet from where it should have been. She had obviously "peeled out" on it, sending it flying off into the bushes. My heart was in my stomach and I really knew at that moment that she was gone but I was desperate, frantic and determined to find her. I began shaking her food container and calling for her, which
NEVER failed to bring her to me in less than 10-seconds flat. She did not come. My heart was filled with doom.
I swept the SureFire light under my pickup and around the top of the property and did not see her. I then ran down to the lower part of the house, swept under "The Yacht" as I call it (a joke, not appropriate for this story), and around the North side of the property. Nothing. Then I swept the light down on the West, downhill side of the property and saw four deer, swept the light up a bit toward the South and that was when I saw her... dead, clenched in the jaws of my resident bobcat. Instinctively, I yelled out for her and ran toward the bobcat, scaring it off into the brush, boulders and trees, taking my sweet Kitty with it.
I looked for her until about 0300 the next morning, at first refusing to accept that she was dead... or, maybe I was in shock, I don't know because I was calling for her and shaking her food container for hours. Finally it really hit me that she was dead and I went back to the house to put her food container back where it belonged, and I resumed my search for her with my SureFire in my teeth (w/electrical tape wrapped around the end of it so I don't chip my teeth) so I could crawl around on my hands and knees in the sage, scrub brush, under the trees, under the boulders... everywhere I could think of that would be a good hide for a bobcat. Normally, I very highly respect private property, but on that night I simply did not care. I have no idea onto how many different people's private property I trespassed. The next morning I resumed my search in the daylight. I never found her remains.
Kitty was a truly remarkable hunter, the sweetest and kindest kitty, best snuggler and feline lover of humans, she never met anyone she didn't immediately befriend and whose lap she did not immediately make a home, and for 16-years she was my best friend and I never slept a night without her. I miss her more than is imaginable.
For about a week after the bobcat killed her I was intent on killing that cat. As I'd mentioned, it is my "resident" bobcat... it's on my property all the time and s/he'd killed my best friend and broken my heart into millions of pieces. After I'd cooled off I realized that I had very consciously made the decision to allow Kitty to go outside and live a happy life... the one that she WANTED, as a hunter. If she was ever kept indoors, she cried at the doors and in the windowsills, and pawed at me begging to be let out. I did not have it in me to force her to live a life that she did not want. I wanted her to live a happy, full life... and she did until the moment she died. And in retrospect, I am also SO very grateful that her last days, months, &c were not spent in pain and that I was not forced into the decision to have to put her down in the end, that she died quickly and relatively painlessly. While no doubt, she was terrified and obviously ran for her life, I maintain that was a better end than a long painful illness and the guilt I would have endured in being forced to put her down. If I had it all to do over again, the only thing I would change would be to have checked those damned six tall windows upstairs after I kicked out that shithead ex-boyfriend of mine. I very badly wanted to blame him for her being killed, but that is no way to live. She lived a very long, healthy and happy life, and was (yes, arguably, I know!) the most loved Kitty to ever walk this earth. Plus, given that I made the conscious decision to let her be the outdoor kitty and hunter that she wanted to be, I did everything reasonably in my power to protect her. I cannot feel badly about that, and again, had I to do it all over again, I'd do it the same way. Minus the shitass, abusive ex-boyfriend... of course.
I posted some funny hunting stories about her @PDF:
PDF: Dog Shaming, p. 2, Post No. 22
http://pensacoladiscussion.forumotion.com/t4295p15-dog-shaming
My Pretty Kitty. Rest in peace, my little love: