is not all that old, for a house cat. At least not based on our other cats over the past thirty years. He's perhaps twelve - we don't keep great records in this area - yet he's mostly blind and senile, and increasingly skeletal. Plus he has a fantastically penetrating yowl as he begs for food, which is just about whenever he's awake. Despite the fact that we feed him at least ten times a day. Most of which he just nibbles at.
When Teri cooks, or when any of us eat anything at the kitchen table, he gets inches away from whatever is being prepared or eaten, and yowls until we begin to contemplate throwing him out the back door with all our might. (No, we have not succumbed to that impulse yet. But who knows what the future may bring.)
It's a given that those of us who love and care for animals have to endure surviving them, over and over, but the hardest aspect is deciding when to put them down. I'm holding off on George because at moments he still appears to be enjoying himself - when we pet him, he purrs vigorously - but who knows what he's really feeling? That said, my first choice is to have him simply die in his sleep. Then again - as in so many other cases - I don't really get to choose.
Every pleasure in this world comes at a price, no matter how fervently we may wish for loopholes.
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