It seems like only yesterday that I had a house full of kittens, but now Xena is suddenly 11 years old, Trillian is 10, and even my youngest, Dr. Jones and Kaylee, are nine years old.
We lost our foster failure kitty Izzy (formerly Sooty) in February. He was already elderly with chronic kidney disease when he came to live with us in late 2014, so we felt lucky to have the three years and change with him that we did. We still miss him every day, though, because he was such a sweet and loving cat.
Now the big concerns are Toby and Velvet. Toby was eight when we got him, which makes him 15 this year. The shelter told us that Velvet was seven or eight when we got her, but considering that it's been a decade already, we think they may have been overstating her age. Still, she's in her teens somewhere.
Toby was recently diagnosed with heart failure, and he'll be on medication for the rest of his life. It seems to be helping and he's not coughing as much as he was, but obviously he needs to take it easy from now on. Of course, he's the guy who only has two teeth left and he also has noticeable cataracts, so he gets the full senior dog treatment now.
Velvet seems to be having tooth problems of her own. I noticed yesterday that one of her bottom canines was sticking out at a weird angle, so I presume it will be falling out soon. She's also starting to get that old gal skinniness, but she got a clean bill of health at the vet recently, so she's probably doing as well as can be expected under the circumstance.
It's such a shame that pets add so much enjoyment to our lives, but only for a short time. All we can do it love on them as much as possible while we have them.
It's weird to realize that Toby is downright geriatric! All your pets know they are very well-loved.
Posted by: Christy | April 20, 2018 at 06:02 PM