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My partner and I foster a lot of cats. Some of the sweetest cats take forever to get adopted just because they aren’t kittens anymore. One of our fosters has been with us for almost three years now - just because he isn’t a kitten and needs some inexpensive meds sprinkled on his food once a day.
We adopted a male cat who was a couple years old, he had no teeth and has stomach problems so he needs special food. He had already been adopted once and returned because of the issues and he got bullied out of his foster home by some other cats. Felt so sorry for him, he’s the sweetest boy and our other cat tolerates him ok (they have an older sister/younger brother dynamic), and she doesn’t usually like other cats.
The shelter staff made it sound like he was special needs but it’s literally just a slightly more expensive hard food. I guess after he was returned they wanted to make sure whoever adopted him knew what they were getting into. Love that little guy!
That’s super awesome - both for the fostering, and for paying the cat tax in advance!
I like the idea of getting an adult cat - a bit bigger, a bit wiser, and a bit warmer to the idea of having a bed and a human to call their own.
Looks like a Bengal. I’m surprised he wasn’t snapped up.
BTW as an elder cat caretaker, if he stops eating hit meds willingly (which can easily happen if his condition flares up), we have had amazing success with cutting the tip off a syringe, loading it with canned food and front loading the tip with their pills.
When cutting the tip, leave a tiny bit of material so the plunger still stops, but not so much that the pill gets jammed.
3/4 of our cats actually open their mouths willingly to be pilled because they only taste the food, the pill is swallowed without them noticing.
What a handsome spotted guy!
SQUEEZIES! I know scruffing is wrong, but God dang, do they love sqeezies and butt spanks.
Oof. Much feels.
Also, old cats yaoll like a mfer and develop incontinence. Give them the best last days you can, but when its time to let them go, let them go.
Yelling into empty spaces isn’t exclusive to old cats. I know of at least two who do it just to hear themselves yell.
It’s not even exclusive to cats. Some days, you just gotta sound your barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world, y’know?
I don’t know why mine used to, but then I separated and he yowls a lot less now. It’s really kind of weird. I think it has to do with knowing where I am
I know a few politicians who do that too.
Man I’d love to be able to do that and give cats a good run-in for their twilight years but I don’t think I could - partly because one of the household is allergic to cats; but mainly I don’t think I could deal with the repeated emotional devastation of having to let them go at a much higher rate than a “normal” pet owner.
Fair play to those that do. Pretty ballsy.
I thought the same thing till I met a beloved old cat-daddy neighbor. Before he passed away he had asked if I could help find homes for his kitties. I took his two oldest cats without knowing what I was getting into (mostly) in a good way. I found out old cats howl and even though they are so rickety they move like an At-At from Star Wars they’ll scamper like a fool given the right stimulation. Totally worth it! Seven years later I still have one of them who is now 21 years old. She sleeps a lot but loves a good scritch and pet session. I wish I could make all of my cats infinite cats. Having lost pets just means I cherish them all even more.
Yeah, I could never do it, but mad respect to those who do.
As an old cat adopter I want to add one thing to this. Yes, it hurts to lose them when their time comes, but something I didn’t expect is that after the mourning I’ve always started to feel a sense of urgency to find the next old timer to rescue. I’ll remember the time and love I had from the ones before and I curse how much time was wasted while they waited in a shelter for someone to come for them. Why couldn’t I have found them sooner? They deserved so much more love and comfort, where the hell was I? Then we go out and find our new friends that have been waiting for us for so long and our family gets better again.
It’s always tough knowing that our time with them is short, but that’s true of any animal relationship. In the end we’re left with the love for them which in my experience never diminishes. We may say more tearful goodbyes when connecting with the old ones, but over time the wonderful memories and love in our lives just accumulates more and more.
I agree the responsibility (and occasional expense) of caring for older animals is not always in everyone’s capabilities, but I implore you not to avoid considering welcoming one (or more) into your life solely because of aversion to the pain that comes from losing them. The love they give outweighs it a thousandfold.
Not going to start crying in the middle of this restaurant. Nope.
Damn those onion ninjas again…
My aunt did the same thing. She said the cat she adopted never forgot about it, either - just super sweet every day, happy to have a home and a good friend in the world.
CUTE
New to me that cats can live 20 years!
A lot of cats will make it to 20. Its the upper end of average, even. The oldest confirmed living cat is like 27.
The real unbelievable one is that according to guineas records, the oldest cat ever was a whopping 38 years old, out of Austin Texas. 1967 to 2005.
Good to hear. We have a pair of sisters pushing 14 and still going strong. They’re part Maine coin and fluffy as hell so we joke that they’re too majestic to ever die.
These are the best people on earth.
I wish i had the capacity to adopt animals. I’ve always wanted to do this. Older animals being in shelters makes me sad.
Reminds me of the time my wife and her friend when to an adoption event. She said she might come back with one. I told her to pick out the dog least likely to get adopted. She came back home with a 20 pound mutt that’s blind and deaf. He was rescued from a hoarder and had a bunch of open sores. Real pitiful. The before and after pics are crazy. He looks great now. Total asshole and fits right in with the family.
And the non kitten fellows! We wanted a third cat after adopting two kittens years ago. We were so over the erratic nature combined with the roll the dice luck of whether they were floor pissers, plant eaters, etc, so we decided to look for adult cats. The only one the shelter had was this mongy manky stray who was estimated to be 5 years old. When we went in the adoption room with her, she looked at us and did a massive wet shit that made us all evacuate the room. Her adoption photos make her look mangy, aloof, old, dirty, and distant, not to mention smelly.
Later, when the poo particles had settled, we went back in and picked her up. She sank into my arms and I just knew… I cried and couldn’t bear to let her go.
Four years on, her shaggy fur has became soft, her distant eyes started slow blinking and showing emotion, her little frame filled out and she became an absolute hellhound for dinner time. When you walk in the door, no matter who you are (literally, you could be a burglar), she will run up to you and do this silent meow asking to be picked up. When you hold her, she purrs so much her body shakes and she drools until her face is dripping. She will climb into bed and play little spoon at night, and she loves laps all times of the day.
We’ve had her 4 years and she no longer does wet shits, but is the same loving cat that melted when someone held her and showed her love. She converted me to older cats.
When we went in the adoption room with her, she looked at us and did a massive wet shit that made us all evacuate the room.
I laughed so hard at this single sentence that I couldn’t stop even while writing this. Bravo!
If only more people adopted in general instead of spending money on designer pets.
No cats are immortal you can’t convince me otherwise
Reddit jokes about crying are the equivalent of a couple doing cutsy baby talk with each other in public.
What’s Reddit?
