mcnutcase

In mid-October, 2010, Gale found someone reaching out to take in a stray, but non-feral, cat -- the woman had tried to bring her in, but the cat did not get along with her existing cats. The woman lived in a trailer park, and there was a cat colony there; the colony had just been TNR'd. We went there, and the cat in question was a perky, somewhat vocal, dilute tortoiseshell, with one ear notched. I picked her up, and she didn't object, so we took her home. I suggested two name choices -- Bitsy and Dusty. Gale picked the latter, although she would sometimes only respond to Bitsy.

We took her to the vet ASAP, and she was declared to be about two years old. She got some vaccinations, and anti-flea stuff, and she and Gale spent the next week or so locked up in the spare room. Because of this, Dusty bonded with Gale.

At the time, we had 3 cats, so she made the 4th. She was full of tortitude, and didn't really get along with the other cats.

We had to take her back to the vet within a couple of weeks (routine vaccination followup), and discovered that she REALLY loved food -- she'd gained a pound in that time. We let the cats free-feed, so she got very rotund. At her biggest, she was about 13 pounds, and looked like an American football. Her weight was a problem for most of her life.

She escaped one day in San Jose; we never figured out how she got out. We were frantic for all day, calling shelters, vets, and driving around. We didn't find her. I told Gale she should sleep out on the porch; she didn't, but fell asleep on the couch. Around 3am when I realized she wasn't in bed, I went to go get her... and heard meowing outside the door. I opened it up, and Dusty sauntered in; the other cats came to investigate, and she let them smell her "i've been outdoors and been places" attitude.

A year or two later, she rushed out the front door, and tried again -- however, she decided to try to climb up a wooden fence and jump over, but as she was 10lbs and nearly spherical, she fell instead. And as she lay stunned, I picked her up and put her back in the spare room, locked up for being naughty.

She loved Gale fiercely and jealously, until she switched her preferences over to me; after we lost Leo, and then Polly, Dusty took the prime spot on the bed (next to me), and became bosscat. Here in Ireland, she gradually came to accept Tony's affections, mainly because he didn't care about her mostly-ineffective bites, and because he was warm.

Some time after we moved to Oregon, she was diagnosed with intestinal inflammation; cancer was the most likely suspect, although a laparoscopic biopsy didn't show anything. She went on a daily steroid.

After we moved to our house in Ireland, she started having some strong allergy symptoms -- breathing issues, runny nose, sneezing so much she bled. I stopped her steroids, to see if that was the cause; she did seem to improve, but she also lost weight quickly. This wasn't necessarily bad, but it kept going, so she went back on the steroid. Her weight stabilized at about 8lbs for most of the year. Although part of that was due to me feeding her as many tubes of Churu a day as I could get her to eat. (This was necessary partially because she would still occasionally binge on kibble, and drink a lot of water, which would cause it to expand and she'd cough it up.)

In October, she largely stopped eating the churu. She still ate dreamies (european version of Temptations) and kibble, but she started losing weight. This was a couple of weeks before her normal anti-arthritic pain shot, so we didn't rush anything.

Around Thursday or Friday, she started having extra problems walking. Over the weekend it grew prounoucned; her right hind leg was essentially useless. I suspect she had a stroke.

Today, I called the vet and rescheduled, getting an appointment at 9:15.

Dusty was a very good girl.