Our Topsy has passed away.

One month ago to the day, I posted an item here about us taking Topsy to the vet, and the vet's diagnosis.  He told us it would be a matter of weeks before she succumbed to heart failure, and it was exactly four weeks. For the last two weeks she had been laying on the lambs wool pad we put on the floor for her, not eating, not drinking much, and only moving if we picked her up to give her the drops prescribed by the vet to get rid of the build up of fluid in her chest.

This morning I stroked Topsy for a few minutes before picking her up and she looked up and me and purred.  When I picked her up she made a strange mew/cough sound and when I gave her to Ken to hold so I could administer the drops, she didn't struggle.  After I gave her the drops I took her to the kitty litter tray, in which she squatted, had a wee, then collapsed.  I picked her up and put her on the floor and she looked like she was choking.  Ken was phoning the vet, and I wrapped Topsy in a towel and handed her to him while I took the phone.  She gave a couple of little gasps and stopped breathing.  Poor Ken had tears streaming down his face, and I was telling the vet nurse not to send the vet around here because the cat had died.  The vet was just about to come around, so we caught him in time.  He asked what we wanted to do about Topsy's body, did we want to bury her here or have her cremated.  There is no way we could dig a hole in our yard, it is too rocky, and neither of us are strong enough.  We've always had the vet dispose of our animals when they have been put to sleep.  So we took Topsy to the vet surgery and they organised for her to be cremated, and her ashes brought back to us in a special container.

When we returned home, I put the carry cage on the path outside the back door, ready to put it in the shed.  But Tiger had other ideas.  Animals are not stupid, we might not know what they are thinking, but their actions clearly demonstrate they are aware of change.  Tiger spent about 15 minutes checking the carry cage.  Under any other circumstances, he would run a mile; they know it means a trip to the vet.  But today, see what he did:

The placemats on our kitchen table for the past year have featured chooks, but I decided it was time for a change.  So I pulled out all my previous years Black Cat calendars and Ken and I picked out our favourite pictures, which I then proceeded to laminate using a picture on each side.  Here is our kitchen table tonight with our tribute to Topsy place mats:
One side:

The flip side: