Remembering Skye Kitty
Summer, 1997 to September 25, 2014
Death is a part of life, and unfortunately most animals do not live as long as us humans. This past week, my cat, Skye, passed on. She was a very important part of my life and gave me so much joy. For 16 years. It is the longest I have had the privilege of having a pet in my life. I am writing this blog to celebrate Skye's life and write about my memories of her.
Erik and I moved to Mammoth Lakes, CA. from Santa Barbara, CA. in 1997. Erik was 8. In 1998, I bought my first home. A wonderful mobile home in Ski Trails. It was the location that made it so wonderful. It was located at the end of the last culdesac, the last home on the right. End unit. My view was the Sherwins. Dogs were not allowed at that time, so it was decided between Erik and I that we would get a cat. I saw an add regarding kittens needing homes at the local pet shop and called. The woman, living in Crowley Lake, advised that there was only one more kitten left, and that she was already coming up to Mammoth for other reasons, and she would stop by our home to see if we wanted to take the kitten. So, our kitten, who we named Skye, was delivered to us in September, 1998.
Skye Was A Great Hunter
We had only lived in our new home for about a month, but we already had a mouse problem. I had seen mouse droppings in various indoor places since we had moved in. Within a week of Skye arriving, I never saw another mouse dropping in the house again. Skye had an appetite for critters. She also liked to play with them. As much as I don't like mice in the house, I don't like to see an animal suffer. Skye would capture mice and put them in my big bathtub to play with before doing them in. If I was there when this occurred, I would rescue the poor mouse and let him/her go outside. I think those mice I rescued warned all their mice friends not to come into our home unless they wanted to die. As Skye got older, her hunting progressed. There were many mornings, opening the door to take Erik to school and go to work, where we had presents of critter guts left at our door. That's what outdoor, hunter cats do. They are supposed to be gifts for us owners. There were a few animals I remember trying to save from Skye. One was a chipmunk that she brought inside the house. I put Skye away in a room until I could get the chipmunk back outside. It was quite a feat. Another time, I was outside during the summer when I saw Skye with a baby cotton tale bunny in her mouth. I chased her down and rescued the baby bunny, who ended up dying overnight from internal injuries. I had a graveyard in our backyard for these bigger critter deaths from Skye.It's one thing for Skye to hunt, kill, and eat critters, but killing birds is not OK with me. She rarely did this (as far as I knew), until Peter, Erik and I moved to our Crowley Lake home in 2006. We lived on a beautiful piece of property, close to one acre, in an aspen grove with a creek and pond. The aspens attracted a lot of birds in the spring and summertime. It was a symphony of beautiful bird songs outside that time of the year. Especially at daybreak.
I don't know why, but Skye preferred to hunt and kill bats, but she did not eat them. She would stalk them down at the pond in the evenings. The bats would swoop down to have a sip of water, and Skye would swat them dead. It was the weirdest thing. She would kill 2,3,4+ bats in a night and line them up on our rail wood ties. Bats are a good thing. They eat mosquitos and other small insects. We started making sure that Skye was indoors after that during the batting hour.
Many people where I live in the mountains do not let their cats outside much or at all because of the chance of coyotes killing them. I would not of wanted a cat unless it was an indoor/outdoor cat. Cats are naturally inclined to be outdoors. When Skye was in her prime, she spent most of her non-winter month nights outside. Cats are nocturnal. She was in her element. I would rather Skye only live a few years living in her element and possibly dying young for a dinner for others than forcing her to live an indoor life. Up until about 5 years ago, I joked that Skye could of probably taken down a mountain lion or coyote with the combination of her hunting and survival skills. (Coyotes can't climb trees or go up on a roof.) Only the fittest survive. Skye was the fittest.
I had Skye spayed when we got her. I love, love, love, kittens, and ideally, I would of loved to have Skye experience one litter of motherhood. However, I know better. There are too many unwanted, or unhomed, cats/kittens in this world. I did not want to add to that statistic with any of Skye's offspring.
Sparktisity or Sparkkisity
Ha ha. I think I just made up that word. Skye requires a few paragraphs of her sparky personality. She developed it from the beginning because of Erik messing with her. He would be playing with her with his hands, kind of an "I'm going to gitcha", but she would swat him instead. She soon did not trust anyone to pet her. It was not that Erik had abused her or anything, it was just that when she saw a hand coming towards her, she was going to "get" them; they were not going to "get" her. Any time I had friends over, I had to warn them, "don't pet the cat". It was difficult finding people to feed her when we were away from town. She drew blood from a few of my friends. She left a scar on my friend, Julie. When my dad would come up to visit during the holidays, he brought and wore kitchen mitts when he was around Skye.
However, she was a super cuddly kitty and loved to snuggle up to me and Erik. As long as she was in control. She slept with me every night (except when she was outside), as cats will do. Although she did not trust hands, she did not have an issue with feet. No feet had ever tried to "get her". She loved feet rubs. Whether I had shoes on or was barefoot, she would body slam my feet/shoes and rub and rub and purr and purr. She also loved to be swept with a broom. Any time I was sweeping, there she would be.
Next Chapter
In the summer of 2003, I sold my mobile home and bought a house and moved to a new location in Mammoth. I also met my husband to be that summer, Peter Sheldon, who happened to live in a house on the same street, 6 houses down. Erik and I lived in our home for a year before moving in with Peter. Skye was not as happy at either of these new locations. She was the queen of our previous place/surroundings, but not in this new neighborhood. A lot more homes, people, cars, dogs and cats. In 2005, we got a new addition to our family: Hana, a small, adorably cute yellow lab puppy. Skye made it clear from the beginning that she was the alpha between the 2. Hana is now 9. For most of Hana's life, she would of liked to be friends with Skye, but Skye wanted nothing to do with her. As time went on though, Skye "tolerated" Hana, and ending up liking her, I believe.
In 2006, I sold my house that I had been leasing and Peter, Erik, Hana, Skye and I moved to Crowley Lake to our new home that we purchased. Skye loved this property/place. She was back in her element.
This is where she did her thing with the bats until we realized what was going on and did not let her out at that time. She loved warmth. In the summers she would bask in the sun on the outside deck. In the winters she would lay by the fire, usually sprawled out on her back.
A few years later, Erik left for college. Skye started being more social with Pete and I as time went on, especially in the summertime when there was not any snow. I liked to spend my free time outdoors reading or gardening or what have you. She would follow me and/or Peter around in the back yard, or hang out near us if we were sitting down relaxing.
Hana is spoiled and sleeps with us. And of course, Skye sleeps with us, because that is what cats do. When I first moved in with Pete and we slept in the same bed, Peter tried to make it clear to Skye that she needed to sleep on my side of the bed by launching her over to my side. We have a king size bed, but most times I had no wiggle room, wedged in between Hana if she was sleeping in the middle and Skye on my other side. I could always get Hana to move if needed, but not Skye. I would try to get her to move by aggressively nudging her with my hands or feet under the blankets (I did not dare try and move her with my bare hands) but it was like she was stuck to Velcro in that one spot. There were a few instances where Pete or I would be woken up by Skye's violent attacks of our feet or fingers twitching in our sleep. Blood drawn many times.
Some people would not put up with a cat like this, but she was awesome! She had many more good characteristics than bad ones. She had the loudest purr I have ever heard from a cat, and she purred a lot, especially when she was sleeping next to me. She preferred to sit on me when I was sitting down on the couch or recliner, and she would just purr and purr and purr.
As she got older, she would still go outside at night, but only for a few hours. When she wanted to come in, she would tap on the door that led to the back patio because we could see and hear her tapping it, especially when the screen door was closed. If the screen door was not closed and we did not notice her or hear the tapping, she would go around the house, up the front stairs, climb on to the top of the wood pile, tap and meow. The couch is on the other side of this window. We could not hear her meow, but we could see her and hear her tapping,
All our animals our kept up with their shots, etc. One year I took Skye to our vet, Nicki Micceili, at Bishop Vet, to have her blood work done because I had noticed that she had started drinking a lot of water. More water than I have ever seen a cat drink. Her blood work showed that she had kidney disease. No big deal. Her diet was changed to a special cat food for cats with renal (kidney) disease. Nicki advised us to put water in more than one place for her to drink, which we did. She preferred to drink out of glass or mug versus a bowl, so we put her water in a glass.
Skye developed a lot of affection for Peter, and Peter reluctantly allowed it. If he was sitting on the couch, Skye would come over and sit right next to him.
Life went on like this for Skye until about a year ago. We had to short sale our beautiful home/property in Crowley and we moved back to Pete's house in Mammoth, which we had been leasing. The move was fine for all of us. We moved back the last week of October, 2013. Skye was much less active at age 15, but she was very content. If I sat outside in the sunshine, she would be out there with me. Soon, the snow came, and Skye was in bliss laying next to the woodstove. She slept a lot.
In December, 2013, I took her back to our vet because she had started throwing up every morning. Nothing came up, but she would gag and gag. Blood work showed that her kidney disease had gotten worse, which is usually what happens. Skye now had to have fluids given to her twice a week through an I.V. The fluid bags were not expensive at $6.00, but if I took her to the vet to have it done, the cost would be $30.00, which would total $120.00 a month. It was easy to learn to do it myself. Nikki showed me how to do it that first time, and then I went home and looked at a few youtube videos (I love youtube!) of this being done on cats. Being that it was now winter and we had a fire every evening, we had a ritual. Warm up the bag of fluid in a bowl of warm water, put a towel down next to the woodstove with a little bit of food, and give Skye her fluids. It took about 5 minutes or so.
I had to take Skye back to the vet to recheck her blood work 8 weeks later, and the prognosis was not good. Her kidney disease had progressed and I now had to give her fluids every other day. I took her home, and for the next few months, everything was fine. Since starting the fluids, Skye's gagging had stopped for the most part. She was happy and not in any pain. Her appetite was good. She probably slept about 20 hours a day. She became very clingy, which, per our vet, is normal for most cats when they are nearing the end of their life. Peter felt bad for Skye, knowing that she would not be with us much longer, and he started letting her sleep next to him at night as well as on his lap if he was sitting down during the day. In the evenings, or anytime there was a fire, she was next to the woodstove.
Summer came and Skye would still come outside with me and/or Peter if we were outside during the day if it was warm. Around August last summer, Skye had had enough of the I.V. needle. Pete and I tried and tried to work with her, but she was over it. We knew we were not going to pay the cost of having the vet do her I.V. 3 times a week. We decided that if she showed any of the following signs that we would have her euthunized: any sign that she was suffering, lack of appetitite, or not using her cat box.
Skye lived her last few months pain free and content until the day that she "crashed". Peter had been out of town for a few days. In the early morning of September 25, 2014, I woke up to use the restroom, and I panicked. Where was my normal warm, fuzzy, purring machine Skye kitty? Did she go outside last night and I forgot to call her in? My heart sank at this thought. I raced around the house calling her, and went outside and called her. No Skye. I went back to my bedroom to put some warmer clothes on, and there she was, in the corner, in the phyenx position.
I knew this was it. I took her to bed with me and held her body next to mine under the blankets, crying. I could feel her little body shutting down. No more purr left. Her breathing, struggling. Soon I got out of bed, wrapped her in a blanket, which I put on a pillow and took her to the living room and set her down while I made coffee and turned on the computer. Once the coffee was done, I set myself up in the recliner with my coffee next to me, my laptop where I could use it, with Skye in the blanket on my lap. I wanted to research the signs of when a cat is dying. That is where I learned that when cats go into the phynix position, it is because their organs are shutting down. They go away from people because it is just too much stimulation for their nervous system. It was now past 7:00 a.m. and I knew that Peter would be awake as he would be driving home from Reno that morning. I called him, crying, and let him know what was going on with Skye, and asked if he could drive us down to our vet in Bishop when he got home. When the vet's office opened, I called and spoke with our vet, Nikki, and explained Skye's symptoms. She agreed that it was time. I made an appointment to be there with Skye at 2 p.m.
It was a sad last few hours that day with my beloved Skye kitty. She was on my lap the whole time, including when Pete drove us to Bishop. We drove around to the back of the building , and Nikki came outside and euthnized Skye while she was in my lap. Very sad day and evening for me. Peter has a hard time with death. On our drive home, I told him that it's OK to be sad. It's OK to cry. It's OK to grieve.
When we got home, I took Skye, still wrapped in a blanket in my arms, and sat outside with her on our front porch for a bit longer. We would be burying her at Laurel Springs the next day, so we put her in the garage for the night where is was cooler.
The next day, Peter, Hana and I had a lovely burial for our Skye kitty. Peter had buried a dog that he had before I met him who had died of old age near there. He knows how to properly bury an animal so that other animals, like coyotes, don't dig them up and eat them.
Goodbye Skye. It was a privilege to have you in my life and be part of our family. What a sweet, sparky soul you are. You will be in my heart forever.
