Pets

A close friend's dog has to be put down in the next few days, and it got me thinking about all the pets I've had over the years that have died. Pets have a bad habit of being so close that you take them for granted until it's too late and they're gone. Then you're incredibly sad about your loss, and you feel even worse when you realise that it's a selfish loss, that you're just unhappy that you've lost something that used to make you happy.

The Dead Ones:
Lewis was a beautiful cat. In looks, he was just a regular black & white cat. Run of the mill kind of cat, although he had the most amazingly green eyes. We picked him up from The Glen Pet Store in Glen Waverley, only because the RSPCA were all out of kittens. There was two cats, but in attempting to decided which one to take, Lewis lept out of the cage and clung to my shoulder. I took him home and left his brother to an unknown fate (Mum wouldn't let me take them both.) His need for human contact continued as he grew up, as he was always desperate to be picked up, cuddled and nuzzled. He couldn't handle sitting on the couch alone, instead needing to be safely curled up in someone's lap. His favourite position was to lie out on his back across my chest and sit watching MTV for a few hours. He was hit by a cat, and Mum found him in the garden a few hours later.

Alexis was annoying. She was a very pretty cat, a grey Siamese, but she didn't like being held much and was always a bit prissy about people. I felt bad because she died while I was backpacking overseas and I was kind of glad - I was always waiting for her to cark it so I could buy a new cat, but when she died I felt guilty. Well, she did die, it wasn't my fault and I got to buy Lewis.

Mr Rat was my only pet rat. I bought him for a science experiment in high school - that sounds ominous, but really it was very tame. I built a cage with three tubes, each with a different coloured flap. Always put the food behind the green flap, but switch the positions. If the rat automatically goes for the green flap everytime, he's learned to associate the colour with the food. Only problem was, Mr Rat was albino. Totally colourblind. Science teacher gave me an A anyway, but it was annoying. Mr Rat was a nice rat. Never bit me, even when he accidentally burnt half an inch off his tail by getting too close to the fire. He liked to sit on my keyboard and watch me type. Eventually he died of emphysema, which is odd, because he always smoked light cigarettes. Funniest thing was - the vet sent me a "condolences on your loss" card after putting him down, which they never did with any other animal we had. Guess they had a soft spot for rats.

Zak was really my sisters cat. He died quite young - Mum ran over him in the driveway. Really upset her - we learned afterwards that he stumbled back into the yard where Dad was watering the garden, covered in blood and collapsed in his basket. He was alive, but wasn't going to be for long so we had to put him down. He was Siamese, so he was very noisy but it was sad when he died.

Delilah we never actually found - again she was a Siamese. Very pretty cat - pure grey and very dainty. She just wandered off one day, but back then we lived near a highway so it's pretty obvious what happened. Dad looked for days, but I suspect that even if he had found her body somewhere, he wouldn't have told us that.

Hillary was the first cat I remember. We had her when we lived up in the Dandenong Ranges, and she obviously wasn't a suburban cat, as she went missing soon after we moved into the outer suburbs. She was more black than white, and had an amazing ability to ignore me as a kid pulling her tail and grabbing her ears.

And the Current Live Ones:
Byron is the fattest, laziest cat I've ever met. All he does is roll his fat ass around my mum's place, moving from fireplace to sunbeam. He never really says anything, he just has a series of disapproving looks that cut through you. I swear he is a big, grumpy queen of a cat, mostly due to his weird sexual habits with dressing gowns and any younger male cat he meets. He also has a bad habit of sitting on his backbone and licking his balls, constantly, then sits there with legs splayed, displaying his manly goods.

Fry was named after the character on Futurama, which ended up being appropriate, because he is such a retarded cat. We rescued him from certain death at the hands of the RSPCA cat shelter, as he was a few months old and had very bad cat flu. We nursed him back to health but he never fully recovered, and so still has sinus issues. He never learned to clean himself, to the point that his toe became infected and had to be removed. If he relaxes and becomes happy for even a second he drools like a leaking tap, he had feline acne which had to be cleaned daily, and we had to wash him weekly (pictured) otherwise he would smell like shit. Aside from all of this, however, he is a lovely little cat and very nice natured. Fuckin retarded though...