One of my dear old orange tabby cats has gone to Heaven at the age of 13 years and 8 months.  Wrecks was just an adorable, sweet guy, and also the most destructive cat ever, hence his name.

I used to have a sectional couch on which he sharpened his claws so mightily only strips of fabric remained on each end.  He was a powerful, large cat, and he liked to sit back on his haunches and really go deeply into the sofa with his powerful big claws.

However he did adorable things, too, like adopt Louie when I brought the puppy home.  He didn’t really care much for the other three dogs.  Arnie and Mojo were already here when he arrived, and later Ricky came along.  Wrecks didn’t care a whit for Ricky.

But once those three dogs were gone and I brought Louie the puppy home Wrecks decided he liked this little guy.  They played like mad for a long time, but in the past six months or so Wrecks would just walk away from any play invitations.  He’d lost a lot of weight, and looked quite scruffy.

I Googled the issue, and it appears about 30% of older cats can get kidney failure and I believe that could have been the case.  Because he was born wild I just couldn’t picture him on any kind of a medication regime.  I was nearly killed trying to give him an antibiotic last year for his head abscess.

As a Buddhist, I thought I’d let nature take its course, but in the end, I did intervene and called the wonderful vet from Noah’s Ark Mobile Pet Care here in Kelowna.  Wrecks was going downhill rapidly so I phoned Dr. Patt and she came over and euthanized the cat in the comfort of his own living room.

It was a very nice way for the cat to go, and thanks to our current government, now people can have the same service.  It’s hard to believe that wouldn’t already have been the case, but whatever, we have it now.

In the spring when kittens are plentiful at the SPCA, I’ll drive over and go eenie meenie miney mo and get a little critter to bring home to be part of the zany Hall Road crew.

And speaking of zany, here’s something I never would’ve expected.  I read the BC SPCA discourages people from having bird feeders.  Remember I raced out and got one in the summer and was proud of myself?

The other day I looked out and it was half off the branch, glass front broken in half, roof torn.  I don’t know what kind of animal wanted to get at the sunflower seeds, but it sure dampened my desire for bird feeders.

Then when I went on line and read the SPCA doesn’t want people to have them, I went hurray, good riddance.  The dog spent the entire summer under the bird feeder eating the spent sunflower seed shells and then having some difficulty with expelling them at the other end.   So you can see there’s nothing good in a bird feeder for me.