Cat Lady to Dog Person

August 22, 2010

Aug 22

I was one of those girls that everyone thought would end up as an old maid owning 30 cats. I always had a cat and no matter where I went my cats went with me.

I didn’t ditch the cats to move someplace that didn’t allow them. I simply found a place that welcomed them. I didn’t ditch the cats because I was dating someone who didn’t like cats. I tried to date men who either liked or at the least accepted the cats. I did not believe in getting rid of a pet once you’d adopted one. Adoption is for life.

I was in my mid-thirties when my reign of cats ended. The 17 year old died of old age and the 11 year old caught a strange cat disease. I’d brought a new cat home thinking to adopt it but the cat was ill and I took him back to his owner the next day. Apparently the illness was very contagious and the next thing I knew, my beloved cat Hadji became ill. He had contracted FIP – feline infectious peritonitis.

My cat who never went outdoors and never came in contact with other cats got sick from one single exposure to one cat. The vet told me that no vaccine would have prevented it and that there was no cure. He also told me that Hadji would die from it and a few months later he did. His lungs filled with fluid and he had difficulty breathing and long story short, try as they might to clear the fluid they had to put him to sleep. It was one of my worst days and I held him in my arms as they ended his life.

The vet told me not to adopt another cat for at least six months. He said that my home would be contaminated with the disease and not to bring another cat into it. For the first time in decades, I was catless.

Six months passed and I still wasn’t comfortable to risk bringing a new cat into my home so I waited. In the meantime someone attempted to break into my house. They failed to get in but there was no doubt they had tried. There had been several burglaries in the neighborhood and when I became the target, that was it for me. I lived alone and I didn’t like being a sitting duck so that week I went from being a cat lady to a dog person.

I went to the dog pound and adopted Gypsy Rose, a year and a half old german shepherd mix who spent the rest of her life as my companion and watchdog. She lived a long life with me, never ailing for much until she reached old age.

With that one unexpected encounter with a very bad cat disease and burglar, I embraced life with dogs as completely as I’d always embraced life with cats, going on to write books about my experiences with dogs. Today I have both a husband and a dog, Dakota. Her old family got rid of her for many reasons, one of which was that they claimed she tried to eat their cat. How’s that for a strange ending?