by Sonja
2 years ago my husband and I bought my Mom a red tabby kitten called Buster. While we were at the breeders picking out the kitten, my husband for a suprise bought me Buster's brother!!!!! We named him Peanut, and he was just gorgeous. At home I already had a 8 year old blue colourpoint and a 3 year old black persian cats. I was thrilled with Peanut, as my parents were with their "Buster".
Shortly after him arriving at our home, Peanut had trouble with neighbouring cats coming onto our proterty and even into our house to attack him - he had been spayed. My parents offered to take Peanut as they had a very private house with land for the cats to roam around on. We agreed, and although it was sad for us to lose him from our home, could visit anytime as we lived nearby. He was much happier and became a loved and treasured pet.
3 months ago while my parents were on a well-earned holiday overseas, and I was babysitting Buster and Peanut (my Bear had died suddenely of cancer 9 months ago), Buster was stolen from our backyard while the 4 cats were out playing. Everything possible was done, to no avail. Breaking the news to my parents was traumatic indeed.
A frontpage news article was done, and on it a picture of my Mom and Peanut, the lone brother left fretting.
On 7 December my parents went away for a relatives birthday out of town for a week. Due to my worry about having Peanut here, my Mother put him into a cattery run soley by the SPCA. Because when it comes to food he *likes what he likes* my Mom supplied all his favourite meat (enough to last a month!!!) and my phone number was given if there was *any* problems at all.
8 days later, my parents arrived back and rushed out to pick up their dear Peanut, only to discover he looked like he had lost an awful lot of weight and was lethargic. The Manager put him into the carrier and said he would be fine. My parents got him home and took him out of the carrier to find him almost like a limp rag. They rang the afterhours vet as were very distressed, and took him there immediately. The Vet (it was the clinic Peanut had all his vaccinations from, so had a record of him there) said he had lost over half his body weight, and that he was in extremely poor condition and was dehydrated. In our small town the vets are closed after 5pm, but they have an oncall vet, although nobody is at the clinic until 8am again. The vet told my parents to take him home and give him water every half an hour to try and hydrate him, and see how it goes.
At 7am I received a phone call from my Dad to ask me to come and look at Peanut as he wasn't sure what to do. My husband and I drove over straight away and advised he needed to see the vet again, and insist something was done as he was still limp and panting.
The vet saw us half an hour later and said he would need an IV, blood tests, and x-rays. We were told to ring at lunchtime to see how Peanut was doing.
I drove my Mom to the vet just before lunchtime so she could see for herself how he was doing. We were shocked to find him lying on a bench with a nurse holding an oxygen mask over his face - he was limp and unresponsive.
My heart just about broke as I saw my Mom - the tears streaming down her face. The Vet explained they couldn't get an IV or bloods done as his veins were just not showing due to the lack of food and water. He died 2 hours later.
We were all devestated, but more so because it was all because the people at the cattery did not look after him properly - they said he was a *fussy eater and didn't eat much while they were away*. The vet said "he didn't eat anything or drink by the looks of it all". He had pneumonia, which the Vet said was brought on by sitting around weak from lack of food.
The newspaper did another story, and the SPCA said they thought the cat just fretted too much and didn't eat, and denied having any contact phone number.
My Mom wrote to the SPCA council to complain, but nothing is going to bring back Peanut.
Today my Mom visited me, and when she saw my now 10 year old cat, she burst into tears, as did I.
Sometimes life just isn't fair.