Goodbye, Mr. Fluffernutter.

Friday, Dec. 09, 2005 ~ 12:46 p.m.

That's it. Being MY pet is like a death sentence. So I've decided that I am relinquishing my remaining cats to new homes, keeping my dog until she dies (and not replacing her), and selling one and possibly both of my horses. Sounds like a rash decision, but let me tell you about this all.

Over the years, I have had several indoor cats. I have also had several indoor-outdoor cats. All my indoor cats have reverted to indoor-outdoor cats (when you just can't catch them when they dart out the door, lol). Off the top of my head, Peter, Fish, Patches, Spot and Niko are cats that I have had over the years that have had bad things happen to them. The first four disappeared, Niko had to move onto a new home because he developed a horrific murderous habit.

Most recently, Toby has gone missing.

If some of you know my Tubby, you'll know that I got him at a livestock auction a little over a year ago, when I was living in the city and depressed as I had no animals with me. It was just about killing me with no animal love. I walked by the cage full of his brothers and sisters and he stuck right out to me, and I picked him up and we've been basically inseperable since. We went through several growing pains while we were living together in town, and when we moved back home to the farm even more. Toby eventually figured out how to be friends with the other cats, where to go to get his food seperate, and what time he had to be in my bed so he didn't get shut out of my room. He poisoned himself with turkey starter (which scared the tar out of me and incurred lots of heartache (we thought it was feline leukemia) and vet bills), began to enjoy the great outdoors, learned to get along with the big dogs, etc etc.

Usually I let him out (or he lets himself out, he knows how to open the kitchen door to get into the shed and from the shed can get out through the rafters) when I let the dogs out, and he comes in. He's always waiting on the doorstep when I get home from work for me to let him in, and he always sits on my lap when I play on the computer. A few days ago, I let him out with the dogs -- well, he darted out the door, it was about 2am, and I couldn't stop him. I figured he would get into the house or the shed somehow and I'd let him in in the morning. I haven't seen him since.

Aside from my cat misfortune, I have a dog who has this undeniable instinct to RUN AWAY if we don't keep her tied. She went to hell and back a little over a year ago and was gone for 11 days (she is an 8 year old great dane), with 350 porcupine quills in her mouth. It has been a LONG, HORRIFIC road to recovery, but she will STILL take off up the driveway if you don't have her tied or your eye on her every second. I don't understand.

Being my horse is also basically a sentence to a life of hardship. My two girls, over the years, have gone through injury and misfortune after injury and misfortune, starting with Angel's serious bouts of colic, the six inch stick she managed to impale into herself, the breach birth of her colt last year, etc etc. Ari has also impaled herself. You walk the pasture and there's NOTHING THERE. My parents' horses never get injured. It's always mine.

And so I've decided that I'm some kind of CURSE to the animals that I own, and I am all they have. It's not fair to subject an animal to all sorts of misfortune just so I can have companionship. They depend on me for safety, sustinence, and care, and if I can't provide that without misfortune and injury, I guess it's better that they don't get tangled up with me in the first place.