Pacing the Floor

Our oldest cat, Val, got up in the middle of the night and wouldn't settle. She is very frail and her kidneys are toast, but her morning head bump to get our attention and the purring tells us she is not quite ready to call it quits. So we are keeping her comfortable by hydrating her with subcutaneous injections of Ringer's. It felt like a heck of an assault on a tiny creature when we started several weeks ago, but by now it is clear that she dislikes being so confined more than the treatment itself.

She's always been a pacer, and while she stays near she has never liked to be hugged. Most of our pets have been Velcro cats, gluing themselves to us when seated and living on a shoulder as we go about our activities. Val will climb on top with the others, but finally settles at the edges of the cat stack. At night she prefers the pillow above my head to the deep valleys in the bedding.

As she has gotten older she has become more insistent on having company for her strolls. She appears in front of us, yelling with some annoyance. At first we tried the obvious things - treats, a taste of milk, attention, toys -but we soon found that the only fix was to drop whatever we were doing and follow her around the house. It is a short distance before she loses focus, maybe from the rear of the house down the hallway to the front with a loop around the coffee table. But she makes it clear that she must be followed, stopping to look back and waiting until you are closer if you have dawdled. Leaving the walk too early just causes more yelling. It would be annoying if she wasn't so darned cute.

Last night was a round of pacing, starting at 3am. We walked to water, to the food, to the kitty litter... she is so vague now. She finally settled on a spot on the couch, but I am still feeling the effects.

On my Monday shift at the barn, one of the senior citizens had to be walked out to cool off because he tried playing like a much younger horse. He is probably the oldest horse at the barn but, like many of us, refuses to accept that as a limiting factor. I am hoping that he acts his age today, so I don't have to follow pacing with the cat overnight to pacing with a half ton of horse. I'm walked out.