A Bonded Pair

A Facebook post by a friend left me remembering these former pets fondly and turning to a post I wrote last year on The Stiletto Gang blog about them. I thought I'd share it again here on my home blog.

Tragedy brought me Bonnie, a 13-year-old cat who was as tiny as a kitten, first. Her owner was my almost-brother. Steve was my little brother’s best friend. They’d lived with my husband and me briefly, and when they moved out, they rented a house just a few blocks away and continued to eat supper at our house every night. Once my brother married and moved out of town, Steve kept coming to our house for holidays or any time he needed family support. Steve was a shy geek with a warm heart. One day, someone tied a litter of five kittens in a plastic bag and dumped them in the middle of the street to be run over. Steve found them, took them to the vet, and spayed and neutered them. Thirteen years later early on a Sunday morning, Steve was killed by a hit-and-run driver, leaving five old cats in his house waiting for him to come home.

His friends gathered and parceled out the cats among us. I already had two elderly cats and a young one, all rescues, at home, but when no one would step forward for Bonnie, the runt of the litter, I took her. Within a week, several of the littermates turned out to have liver cancer and had to be put to sleep. Over the course of the next year, this happened to all of them, except tiny Bonnie.

From the first, Bonnie hid. One of her favorite places was behind the refrigerator. She had a bell on her collar, and once the lights were out and we were in bed, we would hear her venturing forth. It took me so long to get her to venture forth voluntarily and sit on my lap to be petted, but once there, she decided that was where she always wanted to be. If I were doing some chore around the house and not paying attention to her, she would wind around my legs, scolding me.

Shortly after we took Bonnie into our home, we ended up rescuing a beautiful seven-year-old Shar Pei/Husky mix. We took Mina on what would have been the last day of her life otherwise. When we brought her into our house, all the cats fled, except Bonnie. I was set to try to gradually introduce them to each other when Bonnie walked straight up to Mina, who was giant in comparison, and touched noses. From that second, they were the best of friends, never apart.

Bonnie was the dominant member of the pair, though. She would go nibble a few pieces of Mina’s dog kibble, and Mina was then allowed to eat some of Bonnie’s food. They made a point to drink out of each other’s water bowls also. At night, Mina would curl into a circle, and Bonnie would curl up within its center. Mina showed affection by licking Bonnie as if she were a puppy, and Bonnie tolerated it. Mina would bark at suspicious noises at night, and Bonnie would stand behind her, mimicking her stiff-legged posture and give the best imitations of a bark you ever heard from a cat.

Then, Bonnie started eating less and having bouts of loud crying that could only be assuaged by my holding her and petting or by Mina licking her. When I took her to the vet, the word was that the deadly liver cancer had finally hit this last living member of that five-cat litter. We think she held the cancer at bay for those almost four years by sheer strength of personality. She was finally somewhere where she wasn’t the bullied runt—and we’d even found her a giant pet! She wasn’t about to die when things were finally going so well for her.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to be done. As she got sicker, she cried more. Until Mina would wash Bonnie with her big tongue, leaving her looking like a little drowned rat. But she was always at peace and purring when Mina licked her or I held her. The vet said we’d know when to bring her in one last time, and that point became clear one day. We packed her carry-crate with lots of blankets and soft fabric because she was so bony by then. Mina was licking her one last time. At the vet’s, Bonnie lay in my lap, purring, as she slipped away peacefully.

Mina was disconsolate for months and then rallied to remain our wonderful friend for five more years before she left us the same way. We laugh when we think of the surprise and joy those two friends must have felt when their spirits encountered each other again. It’s a comfort to think of them curled around each other at night as they were for so many nights in our house—a true bonded pair.

 

That Old Black Dog of Fear

People are afraid of many things. The saddest is the fear of black cats and dogs. Because of this fear, more black cats and dogs are euthanized by kill shelters than other colors. People are afraid to adopt them because they’re black, and these shelters, which usually have to euthanize because they’re public shelters and have to keep taking in all surrendered/lost pets brought to them, must kill them when they’ve been there too long and space gets short. Because of this problem, many of these shelters periodically offer “sales” on black cats and dogs—half-off adoption fees, very low adoption fees, even sometimes no adoption fees.

The prejudice against black cats and dogs goes back a long way to old superstitions about them being the devil’s animals and being bad luck. I could trace these legends back to their beginnings in the battle between religions where the animals were simply used as props and propaganda weapons by the warring sides, but I’m not going to burden my blog with that today. It’s a shame that companion animals have to be dragged into our human quarrels in this way.

The only thing sadder than a rejected black pet is an older cat or dog who’s also black. No one wants these. You combine the prejudice against older animals with the prejudice against black animals and come up with a stone wall these cats and dogs can’t get over, no matter how sweet, cute, bright, well-behaved, and gentle they are. If you talk to anyone in the rescue business or look on any of their websites, you’ll quickly find that this is a sad, basic truth in the world of those who care for and try to find permanent homes for older, black pets.

The silliest part of it, to me, is that the pet doesn’t even have to be all black, certainly not if it’s a dog. Check out your local humane shelter’s “black dog sale,” and you’ll find that dogs that are only part black are included in the sale because they’re included in people’s prejudices against black animals. My own rescue dog is a Plott hound with the typical brindle brown coat, but because he has a black saddle on his back, he was deemed a black dog and unadoptable.

Rescue and shelter animals have enough prejudice against them. Every year, approximately 3-4 million cats and dogs are euthanized in shelters. These are animals people gave up and threw out, or the offspring of such animals. It’s getting worse because many families have lost homes and been forced to move to apartments that refuse animals, causing them to surrender family pets if they can’t find friends to take them. Yet still, people pay big bucks to buy dogs and cats from breeders—and oddly enough, many of those wanted, purchased purebred dogs and cats (but more often dogs) find their ways into shelters around the country. I’ve been taking in shelter dogs all my adult life, and I’ve noticed a big change there. It used to be rare to find a purebred animal at a shelter. Now, they’ve all got some, and often quite a number of them.

I can’t stress enough how important I feel it is to give homes to shelter/rescue cats and dogs, if you can and if you are looking for a pet. They make grateful, loyal, and affectionate pets, and you’re quite literally saving a life when you do. And while you’re looking for a good pet at your local shelter, please, please don’t bypass the older, black animals in your search. Older, black cats and dogs are at the highest risk of being euthanized because no one wants them. Take one home and bask in its love and affection. You’ll be glad you did as the years in company with your faithful pet slip past.