The tasting was over and things were still weird. I felt so unsure about everything that I wasn’t feeling excited at all. I needed a good cheer me up and I sure got one!
The Good: My fiancé and I own five cats together and had always talked about getting a dog when we felt ready. I’ve been a pet sitter on and off since I was in high school so I’ve worked with a lot of different breeds. My favorite over the last few years was a Goldendoodle and I convinced my husband to be on board instead of getting the giant drooling St. Bernard he thought would be a great idea in our little house. I would occasionally look online and just so happened to take a gander and found a puppy that stood out to me. He had this small white patch on his head that separated him from his siblings and he was pretty darn cute. I made the mistake of showing my husband and next thing I knew we were coming up with potential names for a puppy we didn’t even own yet. I reached out to make sure the puppy was available while we talked it out and ultimately decided it was the right time for us. We were going to get a Goldendoodle puppy!
Side note- I am still disappointed to this day that I sent my husband to get our dog without me. I was present for all fives of our cats entry to our lives, but I just couldn’t get off from work and really wanted to pick up this puppy and bring him home! I sent my husband to get our puppy, bring him directly to our vet for a check-up, and bring him back to his new home where I would finally meet him after work. We named him Bentley and he brought us all a lot of joy during the stress of the wedding planning (and he still does to this day).
The Bad: As mentioned earlier, I’ve pet sit on and off for years. For Thanksgiving, my client was going away to Florida to visit her daughter. I was going to sit her two cats as I usually did. I had stopped by before she left to pick up the garage door opener and noticed one of the boys had become drastically thin since I last saw him, which was not a good sign. He was slow moving and sulked away instead of greeting me for love. Both cats had been losing weight over the couple of years I sat for them- it was no secret that they were not in the best of health anymore, but at the same time they were both over fifteen years old.
When I returned for my first day of sitting, Loki hadn’t come out and didn’t touch his food which was highly out of character for him. I used to work at a vet clinic and I recognized symptoms that weren’t good and I was totally freaking out. I ended up calling his mom expressing my concern about his health. She thanked me and basically said he had been a little off lately but not to worry. It felt wrong for me to agree, but he wasn’t my cat and I so wanted to believe that something horrible wasn’t going to happen on my watch.
When I came back later to check on him again, I still couldn’t find him anywhere. The food still hadn’t been touched. I searched high and low and couldn’t find him. For a second I panicked and thought he escaped from the house, but then I ended up texting my client for his usual hiding spots and soon enough I found him. He was hidden in the far corner of a basement bedroom room under the bed. There were many storage containers under there, so I couldn’t climb under the bed to get him out. With my cell phone flash light I could tell he was breathing slowly, he just wasn’t responsive to me calling him. Through our text chain, I asked my client if she wanted me to bring him to the vet or not. It was such an awkward and difficult thing to say but resulted in her decision to hang tight until later that night. If things weren’t better by then, she’d agree to have me bring him in. I left some food and water out in case he came out and wanted some.
I came back later and found Loki in the same room, but out from under the bed and in the corner of the room. There was a throw up spot on the carpet next to him and neither the food nor water had been touched. When I gave his mom the update, she put off taking him to the vet again until the morning. Her mother stayed at home with the cats during the day and mentioned Loki had been going in that corner when she was at work. She also recommended I bring him upstairs to the sunroom if possible, so I got his basket/bed, very carefully lifted him into it and carried him upstairs to the sunroom. I brought his food and water again in case he changed his mind and just cried – well sobbed, honestly.
The next morning I got there early to check on him and to my dismay, he was in worse shape than when I left. He hadn’t moved at all, but was now breathing rapidly which was very bad. I immediately texted my client letting her know he had to be taken to the vet ASAP. It was a fiasco, because I called our clinic (I had worked at the clinic she takes them to) and explained the situation and was told I’d have to take him to the emergency clinic. I was not comfortable with this, as my client specifically wanted me to take him to Larkin for various reasons. I called up one of my best friends who works there and she pulled some strings to allow me to come over and I basically forced my client to call the office and handle whatever drama was going to happen for me. *Thank goodness for my fiancé at the time, who was by my side this whole time dealing with my incessant panic and crying.*
I grabbed Loki’s basket, and quickly got him in the car. When we arrived, they took him back right away for the doctor to examine him and stuck my fiancé and I in a room. When the doctor came in, she gave me the news I was dreading, but expecting. Loki needed to be put down.
I had the toughest conversation ever with my client over the phone. She asked me to please give him kisses and tell him how much his loved him and were sorry they weren’t there for him. I didn’t want Loki to pass alone, so I stood with him while they prepped him to be put down and during the whole euthanasia process. I whispered how much of a pleasure it was to sit for him and relayed how important he was to his family and how much they loved him. He really hadn’t moved or acknowledged me at all over the last few days until the mention of his family, when he let out one final meow before passing away. It was absolutely heart breaking. It was not a very happy Thanksgiving Eve. Thanksgiving Day wasn’t much better, as I still needed to return to the house to finish out sitting for his brother, Solomon. Being in the house with just the one cat was even more heart-wrenching. He hadn’t lived alone in forever and now that he had to, of course his family had to be away.
This was the most traumatic pet sitting experience I’ve had to this day. It’s pretty much something I wish upon no one and it, of course, had to happen during all the stress and misery of my wedding planning.
HOLL 
Leave a comment