Dilly
Sort of rescue
Our cat, Dilly, was a sort of rescue.
In October of 2011, we heard about him, on — of all places — Facebook.
Dilly was described as being an older cat — 12 years old — nice personality, very gentle and sweet and needing a home because his owner was moving to California for a new job. Because of Dilly’s age, it had been decided that the ‘plane trip to California would be way too stressful for him, and so a new home was needed.
A lot of people on his Facebook page admired Dilly, and asked kindly after him, but no offers of homes came through, until finally, although we were not really in the market for another cat, we offered to at least, meet Dilly, and see how things might work out.
The meeting did not go well. Dilly was less than impressed with our dog, Tessa
Neither did he think much of our other cat (also a recent adoptee) Taffy. She is seen below looking beligerent — the feeling was mutual.
Dilly retreated under a chair growling, hissing and with flattened ears.
We weren’t at all sure that our home would be the best solution for Dilly, so we told his guardian that we thought he should continue to hold out for a “single pet” household, but, if all else failed we would definitely take Dilly.
A few days went by and finally someone stepped up to the plate and offered Dilly a home. Things were looking very positive and once Dilly had been moved to the new place, it sounded as if he was all set.
Dilly’s guardian left for his new job and all was settled.
Two weeks later we got an urgent email from California — seems that Dilly’s new home was not working out and he was out of doors again. (Apparently his messy litter box habits annoyed the would-be adopter.) Would we still be willing to take him in?
With some misgivings, we agreed. We figured that if we were careful and kept the current fur kids separated from him, we could gradually ease Dilly into the household. We would deal with any problems if and when they came up. It didn’t take Dilly long to get himself established.
We gave Dilly his own room and a litter box across the hall in the bathroom. We put a child-gate across the hall so that he could move freely from room to litter box, see, hear and smell the other pets but not physically interact with them.
At first, Dilly holed up under the bookshelf. He made himself comfortable there and only ventured out for food, water and bathroom visits.
He responded well to patting and brushing, although he did not care to be picked up.
Once in a while he would stare through the gate to see what was going on. If he spotted either one of the other fur kids, some hissing and grumbling would ensue.
After several weeks of polite and not so polite views through the child-gate, we began, very gradually to allow the fur-kids to mingle at their own pace.
This began daytime when we were around and in a position to monitor them all.
Tessa, our dog, is pretty timid and there was a very slight risk to the cats. Tess generally wants to play, makes overtures, gets slugged and comes and hides behind one of us.
Dilly, however, was not at a point where he was willing to believe that dogs can be friends. He kept up the hissing and smacking every chance he got. Tess generally didn’t even notice, except when he connected with her nose.
Each of the animals had their preferred space. Dilly was in full control of the library;
Taffy stood guard over Bruce’s office and Tessa holed up in my office. Dilly made the occasional foray into the doorway of Bruce’s office, and Taffy watched carefully. Once or twice she took a run at him to chase him out, then rushed back into the room, hiding under the desk.
However, at mealtimes, Taffy started to get bolder about being close to Dilly. In this picture, Dilly is draped casually across the stairs and Taffy has come down within two stairs distance, and is pretending not to notice him.
Dilly was very laid back. He liked his meals, and provided these arrived in a regular way, he was quite happy. Taffy’s presence didn’t really bother him. He would lie about, blocking the way and didn’t budge even if Tess came thundering past. He would however let out a cranky meow and raise a paw.
We continued to feed them separately, and we continued to monitor them. It seemed to us, that each day they relaxed a bit more and moved closer to potentially being friends.
Even Tessa seemed to be getting a bit more tolerance from Dilly.
Time flew by and it was Christmas. A special treat for Dilly was getting brushed.
Dilly lolls about on the floor after a belly rub, and in the next picture, Taffy and Dilly share a moment with wrapping paper.
On Boxing day things returned to more or less normal and the pets decided to hang out in Bruce’s office Below — An aggregation of pets all parked in their favorite beds
After Christmas, everything settled into a pretty normal routine. Taffy and Dilly were now companions. Dilly leading the shy Taffy around the house on little expeditions.
Dilly became very attached to an old mouse toy which he booted about the house, up and down the stairs, carried around in his mouth and generally had a great time.
Dilly could often be found lolling around with his favorite mouse toy at the beginning of February. First he would chase the toy around the house, up and down the stairs howling with enjoyment. Then he would stop in a convenient corner with the toy close by, and rest. Keeping an eye on us, hoping someone would toss the toy for him.
Because of his arthritis and age, we were a bit concerned at the wild rushing up and down the stairs with the mouse toy, but he seemed to love doing it, and didn’t seem to suffer any consequences, so, since he seemed very happy, we let him do as he wished.
All was well until February 11 — Dilly suddenly stopped eating, drinking and using his litter box. We took him to the vet and discovered that he was experiencing some sort of acute liver issue — his skin was yellow. They took some blood to test a few possible issues. The vet found he was very dehydrated and put him on an IV for food and fluids. We took him home and waited for the blood test results.
For a few days we tried some medications the vet gave us. We couldn’t get him to eat by himself. We fed Dilly with a syringe multiple times daily.
Feb 16 -We went back and the vet told us that they could eliminate two possible problems, but that left two other things, both of which would be serious, and very tricky to treat in an older animal. She was pretty sure he had cancer of the liver and could not recommend any treatment besides painkillers and fluids which were just a stop gap. Ultimately Dilly had come to the last crossroads.
Dilly was incredibly weak at this point and obviously in a lot of pain and discomfort. We made the decision to let him go peacefully.
Dilly had one of the sweetest personalities of any cat we’ve known and he sure had his little paws firmly wrapped around our hearts. We will always miss him a lot. He gave us four wonderful months and we’re glad we were able to make his last months happy ones, we sure enjoyed his sweet little presence.
Here is the last image I took of Dilly just one week before he left us.
R.I.P. Dilly
