Good-bye, Dori

​​                     Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:   
     "Equal And Opposite Reactions"      http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
     "Hail Mary"                                           https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
     "Tropical Depression"                        https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

​Good-bye, Dori

​      Last Saturday, October 19, our kitty Dori went over the rainbow bridge.

     Dori was the last member of the assortment cats and bunnies who over the years just seemed to wander into our life:
      There were our odd-eyed cats Pansy, 

...and and Pansy's twin Tansy (here with one of our house bunnies, Daisy),

...Daisy,

...our other house bunny Buddy,

...and our other kitty Lucy.

  ​​​    And, as was the case with all those other animals who became part of our family, we found Dori without looking.   
​      Or, that is to say, my daughter Theresa found Dori one frigid January night sixteen years ago during her senior year of college when she was walking home from campus and came upon a little grey cat with an intense gaze lying in a pile of icy slush. The cat was scrawny and had a bent ear and bald patches on her ragged coat.
     Theresa picked up the cat from the ice and carried it to the off-campus house where she lived. A few days later she called me and asked if I could come over and take this foundling kitty, whom she named Dori, to a no-kill shelter.
      So I drove the hour from Columbus to my daughter's college house with the intention of retrieving the cat and bringing it to a shelter. However when I picked up the kitty and set her on my lap she settled so comfortably there and gazed up at me so trustingly that I knew that the shelter I'd be taking her to would be the shelter of our home.
​      Dori was a wounded-looking little sack of skin and scruffy fur when I carted her to the veterinarian’s office several days later. What the vet surmised about Dori was that she was a two-year-old feral cat (which I suppose explained why she never got along with Lucy, our other cat at that time).

      The vet also told me that Dori's bent ear was likely injured in a fight and the bald patches on her fur were from “mowing,” or excessive licking, possibly due to stress.
       I could understand how life on the street could be stressful, even for a cat.
       However several trial-and-error tests later revealed that Dori’s mowing was due not to stress but to an allergic condition that required a special (and especially expensive) diet. A thousand dollars (yes, a thousand dollars!) worth of special food, medical care and medicines later, and Dori had gone from a skinny, scrofulous street urchin, to a well-fed, well-cared for, well-loved family pet with a beautiful fluffy coat.

      Though Dori would always belong first and foremost to my daughter Theresa who rescued her and called her Dori Bear, 

…she was happy to lay claim to any empty lap,

…or the closest available spot to the nearest available human.

      At first I thought that Dori was just a particularly affectionate cat. But after a while it occurred to me that it was less that Dori loved us than that she wanted to own us. She wanted to hold on to her humans, 

...keep her eye on us,

​...and keep us close by.

      Until her final days. 
     A few weeks ago Dori suddenly lost her interest in her humans and  wished only sit by herself in a patch of mulch beside the back porch steps,

​...or ​to stay curled  in a spot on the kitchen floor.

    Last Saturday morning I was out of town when I received a tearful call from Theresa. "Dori can't stand up," she said. "I think she's dying."
       That was Dori's last day. 
     Theresa was allowed to hold Dori in her arms while the veterinarian at our local animal hospital administered the drug that brought about the last beat of Dori's heart.
​       And so Dori left her life held in the same arms that brough her into ours.