jaunthie | Responsibility

When it came right down to it, I wasn't really responsible for getting a cat.

(Does one get a cat, really? Or does one get got by a cat? Perhaps the best term is "share a home with a cat" - except that's so very inadequate to describe what actually happens.)

I had always wanted a cat, but I wasn't allowed pets while growing up. By the time I was in a position where I could actually consider cat ownership (read: living in an apartment with a "pets allowed with deposit" policy), I was busy with school and life and just not rushing into anything. Which is to say I probably would have gone along procrastinating about looking for a cat for quite a while longer.

And then Fate, as embodied by Luthien, decided to take a direct hand in things. Luthien was scheduled to depart for a job outside of the country, and she determined that I would have a cat before she left. So she spent part of her last full day in-country going with me to a local veterinarian's office that fosters cats and kittens for adoption at times, where I had seen a sign stating "Cats Need Home." She would undoubtedly have taken me to the local shelter next, if necessary - probably to every shelter in the county if it came to that.

J made that unnecessary.

He wasn't the cat I thought I wanted. I had decided beforehand that as a completely novice cat-owner-to-be, I wanted a youngish adult cat, somewhere around a year old. I definitely wanted a shorthair; who wanted to deal with all the extra fur and care involved in a longhair? I liked multi-colored cats, calicos and tortishells, and that among other things had me inclined towards getting a female. Yes, a small, well-socialized, year-old calico shorthair female would suit me just fine.

I walked out of the vet's office with a four-month-old black, medium-to-long-haired male, one of four found wild as kittens in a ravine, who was still extremely shy around humans. Except that he'd taken a good long look at me with his enormous yellow-green eyes and decided that even though I *clearly* had no experience and less sense, I was the human he was going to go home with.

J has taught me a lot over the years. He's been remarkably patient with me. Being a book-oriented geek, I was inclined to believe the various cat-owner books I read about how cats could be trained to walk on leashes and travel happily in cars and take regular baths to make them less of a problem for those who suffered allergies. (I'm not allergic, but I thought it sounded reasonable.) For the most part J put up with it all. He grew into a large, powerful cat, easily the match of any other cat he ever met or lived with, and he never lost the hunting skills his mother must have taught him. But he was a gentle giant, extremely tolerant of sharing his home with other cats when necessary, and never offering even the slightest hint of aggression towards me, not even when I was giving him baths. He just trusted me, absolutely, whether it was multi-day drives across states while moving, encountering strange people and animals, or trimming off his belly fur every hot summer so he could cool down more easily. (He actually asks for this every year now, when it gets above a certain temperature.)

He's always been a relatively healthy cat, all things considered. His teeth were never good, and they're mostly gone now. He had a bout with an overactive thyroid a few years ago, but even then he was practically asymptomatic. But age is catching up with him. He's turned into a skinny old man-cat with a rusty yammer to match the reddish-brown tints in the fading black fur.

And now there's...something...wrong.

He stopped wanting to eat much last Friday. I thought it might be more tooth trouble, and switched him over to just soft food while making the soonest appointment with the vet I could. That helped some, but J wasn't nearly as interested in it as he usually would be, and the vet didn't like what he felt in his abdomen and saw on the x-ray. I'll be taking him to a specialist tomorrow for more tests.

In the meantime J is eating a little better today. He is just as affectionate as usual, and is holding no grudges for the trip to the vet. He probably won't give me any trouble about tomorrow's car trip and vet visit, either. He trusts me to know what I'm doing and to take care of him, as always, even when it involves dubious things like being put into his carrier and hauled off to strange and uncomfortable destinations. After all, it's always worked out before. Silly ignorant human or not, I'm his human, and I've always managed to muddle through.

It's a lot of responsibility, owning a cat - or being owned by one. It's a little heavier today.