Poor old pussy's legs have gone all wobbly and she keeps inadvertantly doing the splits with her back legs...

[Tanzie]

She is over 20 and has renal failure. The vet told me over a year ago that she wouldn't last much longer, she would intoxicate her self and go into a coma. ("How will we know?" asked DH. She is not an active cat...) She is incontinent and in the last few days her back legs just sort of splay out behind her and she can't walk properly. Despite this, she insists on going outside - is outside now and won't come in, even though it's really cold. Do you think the time has come to get the vet to put herto sleep?

I think she was dreaming as her legs were twitching as they used to do when she was asleep - as thought she was dreaming that she was running. The purring definitely helped - as though she was happy and not in pain.

So sorry to hear about your cat Tanzie - I have been following your thread since you started it! - I think we all know when the time has come to relieve our beloved animals of their suffering iyswim. How lovely that she was purring. We had to have one of our cats put to sleep a few months back and it was so hard to make the decision; although, his breathing was so laboured, the vet suggested that it would have caused our cat too much trauma to take him home from veterinary hospital for weekend (he had cancer) so in a way it was slightly easier. The other hardest thing was to tell my - well now grown up boys - that the kindest thing we could do was to put him to sleep - my 19 year old wanted to be with me at the vets to stoke him; I have never seen him cry such buckets - it was awful

I was glad that she purred. And it was all very peaceful. The vet was lovely. He said "It's always too soon, isn't it?" Which was, of course, absolutely right.