This has been a bit of dramatic year in the Cat household - acquired 2 new kittens, had our old girl go missing for 5 weeks (posted about that here), and today we sadly had our old ginger boy, Claude, put to sleep.
He was diagnosed with lung cancer a month ago, so we knew he was on borrowed time. He wasn't in pain, but he'd become skin and bones and his breathing was increasingly laboured. For anyone on here who's worrying about how you know it's time - you sort of just do. This morning we questioned for whom we were keeping him going, and concluded it was us, and that just wasn't fair.
So. He was a lovely characterful ginger monster whom we rescued aged 6 months, and who lived to 12 1/2. He adored DH and would sleep on him every night. (If you've read the Philip Pullman 'Dark Materials' novels, we knew Claude was his daemon). He ruled the roost in Reading, and coped exceptionally with a move to Switzerland where he again became king of our road.
And so we love him and miss him terribly (and I stupidly can't stop crying) but very glad we were able to send him off knowing he was loved very, very much.
Huge sympathy to anyone else going through this.