With the recent death of Brown Cat, Ellie is the one remaining cat left in this household. Over the years, there have been many different cats, some of the indoor variety and others that spent most of their time outdoors. In terms of lifespan, the outdoor cats didn’t do so well either succumbing to the traffic on the busy road that runs alongside of my property or ending up as food for the Coyotes.

Cats are notoriously difficult to control especially if you have dogs and a doggy door. They are intelligent and learn how to make use of such a gadget very quickly. Consequently, they tend to roam following their natural habits of stalking and hunting. Luckily, as they get much older, they limit this outside practice to sunning on the deck and when that gets too hot, back indoors in the air conditioning.

I think that Ellie misses Brown Cats company at least in the sense that they were generally in each others proximity.  They were never buddies and in reality, could not stand to be too close to one another but they slept in the same room and in their younger lives, both would join me and the dogs on the big king sized bed at night. Never once did I ever see the two of them act affectionately towards each other. Come to that, both cats were very stand offish towards the dogs. Can’t say that I blame them as Richie was not to be trusted.

Occasionally, Ellie will climb up on the bed using the steps that I built for that purpose but she is not very comfortable being too close to the dogs anymore.  As soon as I turn off the light, she scrambles down off the bed to go to her room to sleep. It’s not that she is afraid of the dogs as the incident with Richie, when he went after her was several years ago and long gone from her memory. Pete, the relatively new Chihuahua is aggressive towards her but only in an excited way and she can probably do without that sort of attention. No, I think that she is lonely as she tries to spend a lot more time closer to me than before and I go out of my way to always make a fuss of her.

I have to be very careful as I stroke her as she seems very sensitive around her back area and almost goes into convulsions as she squirms around trying to lick her back after one of these incidents. Kinda dangerous to anyone close to her when she does that as her claws are flashing around with no control.

Ellie, as best as we can put together is almost 19 years old, 17 of which she has spent with me. A lot of dogs have come and gone in that  time and the only constant in her life was Brown Cat. Now he is gone and that leaves a void for her. Another cat, even an older one is not the answer as who knows how two cats new to each other, even older ones, would get along.

No, I just got to spend as much time with her as I can to help her through this rough patch and hope that she doesn’t die of a broken heart.  Like me, she is slow moving and even slower getting up. Who knows for how long considering her age although she does not show any sign of passing on, yet.

What is the saying, “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst”.