I recently had to put down my dear Dovey. He's been gone seven weeks now. These were taken the last few days of his life. It's hard for me to look at them without welling up.
Dovey had heart disease. By late fall, his breathing had become incredibly strained. While I could have held onto him a bit longer, he was clearly struggling. One option was to medicate him heavily and have several procedures done. But the doctors said he wouldn't have lasted much more than a year with all that work. And it wouldn't have been fair to him. I didn't want to turn him into Franken-kitty for the sake of my feelings.
I adopted him in Portland, Oregon. He lived about 10 years. Not too bad, but I could have done with another 5 or 6. While I loved him from day one, we became much closer the last few years. I'll miss him forever. He was a wonderful cat and a great friend.
I have uploaded more pictures to my Flickr site as well.
