Chloe.

Thanksgiving. My cat knocks over several cups of water throughout the day, which she knew she'd get in trouble for, but she didn't care. She was just so thirsty. After a few cups, I realize she must be super dehydrated, so I give her a huge bowl of fresh water. She drinks some and I notice she looks really weak/tired. I take her to my room and lay her on my pillow, bring more water. She doesn't look good. The next day, she still looks super weak and now will not eat or drink. I take her to the vet. She has a very low temperature and is extremely weak/tired/dehydrated. They keep her overnight so they can hook her up to an IV and rehydrate her while they do some blood work. The next day, she looks a little better, but her temperature is still low, she won't eat or drink, and she is peeing on herself instead of getting into the litter box right next to her. The vet says she has kidney failure. She is only 8. Still young for a kitty. He says if we can get her to feel better, that we can start her on a special diet and injectable fluids and she could live with the condition for a while. He's worried that there is something else wrong. I spend my weekend with her wrapped in a towel in my arms, using a syringe to force fluids into her mouth, chicken broth, tuna water, water mixed with canned cat food, plain water, anything, anything. I set up a bed with a heating pad and a lamp to keep her warm. Monday, my brother texts me to tell me she didn't make it through the day.

I rescued her from the pound when she was just a little baby kitten. I had been pondering a sleepy little calico in my arms while the whole time a scrawny little tabby was making all kinds of racket and stretching her paws out to me through the bars. How could I resist a kitten so desperate to be adopted by me? I couldn't. Turns out she was a little runt of a kitty, and never grew to be as big as the average cat. She always still looked kind of like a baby. She grew up to be very protective. Anyone who she didn't know well would get stalked, hissed at, and sometimes bitten if they tried to pet her when they came over. With me though, she would cuddle up in my arms at night and stretch her tiny paws up to rest on my face, purring so loudly.

Losing a pet is so hard.

The reason I write this blog is that at the exact moment I received the text from my brother with the news, I was reading about a giveaway on a blog I follow. It's from an artist named Rachel Stratford, and she is giving away a custom drawing of a pet. Reading that at the exact moment I heard about Chloe made me feel all kinds of desperate to win that portrait. One of the ways to enter is to write a blog about it. Here it is.

http://asktherat.blogspot.com/2010/11/rachel-stratford-portrait-giveaway.html