One more blow

Solitaire
January 1994 - December 2, 2013

On Monday, I took Solitaire to the vet to be put to sleep. Hubby found her curled up and sleeping in the litterbox that morning. She would have been 20 years old if she had made it to January. She had suffered with thyroid problems for the last few years of her life. We knew earlier this fall that she probably wouldn't survive much longer. Her weight was down to 3 pounds.

Solitaire was a petite little girl kitty who came to us at age 4. For some reason she was never adopted. The shelter said she was afraid of the other kitties and would run and hide if they tried to pick her up. Though I tried very hard to socialize her in the 15 years she lived with us, it never really took. The only time she ever looked big was when Boo arrived as a 3 lb kitten.

She looked all tiny and cuddly but she hated to be touched or picked up. She would holler with a flat Siamese like call that sounded nothing like a meow. I always felt that she wasn't a happy kitty. It was like she carried her own little black cloud around with her. Her idea of fighting back with the boys was to close her eyes and wildly wave her paw in the air in front of her.

She was fiercely protective of her belly. You did not touch it. One of the few times she may have been picked up at the shelter was to be fixed. She didn't forget that. She would tuck her tail in under her, roll up in a ball, and yow.

We had originally gone looking for another male black kitty to be a pal for Boo. That's when I spotted Solitaire. She came out of a cat tower to purr and be petted. Though we didn't know it at the time, this was very out of character behavior for her. My guess is she decided it was time to get out of that place.

When she first arrived at our house she must have run for 2 days. She was clumsy and awkward. Probably because she had never had the space or freedom to run at the shelter. Too many other cats around that might bother her. Her 3 brothers gave her a hard time at first. Gray Kitty, our biggest kitty, was afraid of her. White Kitty accepted her pretty fast. Sam was the hold out for a long time. He didn't like white cats. I finally got him to leave her alone by using a squirt gun on him. He decided that leaving her alone was much better than getting wet.

My hope is she is now running happily around in kitty summerland. Whole and free at last.