Jenny the cat

I got Jenny the cat from a Craigslist ad in June 2006.  She was a skittish year-old  shorthaired neutered female calico cat.  We did not get along really well at first because she wanted to lick me and I thought she was trying to bite me she grabbed me in her mouth to get me to hold still.  We got it figured out after a week or two.  Then she would loudly meow at 4 AM in the bathroom which sounded like an echo chamber when I was trying to sleep before going to work.

I guessed she was lonely after being the youngest cat in a houseful of cats.  So I got a kitten that Joy S named June Bug.  Bug and I bounded closely from the start.  She still jumps up in my lap and rides around on my wheelchair.

Jenny both bossed Bug around and taught her how to clean herself.  They got along really well with the occasional short bloodless cat fight.  Bug is a small fat cat.  Jenny was slightly bigger and skinny.  It was 5 or 6 years before Bug realized she was stronger than Jenny.

Jenny was a lot masochistic.   She liked having her tail pulled.   A favorite activity was to sit on the corner of the bed next to where I got dressed in my wheelchair and often watched a few minutes of TV at a time.   Jenny would meow like the cat equivalent of a kid screaming on a roller-coaster while I rubbed her really hard to the point of squishing her.  We did that several times a day for years.

Bug and Jenny never left my apartment in 7 years until I took Jenny to the vet last November after she was losing weight and looking kinda rough and unhappy.  The vet gave her a shot for allergies.  Two more trips to the vet earlier this year and Jenny continued to get worse.  On the 3^rd trip to the vet, they gave her a worm shot.  WTF???   They clearly had no idea what was wrong with Jenny.  I was ready to have her put down, but the vet and Lea persuaded me to hold off on that hoping for spontaneous healing or perhaps a no-kill shelter.

For the last two months, it was like watching her die slowly to me.  She got a little skinnier and her once beautiful coat looked rougher with weird bumps on her skin.  She was isolating most of the time and rarely came by for her daily pummeling on the corner of the bed.

Two months after the last trip to the vet, we took Jenny to the Seattle Humane Society today.  They are a no kill shelter.  We will never see Jenny again.  If she responds to treatment she will be adopted by someone else.  I hope she gets better, she was a wonderful fun loving chatty cat that shared lots of companionship with me, Bug and Lea.  8+ years is by far and

away the longest I ever had a pet.  Thanks Jenny for the love and memories.  That is the roommate relationship in my adult life by years.

I am grateful for a wonderful cat named Jenny that lived with me for 8 years.  She made my life better.  I know she will be in a better place.