Achilles Ready to Join Us On a Trip
August, 2019
As you’ve seen in the earlier episodes of this tale, Achilles and his sister, Persephone came to us as a pair that we “discovered” at our local pet shop.
Actually, Shirley discovered them in the window and dragged me in almost immediately. We knew we had found an amazing pair of guys as these kittens weren’t the least bit shy of these strangers picking them up and out of their cage and after the loss of our dear Oscar, we felt a need for some companions. We’d realized that having two cats is not only a riotous pleasure for us as we watched Oscar and Selina chase each other around, cuddle and love each other but they were companions to support each other and we saw the loss the Oscar exhibited after Selina’s sudden death and we had resolved that if and when we got another “cat,” it would be a pair, though we didn’t know they’d be brother and sister.
I don’t think Shirley had ever had a kitten but I had: Mergatroid, Lancelot and Ainseca we’d had from birth – all kittens from Happy. We had gotten both Oscar and Selina “used” as adults but we were in for a wild ride with these two, new, guys.
We asked the clerk in the pet shop about adoption and she said that if we gave our names and phone number the woman who ran the adoption agency would contact us.
A few days later we got a call and we were directed to a home quite near us and we were then given the third degree to make sure we were proper prospective parents. She had converted her three car garage into a cat menagerie but the cats didn’t run wild in there: they were all caged so that their contacts would be more with humans than other cats so they would be imprinted to humans to make them more domesticated and basically friendly.
I had done the same thing, unknowingly, long ago, with Happy’s kittens which is why people who got her kittens were amazed at their “dog-like” behavior.
As part of the adoption process, we had to swear a blood oath that we’d never have them declawed but must have them “fixed.”
That was almost a deal breaker as we didn’t want out furniture torn up by our cats. She poo-pooed that and showed us how “easy” it was to trim their nails since they were used to it.
Ha! While it wasn’t as bad as we feared, it was never easy, requiring the two of us – Shirley was the “holder” and I was the “cutter.” The guys quickly learned that whenever I rummaged around in that drawer it was time to run for cover. But we learned, too, to get the clippers, pocket them and wait until they were fooled into thinking that nothing was going to happen. Needless to say, we could never do the two of them, one after the other.
They were rambunctious as kittens, running after each other, tussling and sometimes knocking over things like plant bowls and once a six foot tall candelabra as well as digging in some of our house plants. (This we solved by surrounding them with plastic fencing.)
Shirley and Persephone
December, 2006
Their first Christmas, Shirley had the neat idea of dressing them up in little Christmas/Birthday hats. This lasted a fast 20 seconds as they were hardly thrilled with this. I’m still amazed when I see pictures and videos of people dressing up their cats in costumes when we couldn’t even keep them in flea collars – they bit each other’s collars off almost as soon as we put them on.
The guys obviously loved each other and they usually slept curled up together depending on the weather either on the sofa, in their basket or even in shoe boxes.
It is ironic that, in stark contrast with Persephone, Achilles never had to see the vet for anything but his shots and even THAT ended after the vet asked if they ever go out or come in contact with outside cats. Since, unlike, Oscar and Selina, Shirley decided we weren’t going to walk them, they never displayed any interest in going outside. In fact, they feared going out as the only time they DID go out was to the vet.
After Persephone died, Achilles was all alone and after a time of looking for her, became even more close to us than he’d been when his sister was with us. One thing that didn’t change was Achilles always slept with us while Persephone had often slept under the bed. I often thought that she did it was because Achilles, frequently in the middle of a “nap,” would wake up and begin wrestling. You just can’t get a decent sleep that way, so sleeping under the bed was a compromise that got her somewhat close to us but a calm sleep.
Persephone and Achilles
February, 2011
Achilles, unlike his pudgy sister was always slim even though he ate voraciously but about four months ago we noticed that he was losing weight and in December we took him – in Persephone’s old carrier – to Hickory. After some probing the doctor said she felt something and gave us the choice of X-Ray or Sonogram. The X-Ray would require Achilles being knocked out so we opted for the Sonogram.
About ½ hour later she came back with Achilles and some bad news – he had cancer of what appeared to be the bowel or liver as the Sonogram was not that exact. The only way to be precise would be exploratory surgery and it wouldn’t give them really any additional information unless we decided to go full bore to operate to remove the tumor which, she went on, wouldn’t really help him as it would likely only add a few more months to his life.
We looked at each other, stunned. We quickly decided that we wouldn’t make Achilles go through all this, certainly for just a “few extra” months considering much of it would be recuperating from surgery. We knew this because of our experience with Persephone after her many operations.
The doctor gave us two medicines: a steroid that would, possibly, slow the tumor’s growth and an appetite stimulant with the directions to, “Give him everything he’ll eat.”
So we came home.
Part 2: https://ronstoloff.wordpress.com/2020/04/05/achilles-the-final-days-part-2/
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