Paul's Infrequently Updated Blog

Today at school I got a message from one of the school secretaries saying the Humane Society had called and that they were ready for pick up. This meant that they had cremated D’Argo and we could bring him home.

We went to the Humane Society to pick him up after school. He is in a little stone urn and if you take the lid off there is small bag and covering that is a tissue paper bag. That is, of course, D’Argo. When we got him home we put another bag in the urn, which contains some of his fur, two whiskers, and part of one of his claws that he shed. We have also placed his three collars in the urn and closed it up. We now have the urn sitting on the computer desk next to his picture.

We still miss him and wish that he was still with us. We only had D’Argo for 14 months, but we treasured the time that we had with him.

Today is they day after D’Argo died. We did not go to school. I did not feel like going to school and we needed to go back to the Humane Society. When we took D’Argo to the Humane Society yesterday, we forgot to bring any money to pay for his cremation so today we went back to pay. While I was there, I wanted to go see D’Argo one last time. While I was in the back of the Humane Society saying goodbye to D’Argo, Irene stayed in the front and while I was gone the staff brought out to Irene a cat called Puck.

Puck is a Flame Point Siamese about eight months old. The Panhandle Humane Society thought that we would give Puck the ideal home and wanted us to adopt him. Puck had been found out on the street in Scottsbluff in November and, when he came to the Humane Society, he had a broken back left leg, which had tried to heal itself and had fused in the shape of a hockey stick, hence the name Puck. Unfortunately, his leg could not be saved and had to be amputated.  After we left the Humane Society, we thought about Puck for several hours and have decided to adopt him.

I am not so sure about getting a new cat so soon after losing D’Argo. Either way, we now have him and have to make the best of things. Puck is a pretty cat. He has long, white fur with a orange and white tail and ears. Right now, he is hiding under the bed upstairs, probably because he is in a new environment and not used to us just yet.

I am sure that you can guess from the title of the post that today we lost D’Argo. Late last night, Irene let him out of the back door an he never came home. When I got up this morning, Irene told me he had not returned so I walked around the block looking for him, but did not find him.

I had been fearing the worst all day and would have been happy to take the day off school to look for him, but Irene said we should go to school.  When we came home there was an envelope on our door and, when we opened it, it contained a note and his collar. I was hoping that it was a note from someone saying they had found him but sadly the lady who found him was out jogging on Highway 71 and found him on the road. He had been struck and killed by a vehicle some time in the early hours of Thursday morning, about a half mile from our house.

We never thought that D’Argo would wander so far away from home. He had never gone so far away before and we did not think he would head towards the highway. If we had thought for a moment he was going to head off to the highway we would not have let him out.

After we got the note, we immediately drove over to where the note said we could find him and we picked him up. We wrapped him up in a towel and brought him home. Irene made some calls and we were told to take him to the Humane Society because they can cremate the body. We are going to have a private cremation so that we get his ashes back in a little urn. We also plan to put his little collars with him in the urn and then seal it when we get it back.

Right now, I can not express how had I feel. It is as bad as losing a family member. D’Argo was very much a part of our household and I cannot help but see him everywhere. I will miss not seeing him waiting for me when I get out of the shower or giving him my oatmeal bowl to finish. D’Argo we miss you!!!!

Today then we got home from work Irene and I expected to see D’Argo in the front window. We thought it rather odd that he was not waiting by the door when we went in the house. When we got inside, he was not there so we began a search. When Irene opened the closet door where we keep our shoes, out came D’Argo!

Poor D’Argo had been stuck in there all day while we had gone to work. I guess what happened was that we must have gotten our shoes out of there and he must have run in without us seeing him. Poor kitty spent over nine hours trapped in the closet, but he does not  seem any worse for his ordeal.

We just got back from the Vet. Today was the day of D’Argo’s annual check up. As expected, he is doing fine. He now weights 15 lbs 13 oz, which is pretty big for a cat. As I have said before, D’Argo is not fat, he has just gotten really big. A lot of people say he is a Maine Coon cat which, from research on the computer, I have discovered is the largest of the domestic cats.

While we were at the Vet, he got his usual shots plus he also got a rabies shot. He has not had the rabies shot before because he was an indoor cat. Now that we are letting him outside, the vet recommended that we give him the rabies shot to protect him against outside animals that might be infected with the disease. So he had his first rabies shot today and then he will go back on January 9th for his booster. After that he should be all done for another year.

While we were waiting at the Vet, we saw that they had two cats in a cage that were available for adoption. We did think about taking them, but D’Argo did not react too well to the other cats. He started to hiss at them and took a swipe with his paw at one of them. We did think it would be nice for D’Argo to have some friends at home, but I guess he is just not interested.