rest in peace, our little xedo

the day xedo found us

it is with a heavy, heavy heart that i write this post. we had to say good-bye to one of our dear kitties last night. it's the first time i've ever had to say bye to a pet in this way. and it was no easy choice on our part either... but first? a little story about our miracle kitty.

xedo found us exactly three years ago. and by found us, i mean he wandered into our backyard with his momma. we fed them both and as always, they stuck around. to be a stray, xedo certainly was a friendly little guy – probably no more than two or three months old. a scraggly little guy, that was more ugly-cute than cute-cute, you know?

helping us build halloween decorations (yes, we go all out!)

he was an outside kitty. and loved every minute of it. i can remember standing in our front yard calling to him, and he'd come running. his little belly swinging from side to side. he loved us so very much and was always excited when we'd get home from work. (i'm pretty sure that had a little something to do with us feeding him about that time... but we'll pretend it was because we were home.)

about two years ago, xedo went missing for a couple of days. & we were devastated. we found him (finally!) after walking around and calling for him. he was hiding in a culvert just down the road. we're not sure if something had scared him badly enough for him to hide like that or if he just got lost. whatever it was, fast forward a few days later, and our xedo was very sick.

we spent the next couple of weeks taking him back and forth from our vet to the emergency animal hospital. the best guess they could give us was that he'd gotten into poison of some kind. speculations ranged from eating a poisonous lizard, to someone actually poisoning our cat. the little guy was only a year old, so we didn't have the heart to give up on him.

we spent a pretty little penny on this fella, and knew that it was worth it. he finally came home with us (complete with a feeding tube). i believe the tube came out about a week later and xedo started to put weight back on. we were very grateful. unfortunately, the incident with the poison left lesions on his brain. he was no longer able to walk in a straight line; always using the walls as a guidance to get from one place to the other.

testing out the car seat for us

and it worked. for all of us. for a while. until recently we noticed that xedo only stayed in one spot for most of the day. he would leave to eat. and go to the bathroom. but his litter box habits were quickly deteriorating too. and, after being out of town this past weekend, we came home to a huge mess in our kitchen (i won't go into detail here, but it involves things from the mouth and hiney... and worms).

after a meeting with our vet last night, we came to the mutual decision that xedo's quality of life was taking a downward spiral. and most likely, things would only continue to get worse. did we make the right decision? it's hard to know. and believe me, my heart hurts so very much still. i was sad to not see his little white feet sticking out from under the chair in his familiar corner this morning. and i can't get the last image of our sweet xedo out of my head.

our vet was wonderful. she even said a small prayer with us before we left. it helped, but it still didn't make things any easier...

sweet xedo: 2007–2010

...but i know he's in a much happier place now. and i'm pretty sure he's running around again with that belly swinging from side to side. we miss you so much already, but we'll see you on the flip-side sweet kitty.