RIP Harley

On Saturday morning, we were treated to yet another crazy behavior from our fat, orange cat, Harley. He had started throwing up...not his usual 'ate-too-much-too-fast', but just some fluid. At first we were just distressed and felt that things had gone way too far. How many different things could happen with this cat? He had been having intermittent issues with peeing and pooping out of his box.  We have spent the past few months trying just about everything we could think of to remedy the situation. The vet thought that he would improve after the baby came, but that didn't happen.  He was increasingly stressed by Eisley chasing him around and Soren's crying.  Every time something happened, we would try to overlook it, wanting to give him some time to adjust.

But on this particular day, he started to deteriorate. It just seemed that he wasn't doing well. He wasn't eating or drinking--which is highly out of the ordinary for Harley. He weighed about 22 pounds--clearly he likes to eat. He also had stopped going to the bathroom. He was trying to pee, but it wasn't happening. And he was crying and moaning a bit. Stephan had called our vet and set up an appointment for Wednesday earlier in the day. We felt that we had reached the end. But...by Sunday morning, we could see that waiting until Wednesday would probably be more painful for him. Stephan agreed to take him to an ER vet at the urging of my mom.

After a thorough physical exam and interview, the vet agreed that we had done everything and that putting him down was the right choice. After all of the tests coming back normal, it was very hard to see him deteriorate so quickly and not know exactly why.

We adopted Harley when he was about 10 weeks old back in January 2003. He would have been 7 years old. He was a peculiar cat and has been our ever forgiving, lovable furry friend. He even forgave us after he was locked in our bedroom closet for 5 days with no food or water while we were out of town. It's hard to believe that he is gone.

A favorite "I'm so comfortable" position

Our first "baby" sleeping in the cradle

I could never understand why a 20 pound cat wanted to sit on the top of the couch.

Eisley keeping just enough distance to hang out with Harley

Eisley is probably about 9 months here and loving that she can crawl and get close to the kitty.

Our 2 furry boys