I've just joined the forum after lurking for a short while and thought I should introduce myself and my family. My name is Jean and the family currently consists of myself, my husband, our 20 month old GSD cross Bruno and most importantly from this forum's point of view, our 6 (soon to be 7) year old cat Penny.
The sad news - until 4 weeks ago we also had a 16 year old cat named Misty. Misty was in apparently good health for her age, no signs of arthritis or illnes and all her own teeth. She loved to play fight with Penny and made sure Bruno knew who was boss. One evening in May I came home to find her lying at the top of the stairs panting heavily. My husband (who works nightshift) said she had been a little lethargic during the day. I got Misty into her basket without protest (a very bad sign) and by the time I got to the vet's 20 minutes later she had slipped away. Misty's kidneys had failed though not sure what had caused it - vet thinks possibly an infection or aggressive tumour that Misty was too old to fight. Penny has grieved very badly for Misty.
The good news - in a couple of weeks time we will be getting a new kitten. A friend of mine runs a small rescue centre and she has some gorgeous kittens who have just turned five weeks old so we'll be adopting one when they're old enough to leave their mum. As the kittens were entering the world as my beautiful girl was preparing to leave it, it just seems like fate. I'm prepared for the traumas of introducing a new cat into the household, it's not the first time I've done it but hopefully it will go well if we do it right.
This is Penny:
This was Misty:
I'll let you have pictures of the new kitten as soon as I have some.
