Sweepy, my little black furry angel, was put to sleep on 18th January 2014. The light has gone out of my life. He was such a good boy
Sooty (his brother, who we lost in 2004) and Sweep joined us from Cats Protection on 19th December 1997 when they were 7 months old. They had been abandoned in a cardboard box outside what was then known as Petsmart.
This is the first photo that I ever took of them:
I remember the first time that they ventured outside, when Sweepy was too scared to go out so he and I watched Sooty (in a harness) leading his Daddy a merry dance around the back garden trying to persuade him to climb on the garage roof and over the fences into the neighbours’ gardens. As we sat at the French window together that day we bonded. Little did I know how adventurous Sweepy was going to become as he grew older.
This was how he preferred to be when younger:
Sweepy had never been a lap cat, and made me wait 10 years before coming to sit on my lap. I remember posting on Purrs about it at the time. He never looked back after this, and frequently sat on my lap but wouldn’t sit on his Daddy’s lap.
Sweepy and Bear on my lap:
He was often seen heading out to the meadow and loved prowling around out there. I had visions of him rounding up the cattle out there, but I think they may have been a bit too large for him
When Furdie joined us, and we could only let him out on a harness and lead, Sweepy and Rory would regularly come with us. Here are some pics of those times meeting the neighbours and just walking:
In April 2012, Sweepy was diagnosed with kidney failure and he was so good at taking his tablets and eating his special kidney food. By January 2013 all his blood test readings were back within the normal range again. His blood test results were still good in July 2013, but when we took him in for his checkup, the vet found a lymphoma in his tummy. We were devastated
The vet said that when he had finished his kidney tablets, he needn’t have any more.
A month or two after this, all of a sudden Sweepy decided that kidney food wasn’t what he wanted any more, and that he wanted what we were having, especially my sandwich fillings at lunchtime and Jim’s supper at suppertime. It might not have been the best thing to do, but by this time we had decided that he could have whatever he wanted
Sweepy continued to look fine until October 2013 but very gradually started to lose weight. I had to go into hospital at the beginning of December for a stem cell transplant and I was really worried about him. I was so relieved when I came back home to see that he was still with us
I had 2 weeks with him where he carried on gently bullying me out of my lunches, but Jim and I could see he was still losing weight, so we booked him in for his last vet visit and we were both with him at the end
It seems so unfair that he should have had that lymphoma. He was such a nice kitty, he never did anyone any harm. We were supposed to be together forever
I have probably posted some of these before, but here are some photos of Sweepy in better times showing what a beautiful boy he was:
I hope that Sooty will look after Sweepy at Rainbow Bridge and that they will get up to mischief together like they used to here, and that they will know how much they are always loved
