Hi everyone,
I’m going to try and tell you about the death of my 5-and-a-half-year-old cat, Ghosty, a British Longhair. It happened on Saturday evening, the 18th of March.
Ghosty grew up in a flat with balcony access, and since July 2016, we’ve been living in a semi-detached house with a small fenced garden. To cut a long story short, he was a total couch potato – a real lazybones who spent a bit of time outside but never went beyond the fence (it was impossible for him to jump that high). He never hunted anything and never ate anything he found on the ground.
His life, basically, was all about naps and cuddles.
On the day he died, just like every morning, he caught us as we came out of the bedroom for a huge cuddle. We picked him up, he put his paws around my neck and gave our faces a lick, like he does when he’s starving. We even remarked to each other that he’d rarely given us such a big cuddle; we jokingly said he must be dying of hunger and thirst.
The whole day went well, normally; he went out, came in, ate and drank.
Around 7 pm, he went out into the garden for the last time. At about 10 pm, we found him lying in the middle of the garden, struggling to breathe and panting.
When we picked him up, we realised he couldn’t move his back legs anymore; he was like he was paralysed, he was completely "limp".
Pure panic set in. The only out-of-hours vet open was a 30-minute drive away, so we jumped in the car and rushed there.
We arrived there at about 10.45 pm. He died a few minutes later. He was in hypothermia, had internal bleeding and blood in his lungs; the vet couldn't do anything. It’s safe to say he died in absolute agony.
And that’s how, in less than an hour, my peaceful evening turned into a nightmare.
So now, we’re desperately looking for answers.
Everything points to him being poisoned... but with what? The various symptoms I’ve read about for rat poison or slug pellets don’t really fit, and they usually take longer to kill. In this case, he was struck down in just two hours. We thought about an adder bite, but again, the symptoms weren't right.
So, does anyone have an explanation for this?
I can provide more info if needed.
Thank you very much.
