In memoriam: Persephone's last descent
May. 8th, 2012 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nancylebovPersephone, a very good cat, died yesterday.
She was finding it impossible to get up and down stairs-- the vet thought it was arthritis and possibly a urinary tract infection, and prescribed antibiotics, a pain-killer, and baby food banana (because a cat keeping it's head in corners might mean a potassium deficiency). Perse was getting better for a few days-- less crying, better walking, and even though she was still under a work table in the basement, she wasn't facing the corner-- but yesterday I found her in a coma, and there wasn't much to be done but the final injection.
Anyway, Perse was your basic housecat-- a short-haired tortie who was a stealth red tabby. In other words, she was mostly dark brown, but the dark brown was a little splotchy, so that if you looked, you could see that the non-splotched areas had a coherent stripe pattern. Only half her tail (lengthwise) was dark brown, so you could really see the stripes on the other half.
Sometimes, she'd sit on a shelf with her tail hanging down and the stripes showing, and she'd look like a lemur.
She was quite jealous when she was younger, with such vivid facial expressions on the subject that I thought she could be rented out to play Shakespeare.
She wasn't an anecdote-generating cat for the most part, but she did come up with one thing which has made me cynical about tests of animal intelligence. We were boarding a cat that she didn't like, and if I petted the boarder and then her, she'd give my hand a great big sniff and then turn away. This is interesting because a big sniff isn't (so far as I know) a default part of cat vocabulary. It got more interesting when I tried petting the boarder where she couldn't see, and then petted her. No big sniff. No turning away. She had invented a gesture which was clear communication to humans.
She vocalized when she purred-- it was like singing.
Perse is survived by me,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inquisitiveravn, and Gillian (the other half of the tortie conspiracy).
She was finding it impossible to get up and down stairs-- the vet thought it was arthritis and possibly a urinary tract infection, and prescribed antibiotics, a pain-killer, and baby food banana (because a cat keeping it's head in corners might mean a potassium deficiency). Perse was getting better for a few days-- less crying, better walking, and even though she was still under a work table in the basement, she wasn't facing the corner-- but yesterday I found her in a coma, and there wasn't much to be done but the final injection.
Anyway, Perse was your basic housecat-- a short-haired tortie who was a stealth red tabby. In other words, she was mostly dark brown, but the dark brown was a little splotchy, so that if you looked, you could see that the non-splotched areas had a coherent stripe pattern. Only half her tail (lengthwise) was dark brown, so you could really see the stripes on the other half.
Sometimes, she'd sit on a shelf with her tail hanging down and the stripes showing, and she'd look like a lemur.
She was quite jealous when she was younger, with such vivid facial expressions on the subject that I thought she could be rented out to play Shakespeare.
She wasn't an anecdote-generating cat for the most part, but she did come up with one thing which has made me cynical about tests of animal intelligence. We were boarding a cat that she didn't like, and if I petted the boarder and then her, she'd give my hand a great big sniff and then turn away. This is interesting because a big sniff isn't (so far as I know) a default part of cat vocabulary. It got more interesting when I tried petting the boarder where she couldn't see, and then petted her. No big sniff. No turning away. She had invented a gesture which was clear communication to humans.
She vocalized when she purred-- it was like singing.
Perse is survived by me,
inquisitiveravn, and Gillian (the other half of the tortie conspiracy).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2012-05-08 08:17 pm (UTC)such vivid facial expressions on the subject that I thought she could be rented out to play Shakespeare.
Torties seem to frequently be like that. My Pyanfar certainly was.
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Date: 2012-05-08 11:53 pm (UTC)I remember her from when we fostered her at our place during one of the moves. I also remember her having a couple of run-ins with our original tomcat, Mr Peake. The first was her running at him in full 'Let's play' mode and him standing her up and flipping her arse over teacups, as if to say "settle down young'un.
The second one was the time that she decided to try and eat from his dish in front of her. He sat back on his haunches and looked at us and yowled as if to say "do something about this, humans" incredulously. After we said 'No, it's your problem' he slowly raised one front paw and pushed her head down into the food. He did it so carefully you could hear the "boink". She never tried to do it again.
She made it easier when we brought home our Tortie, Heidi. So she'll missed but remembered by us as well.I believe she was the last of that generation of cats amongst us. All our thoughts and prayers for you guys at this time.
YIS,
WRI
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Date: 2012-05-09 04:28 am (UTC)the only sweetness is the memories
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