Beyond The Rainbow - Pet Hospice and Memorial Center Memorials
 | DennisCats |
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| Our beautiful Dennis left us for an even better place this past Friday evening. He has gone to be with his brothers and sisters in that place of unlimited play and catnip. We do and will miss him dearly, but.............
Dennis was an amazing cat who we adopted over 17 years ago. He clearly was one of those blessed creatures who used all (and then some) of his 9 lives and was always thankful to his humans for those additional opportunities to "drape" his full body over whoever sat down long enough to become his "victim", sleep on our heads and "head rub" until both parties fell asleep. He was as affectionate and friendly a feline as one could imagine. During his time he suffered a detached retina and ensuing blindness in one eye as well as cardiac arrest during a related procedure -- there went at least 2 of his lives --- he recovered beautifully and these setbacks ultimately didn´t slow him down a bit. Dennis´s last few years included living with the effects of chronic and progressive renal failure -- common in aging kitties. Shelley cared for him with the tenderness of the best of human moms, including occasional IV fluids to hydrate and sub-Q injections as needed to help his appetite and control nausea. Dennis took this all in stride, and despite some bad days, his quality of life was very good until this past week or so. About 13 months ago, we thought Dennis was indicating that he was ready to play in kitty heaven. At that time, we became aware of a pet hospice organanization that made housecalls to help families and their pets with a dignified goodbye, without the stress for the pet of having to travel to a clinic. For Dennis, that made such a difference as we were well aware that any past times in the car were clearly traumatic, stressful experiences for him. The hospice organization, called Beyond the Rainbow, is an amazing team of dedicated, caring individuals. They made the experience of saying goodbye to our beloved Dennis so meaningful for all of us, including Sophia who chose to fully participate at her tender age of (almost) 8. Beyond the Rainbow also helped us 13 months ago to address Dennis´s medical issues and their expertise and compassion, combined with Shel´s care and Dennis´s will are responsible for the additional year+ we had with Dennis. We also have the luck of being neighbors to Julie & her family. Without her loving care & dedication to Dennis & his siblings, we could not have enjoyed any time away from home over the past year. Julie, Dr. Mannon, Kate and Terry of Beyond the Rainbow truly represent what is right about this world and we thank them for going beyond the call of duty without much notice on their Friday night to help us. | |