Originally Posted by PersianKitty

Well, I've had an extra week with my persian cat, Smokey (the reason I ended up as Persian Kitty). The cancer has spread from his liver, he's not moving around well, and he's gone very anemic. Even after a large transfusion last week, his red blood cell count is lower than the vet has seen in living cats and his white cell count is sky high. No meds have made a difference and I feel he's telling me it's time to say goodbye.

I'm taking him tonight at 6:30 to put him to sleep. My two previous old cats made the choice for me. This one's hard because he looks at me as tho everything is okay, but I know inside that it's not. I'm lucky to have had 17 years with him.

http://207.114.239.80/images/purrsonal/pk.jpg

Originally Posted by KRL

My heart and thoughts go out to you and smokey tonight Beth.

I lost one of my Shepherds in May at age 14. The sense of loss and emotion you experience after caring for a pet when you've had them that long is as intense and deep as if it were a child, sometimes even more so, because pets are truly the only thing in our lives that we experience 100% unconditional love with.

Life unfortunately is all about cycles of birth and death. We nor our pets are given bodies meant to last forever, but our souls all go on. Sometimes our pets return to us again in miraculous ways as new kitties and puppies.

I spent 3 months mourning my shepherd and thought to myself I'll never find one again like that, such personality, spirit, loyalty, and bond. And then one day I happened to be on PetFinder.com just for the heck of it, not really looking for another dog, and I saw this picture of a gorgeous Shepherd that was in a shelter about 120 miles away. I don't know how to explain what I felt in words, but it was as if I was in the presence of an angel in that moment saying to me he is to be yours. It was like that strange lightning bolt sense of knowing when you meet someone and feel like you've already known them for years. Like you were destined to be together.

I really felt strange after that. All night long I kept clicking back to the shelters site and looking at his pics. I kept feeling more and more compelled to go and adopt this particular dog for some weird reason.

So I e-mailed the head of the shelter and asked about him. Sure enough even though he had been there for over 6 weeks he was still available and no one had adopted him yet. That in itself seemed strange, because purebreed Shepherds tend to get adopted very fast.

Turns out he was born in Kentucky and the family had moved to Miami and couldn't keep him. Then another fellow had adopted him at the Miami shelter and moved to Key Largo but couldn't keep him at the condo he had moved to because they didn't allow 3 dogs and he had 2 others. So just with this whole story it got more and more fascinating how this dog came to be mine.

So I said to myself don't know what's up with this dog, but l have to go and get him. Drove down there and when they let him out of his cage he came running up to me and started to lick my face as if it was a reunion.

I got tears in my eyes, it was so emotionally intense feeling the love this dog was obviously pouring out.

We bonded instantly. He jumped in the back of my SUV like he had been there before.

When we got home it seemed like he knew everything already. It was so bizarre I got really freaked.

He even started doing things like my other Shepherd Jessie who had died of cancer 3 years ago. Same mannerisms to the tee.

I've always believed that humans continue on in spirit form when they die and sometimes reincarnate and come back into your life again, but never had this kind of profound experience with one of my pets that had passed on. But I will say without any doubt in my mind now, this new Shep that found its way to me, has the same spirit within it that was in Jessie.

So if anything can help ease your sense of loss tonight, I hope this will help you to have peace of mind knowing that our cats and dogs seem to have souls that go on also, just like us, and sometimes they do come back to us again in amazing ways of fate.

Life is filled with mystery. We don't really know what happens next. But the older I get and the more people and pets I love pass on, the more experiences I've had that have convinced me there is much more to life than just death.

Rest your soul, knowing Smokey will be ok and still with you in spirit tonight.