Remembering Harrison

Since it is after midnight, it now is the one year anniversary of Harrison’s little body giving out and his death.  I had taken him into the vet for a checkup since he had stopped eating the day before and he normally ate more than all my other cats added together just to keep going.

He came to me the May before, as an emergency request from a shelter I had adopted Anna from.  The weather was very cold for California, and the shelter only has a very limited amount of full indoor space.  Harrison was very sick with a URI at the very least and needed better shelter and care to survive.  I took him in as a ‘foster’, knowing full well he’d be staying on.

He was very malnourished, and between meals he almost fell into a coma for quite a time until he shook his first URI and the weather warmed up.  A vet check showed that the few teeth he had would need to be pulled as well.

His ultra flat face kept him prone to those colds and congestion, so I kept tissues handy to wipe his nose when he sneezed.  They also helped clean his face since he had trouble keeping his face clean when eating.  He tended to push it away as he ate it, so I had to find bowls that could keep the food from sliding off the back of a plate, but still make most of it available to eat.  I usually had to reshape the food a time or two.

The shapers of this breed certainly didn’t do Harrison any favors.

He loved going outside when he could, and got on well with the resident cats,  Almost nothing they did bothered him.

He had a normal interest in toys and the like too.  He was always a happy guy.

The fly in the ointment is that he still remained very thin.  He gained a pound or two heading into the fall, but tended to lose it when he caught a cold.  But even when ‘gaining’, the results were hardly what you would expect compared to what he took in.  He more or less ate significantly more than what my two 12 pound male cats had done when they were alive, but only gained slowly if at all.  It was pretty clear that he wasn’t effectively digesting much of his food, the hope was that if he could take enough in he could win out.

Harrison was always as active and happy as his health would allow him to be, and loved by everyone from the moment they met him.  Who would think a frail five pound cat could leave such a hole in the world?