The cats, dogs and horses that share our lives
We lost another cat that I haven’t previously written about in addition to Iris: CoCo. She was with us for nearly as long as Iris, and passed at about the same age of 19 years. In her last days CoCo stopped eating and according to Irene started being unstable on her feet. We had CoCo put down on December 17- sadly, I have no memories of the event as it took place as part of my missing time event so memories are sketchy at best and missing entirely at worst.
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We had our beloved cat Iris euthanized after a long illness on May 1 of this year at the age of 19 and one half years. I’ve been remiss in terms of reporting on this fact for no good reason other than it hurt then and it continues to hurt now. But I felt it was only fair to say something about our loss of our beloved grey and white tabby girl since I so recently reported on a new addition to our household, Sapphire.
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We have added a kitten to our clowder as of August 2, 2026, and her name is Sapphire. Before you ask: this means we now have four cats, three in the main house and one in my office over the garage. Yes that is a lot of cats. No, I didn’t really want to have more cats. Yes, Irene begged and cajoled me for days.
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Our cat Pie (Magpie) has been under the weather for a few days. He was hiding and a couple of the times we saw him try to eat he hissed and ran away from what we were feeding him at the time.
The ‘food’ he ran away from was a treat- a little quarter-sized dollop of milk. We decided to get him to the vet pronto given his reaction and the fact that this happened twice on two days. It was a bit of an adventure and we learned a few things in the process
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Irene had to move her horse, Spirit, to a new stable recently. The new place is actually closer: theoretically, close enough to walk to, or a three minute drive if you dislike that theory as I do. Irene insisted for several days that I had to come see the new boarding situation. I, on the other hand, have been quite happy just to know that Irene is happy with things: why spoil it by having to go somewhere? But she insisted, and yesterday I finally went.
The most important part of the new boarding place, at least in our dog Finn’s opinion, is the fact that Finn has two dog-buddies there to play with. Banjo and Timber are close enough to Finn’s size, age, and temperament that he always has a good time playing with them. So our visit was really more about Finn than about the horses.
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We live in a forest on the side of a small mountain. But our house is also just five minutes or so from the Castlegar’s downtown, so sharing our acreage with wildlife still seems rather surprising to me.
Recently we’ve been visited by a few reminders of where we live.
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Our sweet cat Pippin passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, June 20, while Irene and I were away. She died in her sleep of uncertain causes, and I miss her in ways that are difficult to describe.
I’m writing this in the hope that a few notes about Pippin will help me rationalize my feelings.
Irene and I adopted Finn at the end of 2022. He was about 11 weeks old when we got him, born at the end of August (August 29). At the time he was about 6 or 7 kilos. His adoption was not really planned, but it worked out.
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Say hello to our newest family member: Finn, a dog, or more accurately a puppy. This picture is from when we first got him: he was about 11 weeks old at the time.
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