Advice If You're Looking

My beautiful black cat, Wally did not come home on Wednesday morning and I looked all over the neighborhood for him. He had been locked into garages in the past and I assumed...assumed...assumed he was locked in again. I rang bells, I left fliers, I whistled and called and nearly went crazy.

In the end I found him just over the fence in the next yard. If I had taken a moment to step on a tall planter and look, I would have seen him. I might have found him when he was still alive. I didn't find him until day 4. What a heartbreak!

He died from a fall, we think. But that does not matter now. I overlooked the obvious. I assumed if he was close he would respod to my calls. Look even the obvious places. You never know...

The Death Of Wally

We got Wally from the shelter three months after our beloved tuxedo cat, Mr. Kitty Carlyle died at the age of 19. I cried for three months and then we went to find another cat.

Wally was jet black and very calm in his little cage. He was a beauty. We took him home.

Right from the start, he was a scrapper, not at all your cuddly little kitty cat. He got bored easily and always needed something to occupy him. For a spell, he would retrieve a ball. We gave him sparkle balls which he carried all over the house. He was very smart!

I tried to make him an indoor cat, but after a few months, I gave in to his wailings and let him out. Our back is a dead end where neighborhood cats rarely come, but he could, and of course, did climb the fences toward the larger backyard open space.

Wally almost always came when I called him. He was more dog-like than cat-like in so many ways. When he didn't come home Wednesday morning, I had such a bad feeling. He's been missing before and each time, I had found him locked in someone's garage. But this time there was no response from him when I walked the block. I was getting frantic. I made a flier and took it around. The next day, my husband and I walked arouind a picture of him and rang doorbells. Something was so wrong! I asked people to check their yards for an injured cat or a dead cat. I asked them to check sheds.

We found him on day four right next door on the other side of our fence. He was laying cold and motionless on the cement patio under their little deck. What a horrible thing! Shocking? There was not a mark on him or any sign of foul play.

But now I think I know what happened. He used to climb to the top of a trellis screen that sits atop our flower boxes. Our deck is on one side and the adjacent yard is on the other. The drop down to the yard below is about 20 feet. I think Wally was out there leaning out toward the doves that routinely fly by at dawn and dusk. I think he took a swipe at one of them and fell to the cement without righting himself. It was too short a fall to have time to rotate so that he would land on his feet and just far enough to cause massive injuries.

This is so disturbing to me. I suspect he did not die immediatelly and may have heard me calling and calling him without being able to respond. I will never quite forgive myself for not looking over the fence. I may not have caused this, but I might have been able to intervene in time. I've been apologizing to him all week, silently, while going about my daily business. I feel so weepy and sad.

Wally was just about to turn 6 and he was no angel. I'm on oxygen full time; when he got angry with me, he would deliberately bite my tubing. Honest. And he would turn on me once in awhile, but as he aged, he was mellowing some and I really thought he would mature into a sweet cat.

I found this forum today because there is no one who wants to talk about this with me anymore. It's all been said. It's all I can think about and I weep at the most inappropriate moments. We had dinner with friends last night, and after we had covered the topic, they all moved along to other things, but I just wanted to sit there and cry.

This is just horrible! I don't know what to do with this grief. There is a big void here.