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.

I cannot send you a long post as i have to leave work in a few minutes, but i just had to take a moment to offer my condolences on Wally's passing.
He cetainly sounds like he was a live-wire, i love his sense of humor!
Please do not torture yourself with possible scenarios re his demise- could it have been a sudden heart attack? I understand that the not knowing is just as painful as losing him, but you have enough on your plate without beating yourself up with guilt.
You certainly have come to the right place to express yourself. Here, no one will tell you to move on, or get over it. You are encouraged to share your pain, and when you feel up to it, to entertain with more Wally stories. I did not know Wally but had i met him i would have loved him as well.
You are in my thoughts, take care.
Nicole

Don't beat yourself around w/ what ifs, should'ves, and the like............ it won't get you anywhere..... It'll just make you more sad and depressed.

Just remember the good times you had w/ him..... and remember that he died doing something he loves, you know?!!? some animals die of disease and in laboratories being tested on.

I'm sorry if I sound insensitive, I guess I'm yelling at myself while telling you this... my cat died on Monday and i'm really depressed about losing him. I feel guilty for not spending enough time w/ him.

anyway, just keep posting on this website............. it helps a lot.

feel better.

Dear cswitzer-
I am really sorry for the loss of your beloved Wally. I had tears when I was reading your letter.
I can understand how you feel. My brave and loving cat died this Monday afternoon (June 13). I deeply miss him and look for him everywhere and all the time ..although my cat passed away after 18 years of long and rich life full of wonderful memoties but seeing him the last couple years sick and growing old slow was heart breaking... nevertheless he was not in pain. Now that he passed away leaving all the good memories and laughters, I am sure that he's much happier where he is now and a lot younger full of energy and playing with other furry friends like Wally.
Wally is looking at you as you’re reading my reply and he will feel really bad if is he sees you crying. He had a short life but a rich life full of love, care, playful time and lots of treat. So please feel better and take care of yourself. You might want to think about adopting a new furry friend who's in need of a loving home and caring guradian.. Wally wouldn't mind.

Thank you all for your wonderful comments. I should tell you, Wally's predessor was Mr. Kitty Carlyle who lived here for 19 years. He was a beautiful tuxedo cat and very loving, but not nearly as funny as Mr. Wally. Not nearly as naughty either.

We also have another cat who is one of those tortured souls. She is very timid who has always been at the bottom of the critter ladder around here. She is 16, as round as a furry bowling ball and usually spends her day in an old laundry basket in the basement but since Wally's departure, she's been coming upstairs to hang with me in the morning. Very sweet, but she'll never fill a certain position. Let's put it this way, if she was a child, she'd be in special ed.

Also in our house as of four years ago, is a 7 pound blond Pomeranian named Sadie. She's smart as a whip and a darling, loving little thing who hates the mailman and the mail. If we don't give her the evil eye, she loves to run at Tassy, but we can control her. She's very obedient.

The house is not totally empty, but there will be another cat in our future. I'd like to give Tassy a little time to step up and relax before the next wave of spunk comes along. Both Carlyle and Wally were fond of ambushing her. She deserves a break at her age.

My husband buried Wally next to Carlyle in our tiny city yard. Both graves are outlined in river rock and there is a little cat statue watching over them both. I have not been out there yet to see it. Not yet. Not quite ready for that.

Thank you all again for your thoughtful comments. This was the right place for me today, tomorrow and so on.

Just to clear up possible confusion, I replied to your post earlier as Miss Mew, now as Nicole, we are one and the same.
Your household sounds as functional as ours, with the emphasis on "fun". We had to say farewell to our 14 year old GSD yesterday and last October to one of our kitties, age 21, Miss Mew. Even if they reached their life expectancy and some, it is always too soon, we always want more time.
After Miss Mew passed we were left with 3 cats and were content, however God had other plans. A semi-feral Norwegian Forest cat that had survived a couple of harsh winters decided to adopt us. It was a long process in socializing him but we are almost there. Oslo has decided that he is part of the family and although we don't see him everyday I hope that by the end of the summer he will feel secure enough that I can get him to a vet for shots and neutering.
In the interim when he does grace us with his presence he is a perfect gentleman with the other 3 cats with the exception of Zoe. For some reason he has decided to terrorize her, but not on a consistent basis. Now Zoe is no wuss, she can be a b****, my husband has nicknamed her Evil Knievel, but she is more sneaky than evil. This morning right out of the blue, I heard all this caterwauling coming from the dining room. I ran in to find both Zoe and Oslo with fur hanging out of their mouths, each other's fur. I clapped my hands and shouted to startle them and they both looked at me as if to say " WHAT? " I suppose it is all part of finding their place in the new pecking order but it is nerve wracking.
Wally sounds like he was a real firecracker, I would love to hear more stories about him.
Our GSD Mik would just treat them all like a benevolent deity, he was such a wise dog. Last night I placed Mik's collar on my husband's night table in the bedroom just to have something of Mik close to us. My husband went to bed before I did and he slept in the guest bed instead of ours. He handles grief differently than I do and I respect that, he would rather not talk about Mik but I know that he is hurting as much as I am. This morning when I got up I could not find Mik's collar and asked Roger if he had seen it. He had not and I looked first under the bed, then beside the night table, and then I spotted it on the pillow next to mine. I know that it was not there when I went to bed, did I wake during the night and reach for it? not that I remember. Was it Mik's way of consoling me and telling me that everything is fine? I would love to think so, but I will never know. Tonight the collar stays with me and hopefully I can communicate to Mik that I too will eventually be fine.
Nicole

Nicole, I can't begin to imagine life around here without Sadie. My husband would crumble. He wants to take her everywhere we go!

We will get a new kitten from the animal shelter in a few months, but if a cat shows up that needs a home, we have an opening and that would be fine too.

I'm sorry about your dog. So sorry.

Cheryl in San Francisco