Yesterday I did the unthinkable. I had 3 of my cats put to sleep. I can't find peace with the decision and feel like I am going to jump out of my skin from the pain. I haven't been able to stop crying and I will never feel the same way about myself again. I am now a murderer.

I inherited these cats from my mother when she entered a retirement home 4 years ago. Loki was her constant companion for 7 years, walked on a leash, traveled everywhere with her and was her heart. It took him 2 years to adjust to moving in with me but he was in love with me now. He slept by my head at night, purring and happy to be near me. He wanted to sit in my lap or sit by me on the arm of the sofa. He was 10+ years old and was a sweetheart.

The other 2 were tabby littermates. Sophie was a tiny little female who was bossy and picked fights with the others constantly. She tortured Higgins, one of my beloved cats, until I gave him to my best friend to get him out of the war zone. I still miss him and cry about him to this day. Sage was a lover who loved being touched more than anything in this world. He would sit by anyone who came in this house and repeatedly tap them with his paw if they stopped petting him. He was a love.

Two years ago, they started spraying my house. I had them all tested for physical causes and there were none. I consulted animal communicators, tried DAP pheromone diffusers, bought a carpet shampooer, paid to have my carpet shampooed every 6 weeks for the past 2 years, bought so many gallons of Simple Solution that I couldn't count them, tried every other brand of odor eliminator, treated, retreated, retreated, and retreated. Finally, when I got the odor out of their 2 favorite rooms to spray, I just closed the doors. Then when I needed to work in the office, I would have to shut myself up in here. When I had a guest, I had to make sure that they kept the door to their room shut. If I allowed a cat in either room, they would spray. I thought I had the battle won until night before last. I smelled the telltail odor in the living room. Out came the blacklight to reveal that they were going to town in there, spraying my fabric furniture, my Bose speakers, the fireplace, the barrister bookcase, every single corner of the room, etc., etc. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I knew that I would never win the battle. My mother gave me her full support to put them down because she knows that I have spent nearly $5000 in 2 years on this problem.

Within the past 3 months, these cats had their annual physicals, dentals, blood panels, etc. and were absolutely healthy. I killed healthy animals whose only crime was being true to their nature. My heart is splitting wide open. I am overwhelmed with guilt and shame. I am mad at God for not giving me another option, for not making them stop destroying my home, for not taking them from this world another way. I feel like I am going to die from the pain.

I have the most tender heart of anyone I know when it comes to animals. I rescue, not kill, them. Everyone I know is very supportive because they know the hell I have been through with this situation but nothing anyone has said has brought me any peace. I need a different perspective.

If I had given them away, I would have subjected them to being abused when they started spraying elsewhere. Having lived inside all their lives, they would have had a terrible adjustment to being 'barn cats', if they could have adjusted at all. I don't think living outside at large is safe anyway. My mom's heart kitty had no front claws (she rescued him that way) so he couldn't live outside. He had a difficult time adjusting when he moved here and grieved for my mom for 2 years before deciding to love me instead. I fear that, at his age, he would have grieved himself to death had I moved him to yet another home. AND he peed on the floor.

I just ran out of options. After lying awake all night, praying for strength, I shut my heart yesterday morning, put them in carriers and dropped them off at the vet. I didn't have the courage to hold them in my arms and love them out of this world like I should have. I am overwhelmed with guilt and regret about that now and I can't stand the thought that I wasn't there for them in their final moments. I couldn't hold them and smooch them and tell them how sorry I was before I took them in. I just had to 'not think about' what I was doing and get them in the crates and in the van. If I had tried to say goodbye, I could never have done what I did.

How am I going to live through this now? I can't eat. I can't work. I can't sleep. I can't stop crying. I want to go back and undo it. Though living as a hostage in my own home was no longer an option either. I am lost. Help me.

First of all - let me say that as an animal lover, what you were forced to do was a very difficult thing to do. Putting them down, for you wasn't an easy decision, I can see.

First let's talk about what happends now. You can't bring them back. So let's not talk about it - it won't happen. They are at peace, certainly, but gone. What YOU have to deal with now is YOU. You need to work through this - and that's what WE do here. Help you work through it.

It will be difficult for you to work through this - and for some of us it's difficult as well. I understand your situation clearly - and to tell you the truth I have NO idea what I would have done in the same situation. Possibly the same thing. But I WOULD have considered it an option, for sure. Especially if I thought there was a chance they would end up somewhere being abused due to their "habits".

It may help you to know something. I am truly an animal lover. I lost my two pets due to cancer and a heart attack. The third one, Tom, was a stray I tried to take in but had to put to sleep due to rampant disease. And you know what? I forgive you for what you did. I don't know if that will help but - I am one of the most pet-loving people you are ever to meet and I understand WHY you did what you did. I agree that your decision was a reasonable one and I think that in your position I might have done the same thing. The thought of simply "tossing" my pets into a system where they might end up being hurt because of their "habits" would be intolerable to me - just like it was for you.

Should you feel guilty for not saying goodbye to them? Well, honestly - I have to say yes. Should you feel guilty for the decision you made? Nobody can answer that but you - I, personally, don't think you should feel guilt. REGRET definitely, but not guilt. Your decision was based on YOUR life - YOUR ability to cope with their unusual and unacceptable behaviour. You don't need our "validation" - you may think that you need it, but all you really need is our understanding. And I understand. That doesn't mean your decision to put them to sleep was wrong - just that it was so personal that only YOU can come to terms with it.

There are many decisions in our lives that we have to live with. Many of them were horrible decisions, many of them happened when we were FORCED into making them due to cir%%stances. Your decision was made after multiple attempts at solutions that cost you emotional, monetary and mental costs that were and still are extreme. You tried.

When a family has a child that is severely handicapped - should they be considered horrible if they put that child into an institute? Should they spend the rest of their lives held hostage to that child's needs when they have options? You were in a similar situation - however, with our pets the final option isn't institutionalization - it's a peaceful death. That is something our society has accepted and you took that option.

I am very sorry for your loss. I share your pain - your pain is just as real as mine was - and it is no easier to deal with. Keep talking to use and we will help you work through this.

Its not like you made the decision lightly, you would have had to put up with their bad behaviour anything up to 10 years.

One thing I always say about having our pets put to sleep is that we go into auto mode until it is done, then our heads take over nit picking and tormenting and punishing.

As humans it is our nature to put ourselves down you have to turn your thoughts around and praise yourself for having loved them and cared for them all those years.

You are right in saying that their lives would have been one home after another or worse just kicked out on the street, and I know of a couple that did this just because their cat had flees, so you see that is the kind of person you could have been sending them to, then at their ages they would in all probability have starved to death.

Don’t look to the future, only think about the next minute or two until you are stronger, and replace any negative thoughts with a positive one, this is a long hard journey but you will come through it.

Love Sue

I am sorry you have to go through this. Like you, I had my mom and dads poodle Spike, It took him 2yrs to stop looking for them, He would sit at the gate and wait for dad to walk back from the church we're they had senior lunches, that ripped my heart out. Well one day I woke up, my cat of 16yrs had the thyroid disease, Spike was having problems with his teeth, I could keep his level of grooming and care like my parents did. I woke up one morning and I put my feelings aside, and I went through the motions just like you did, I had my brother take them at that moment, no goodbye's,,,,I have a problem with goodbye's I lost my blk lab recently to a car accident...I could not say Goodbye, and yes, that is something I have to live with I cant undo it, if I had the chance again...I still know I could not do it. At the time I had 2cats and 2dogs, they we're my little family no I have 1 cat, it has always been known if something were to happen to me my animals would be put down immediatly, I would rather that then taking the chance of them being abused. Anyway's just wanted to let you know I understood. Pamela

Thank you all for your support. It has really meant a lot.

Today hasn't been much different from yesterday. The emotion washes over me in waves. The routines are a reminder of what is gone. At feeding time, only 2 kitties show up where there were 5. The smooches that were a part of that ritual are no more. The empty baskets, cat beds and cat hammocks remind me. The absence of my beloveds is palpable. The other 2 cats walk from room to room looking for their friends. That alone is heartbreaking to watch. I now have a cat who no longer has anyone to groom or that will groom her. Her buddy is gone forever.

I am waiting for the revelation of the meaning in this experience. You know how it is when someone will say something and the light bulb will come on? All of a sudden, you gain a perspective that helps you find peace? I am praying for that moment to come soon.

I know that I have to pick myself up and go on but I refuse to swallow my pain and bury it in my body so that it can make me sick later. I didn't work today because I needed to be free to express the pain when it comes up. I couldn't put on a smile and be 'on' for my clients. Tomorrow will find me home alone again. I have no family nearby so it will be just another day. I will be grateful for all my blessings, as I am each day, and yet I don't know how to find the gratitude in this experience. The psychic and emotional pain eclipses any of my entire life. The situation is more painful I think because, no matter what I did, no good could come from it. It was an impossible situation.

Could it be that the cats weren't happy and that is why they were marking? I thought they marked as a territorial behavior. Could that behavior have been the result of stress and anxiety? Even as I type that, I question what I didn't see and attend to that could have helped them. At my core, I feel that I failed them.

This was a hard problem for me to respond because I treasure all life. And yet I know that when a cat goes pee pee all over the house it is downright unhealthy to breathe and live in those conditions. My daughter brought a stray into her home and her other cats and the new kitten started going all over the house.

It was not a pretty sight and the stench was terrible we found the pee every where. The cats even got on my grand daughters bed and she could no longer sleep in it and the bed had to be replaced. They ruined the carpet and even went on the counter top, it was a mess. We tried everything and put many liter boxes in but nothing helped.

She gave away the kitten that she had brought into her home that made her cats do that dirty deed. I guess she is doing it all over the other persons house but they knew that when they took her. They claimed they could deal with it. My daughter's cats are spayed and neutered and I guess they hated another kitten in the house with them.

As you said they were older in age and one was declawed so they could not survive out on their own. To some what you did may seem like a cruel thing to do, but until someone really knows what it is to have your house full of that stench that burns your eyes, and makes it hard to breathe, and ruins everything in sight, they just can't know how horrible it is to have to live like that. May you be able to find peace and be able to get through this thing. I am so sorry.
Ann

I thank you all so much for your kind words of encouragement and support. As a person who continually rescues animals in peril, killing one so offends my sensibilities as to be unimaginable. Without question, taking the lives of these 3 of God's beloved creatures was the single worst experience of my entire life. I pray that all is as I believe it to be . . . that they went peacefully, painlessly and are now waiting for me with my other 11 furkids at the bridge. I pray that they knew how deeply and completely I loved them, marking habits and all.

I am feeling a little better today and am deeply thankful for that. I have had so many experiences in the past 2 days that have made me more aware than ever that I have been living as a hostage under seige. It will take a while to truly settle in to this newfound freedom. For instance, UPS delivered a package to me yesterday. My first thought upon bringing it into the house was that I must immediately put it in the closet so that it wouldn't get sprayed. I still get startled when I walk past the guest room and office where those doors are open. A little piece of me panics at the thought that a cat might get in there and spray again. A friend came over and sat her purse down on the dog crate and I immediately thought to tell her that she needed to keep it with her on the sofa so that it wouldn't get sprayed. And so on . . . it has been horrible and I am just now realizing the toll it has taken on my right to the quiet and peaceful enjoyment of my home. Only folks who have lived in the hell of an animal indescriminately eliminating in your home could understand. And being the neat, clean freak that I am, it has been doubly torturous for me. I am so unwilling to have my home smell like animals live here that I have nearly killed myself trying to manage the problem. Once I treat the living room thoroughly enough to eliminate the odor (it will take multiple steps), I will re-treat the rest of the house one more time. Then it will be over.

So . . . I am beginning to feel the relief. I have had so much support from friends and family, reminding me that I did everything that I could to spare the lives of those kitties. I can't think of a single other thing that I could have done. I am trying to remember that so that I can move on without the guilt. I think I am witnessing the relief of the 2 remaining cats. Initially, they were pretty confused as they walked from room to room looking for the others. Logan will deeply miss Sage. They were buddies and groomed each other. Ellie will miss Loki because they were play buddies who loved to roll around on the floor together, play fighting. No one but me will miss Sophie, the hellion that didn't like any other cats. She was the one that started it all and I should have had her put down immediately but, having never had the experience of cats spraying, I didn't know that it would start a dominoe effedt that would end in tragedy. She and Sage were littermates and I couldn't take his sister away from him. This past week though, she was spitting at and attacking him. I think maybe there were just too many animals in this house for her to ever adjust and she ruined it for the others.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am deeply grateful for all of you who took the time to read of my despair, offer hope, support and encouragement and open your hearts to share my pain. I can't tell you how important it has been through this process and how I will reflect on your posts over and over, as I need strength to get through the difficult moments certain to come for a while yet. I am attaching a photo of Sage and Sophie. I will attach a photo of Loki in the next post. Please pray for their little spirits to understand that I did love them.

This was the center of my mom's universe for many years. He had fallen deeply in love with me and I loved him beyond measure. He was a good kitty and would never have pee'd if the others hadn't marked first. He sat in a basket by my computer as I worked, sat on the arm of the sofa or on my lap as I watched tv and slept by my head each night. He left a huge hole in my heart and I miss him so terribly.

I am so sorry for your loss, and for having to make that tough decision.

My mom had to have one cat euthanized for the same reason. She kept cleaning the rugs, as you did, but after a couple of years, she didn't have much choice. You did all that you could for them, and it is impossible to break them of doing that once they start.

You gave them a good home for the time that they were here. Please don't be so hard on yourself because I am sure most of us would have done the same thing.

It's sad that you were forced to make such a difficult decision, but I fully understand that under the cir%%stances, it was becoming a health risk to even live in your home. Many people would have just taken the cats and dumped them somewhere, leaving them to die a horrible death or taken them to a shelter where they may have been adopted by people who would abuse them. I admire you for having the strength to make certain they had a humane death once you realized you couldn't keep them anymore. Please don't torture yourself with guilt...you did what was necessary.