Newest Member of the Family - Casey

Well, the sadness we all felt from losing Lloyd yesterday was made a little easier today with the addition of Casey to our family. We didn't go to the adoption agency with thoughts of getting a kitten that resembles Lloyd, and we initially avoided his cage because of the striking resemblance. Some members of the family even got a little teary-eyed in the store after seeing the little guy! Anyway - we started playing with a solid black female who seemed friendly enough but the top part of her one ear was damaged. It wasn't bad enough to not get her and we actually thought we had our mind made up but I spun around to see my lovely wife playing with the tux kitten. Did it make sense to get a kitten that looks like Lloyd? Well, why not? I have 2 uncles that only ever had beagles. My boy Still A Dog has had a house full of Dalmations ever since I can remember. Another uncle of mine has a thing for Pekinese. Why can't we always have a tuxedo cat? SOLD! Now the only problem was, we were there at 9:30 to pick one out and the adoption agency rep doesn't show up until 10:30. I stood guard by his cage so no other family would assume he was up for grabs. This is the same agency we used to adopt Hershey so we were already approved and didn't need to apply and wait for 3 days while they checked our references and the vet. Right as the rep showed up, another family walked in with their completed paperwork and walked over to the cage and said "there's our kitty". Long story short.....they WANTED this kitten and got their approval yesterday - but never put a hold on him or anything and since we were there at 9:30 and were preapproved - technically we were ahead of them in line....plus there were more tears that worked in our favor when the problem presented itself. We didn't have a problem naming this one as I made another list of Steeler names to select a name from. His original name was Romeo and I thought it was very interesting that I like to name pets after Steelers that I like and this cat had the name of an ex Pat's defensive coordinator and the current Browns head coach. After toying around with Parker and Heath....my daughter selected Casey from the list and I'm fine with that as Mr. Hampton should be a Steeler for quite some time. I really wanted her to pick Merril, but she wasn't going for it. Heath would have been cool since we would have had 2 candy bars, but it doesn't roll very nicely when you yell it. So - Greg Lloyd, Louis Lipps and Casey Hampton have all been used in naming our cats. I still think I'll have a Weimeraner some day named Lambert or Porter!

Back to Lloyd. He was 11 and then some and wasn't liking his new housemate too much to begin with. He recently had a large cyst removed from his side and was just in to get his stitches out on Tuesday and was doing fine. On Thursday night we noticed his breathing was a little labored. His chest was rising and falling noticeably with every breath and his midsection was bulging with each one as well. It freaked us out a little and I guessed wrongly that maybe a hairball was stuck and it hurt his fresh wound to cough it up the proper way. We woke up in the middle of the night and he hadn't moved all night and was making more noise than before. I called off work and took him to the vet first thing in the AM. He heard a lot of fluid in his chest and took 2 x-rays to confirm what he heard. You couldn't even see his heart on the x-rays because of all the fluid. The vet said the best case scenario would be acute asthma. If it wasn't asthma, he didn't think he could do much since there was so much liquid. He was going to send a sample out and call me back within 24 hours. If it was asthma - steroids could have saved him. I patted, scratched and kissed him goodbye and it took me 15 minutes to get home. I didn't have a very good feeling about our situation. When I walked in the door the vet had already called and said he wasn't going to make it. I called right back and he had already passed. As it turns out, the vet is almost certain he had an aneurysm in his chest cavity and he couldn't have been saved. We all had a rough night last night but it was made better by Still A Dog who sent my daughter a wonderful poem called "The Rainbow Bridge". I printed a picture of Lloyd with his name on it and the poem and we used it when we told our daughter Lloyd wasnt coming back home. I think she actually handled it better than we did after the initial alligator tears stopped. I was proud of the way she handled it.

Well, Casey isn't meant to replace Lloyd. We just didn't think Hershey at 6 months old was ready to be by himself. Since Hershey Lipps seemed to torment and tease Lloyd because he knew Lloyd couldn't catch him too easily, I'm actually hoping Casey stands his ground and delivers some torture Hershey's way. Stout lineman versus skinny WR wins every time. I'm still mad the agency told my daughter that the first guy's name was Hershey! You know I offered her $20 to name the cat and she refused it! We compromised on adding Lipps but I really lost out because after calling him Mr. Lipps for 2 weeks it sounded so gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) I started calling him Hershey.