Buckley's Story is the story of how one small cat changed the author's life in ways she never could have imagined. In this warm-hearted memoir, Ingrid King shares the story of Buckley, a joyful, enthusiastic and affectionate tortoiseshell cat she meets while managing a veterinary hospital. When Ingrid leaves her job at the veterinary hospital to start her own business, Buckley comes home to live with her and Amber, another tortoiseshell cat who had adopted the author several years earlier. Buckley is diagnosed with heart disease after only two years of living with Ingrid, and caring for Buckley through her illness only deepens the bond between cat and human. Interspersed with well-researched information about cat health in general, and heart disease in particular, the author describes the challenges and rewards of managing illness in a feline companion, and ultimately helping her through the final transition. Ingrid shares both the day-to-day joys of living with a special cat as well as the profound grief that comes with losing a beloved animal companion. Buckley's Story is a celebration of the soul connection between animals and humans, a connection that is eternal and transcends the physical dimension. Praise For Buckley's Story Buckley's Story is a true celebration of the bond between pets and their humans. This story of a "gimpy" little tortoiseshell cat with a huge heart who changed her human's life in unexpected ways shows us how pets teach us universal lessons about living a joyful life, how caring for a terminally ill pet can deepen this special bond, and how to navigate the devastating grief that comes with losing a beloved animal companion. Dr. Marty Becker, "America's Veterinarian" and author of The Healing Power of Pets: Harnessing the Amazing Ability of Pets To Make and Keep People Happy and Healthy *** Ingrid King loves animals, and in Buckley's Story she leads us through how these precious creatures -

Buckley's Story

By Ingrid King

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Ingrid King
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-6624-2

Contents

Acknowledgments..........................................ixIntroduction.............................................1Prologue.................................................5Chapter One: Falling in Love.............................7Chapter Two: Getting to Know Buckley.....................15Chapter Three: Coming Home...............................23Chapter Four: Settling In................................31Chapter Five: Changes and Challenges.....................41Chapter Six: Love and Joy................................53Chapter Seven: Diagnosis.................................63Chapter Eight: Living with Illness.......................79Chapter Nine: Letting Go.................................91Chapter Ten: Life without Buckley........................107Epilogue.................................................117Lessons from a Feline Master Teacher.....................119

Chapter One

Falling in Love

I met Buckley that spring of 2005. I had been managing the Middleburg Animal Hospital for seven years at that point. For the first four of those seven years, I had shared my office with Virginia, a beautiful tortoiseshell cat who had adopted me as her person and loved me utterly and completely. After she died in 2002, the office felt empty, but the right cat to take over this important position had not come along-until that spring day, when I walked into the kennel area of the hospital. Liz, our groomer, was brushing out a scruffy looking mixed breed dog, and we chatted for a while.

"Have you seen the cute little tortie in the back?" Liz asked. Everybody at the animal hospital knew I was partial to tortoiseshell cats. There was something about the beautiful coloring and the distinct personality that is typical for these cats that appealed to me.

"No, I haven't," I responded. "Where is she?"

Liz pointed to the bank of cages at the very back of the kennel, and I went to see Buckley for the first time. And I fell in love. Hard. And fast.

She was a small cat, and she immediately came to the front of the cage and rubbed up against the bars. When I unlatched the door to her cage to pet her, she practically threw herself at me-something I came to call "full body love" as I got to know her better and realized that this was one of the many ways she would demonstrate her affection. This little cat loved with her entire being. It took several minutes of talking to her and petting her before I even noticed her deformed left hind leg. It bent upward at the knee at a ninety degree angle. Our veterinarians were unable to determine whether this was a congenital birth defect or whether it was an old injury that had never healed right. It certainly did not seem to bother her, nor did it slow her down. She barely had a limp, and she used the knee of the bent leg to push off when she ran and jumped. Her "disability" definitely was a non-issue for her-she didn't know the meaning of the word. After a while, I didn't notice it anymore, either. It was just part of who she was, and I was always surprised when people asked about it.

We tried to determine her age. Aging an adult cat is not an exact science, even for veterinarians. Looking at the amount of tartar on a cat's teeth usually provides a general idea about her age. Typically, cats start showing some mild tartar on their back teeth around age one. By the time they are between two and five years or older, the tartar buildup may be more pronounced on the back teeth and start showing up on the front teeth as well. However, this method is unreliable in all cats but even more so in stray cats, since the type of diet a cat has eaten and whether its teeth were cared for is unknown. We did know from Buckley's prior medical records that she had had her teeth cleaned at least once in her life. Another, less reliable way to determine age in a cat is the eyes. In older cats, the eye begins to develop signs of aging. Our best guess for Buckley was that she was about eight years old.

After that first encounter, I knew that she would be my new office cat. I spent a few more minutes petting her, then I went back to the front of the kennel.

"Do you know if she's ours?" I asked Liz. "Is she up for adoption?"

"I think so," Liz replied.

I left the kennel and went in search of my boss, Janet, who, together with her husband Jack, owned the animal hospital. Janet was typing away at a computer in the corner of the treatment room, her usual spot when she was catching up on medical records and client callbacks or doing research online. I always hated to interrupt her when she was engrossed in her work, but this was too important to wait until later. "Janet," I asked, "can the gimpy tortie in the back be my new office cat?"

These words changed my life. Janet looked up and smiled.

"Sure," she agreed. "As long as she can learn to stay in the office during the day and not roam around the hospital, that's fine with me."

Janet knew how much I had loved Virginia, and that I missed having an office cat. I was excited. I was about to leave for a short vacation for a few days, but I knew that when I returned from my trip, I would liberate Buckley from life in a cage and take her back to the office with me.

This little cat was pure love in a small, feline body. She loved being in my arms, and I loved holding her. When I held her, I felt like my entire being melted. I was a goner. I arranged a cat bed in front of the window next to my computer for her, which became one of her favorite places to be during the day. I arranged another bed for her in front of the other office window, thinking she might like some variety. Space was at a premium in the office I shared with Janet and Jack, and which also served as a combination coat closet, staff lunch room, and food storage area. Buckley's beds took up prime desk space, but I wanted her to have soft places to lay on and be able to look out the windows-something she had not been able to do living in cages for all that time and certainly not prior to being rescued. I knew it was part of her dream, and I wanted to do everything I could to help her live it.

We fed her on the windowsill to keep her food away from the other clinic cat, Mr. Kitty. Mr. Kitty was a portly white-and-brown tabby cat, and I was worried that Buckley, who was still very thin at the time, would not stand a chance to get her food in the face of his rather healthy appetite.

Buckley was a messy eater. She would take a bite of her food, then carry it to a different part of the desk, drop it on the desk, and then proceed to thoroughly enjoy it. Little gobs of dried food on the desk became part of the dcor-I tried my best to keep up with cleaning, but it was a losing battle. Considering that I usually put up a big fuss about people leaving a mess behind in the office, it was indicative of the hold Buckley already had on my heart that I didn't care. To me, her messiness was yet another aspect of her exuberant personality that was so endearing to me and even expressed itself in her eating habits.

She always wanted to be at the center of things. She liked sitting on top of my papers in the middle of my desk. She loved stretching out between my keyboard and my computer monitor. I learned to save my work on the computer more frequently and throughout the day. She could wreak havoc when she walked across the desk, dragging her deformed hind leg across the keyboard, and was capable of...