So. The other day I broke my own vow and dropped Tuckerton off at the animal shelter near our house. Do I feel shitty and cowardly about unloading the cat? Yes, absolutely. Do I know that we did the right thing to save our sanity? Yes, absolutely.
It pretty much came down to a decision of how much more cat pee and puke we wanted to clean out of Milo's bedroom carpet. Answer: none. The situation would only worsen as Tuck gets older, and we don't have the cash to fix whatever the hell ails the old beast, so he had to go. I desperately wanted to send him to a fostering program rather than a shelter, but the fostering program wouldn't take direct surrenders. The next best thing was to take him to the shelter and hope that the fostering program chooses to help him out. The only other option would be direct euthanasia, and there was no way I could bring myself to do that. It was hard enough for me to summon up the courage to load the old guy into the carrier to take him to the shelter, and then actually go through with the process. At least this way, Tuck might have a chance of finding a better home.
How is Milo taking it? Not great. We explained to him (as well as you can to a 5 year old) that Tuck is not healthy and needs a place where he will be taken care of by people that want to clean up pee and puke all day long, a place with no dogs and no other cats. Milo said "I vote no!" Since Tuck was his bedtime buddy and spent most of his time in Milo's room, Milo was (and remains) understandably upset that we wanted to send away his bestest friend ever. We miss the old coot too actually, but don't miss cleaning up after him and definitely do not miss being woken up in the middle of the night by the nonstop yowling.
If you are thinking "how could you?" about us right now, and are all aghast and up in arms about this very necessary and difficult decision, well, just put yourself in our place and think about it from our perspective. If you need more details, just read the post prior to this one. It wasn't easy, and we're not proud of doing it, but it was the best solution to a stressful and messy situation that was only going downhill.
