How to Prepare for The Final Appointment

Thanks for stopping by! Get The Way of Cats, delivered, by asking for my RSS feed. Get my free cat advice newsletter by signing up here and get the FREE eBook, Ten Cat Tricks (Every Human Should Know.)

Once we have made The Decision that we must put our cat to sleep, is there anything more we can do for our cat?

Yes. As difficult as the prospect is, this is the last chance we have to be there for our cat.

It has more than once been my sad task to say goodbye as a cat leaves this world. Sometimes it’s been my own pet; sometimes it’s the pet of a friend or family member who needs my support.

I do it even though it’s never a task to be undertaken gladly. I do it because the last thing a cat should feel at a time like that is alone.

In the course of offering condolences, a friend who has also been through it mentioned that some people just drop off the cat and leave. The thought of this was upsetting to me; yet I understand why people do that.

Under stress, unsure how to react, and uncertain how to handle the situation, people pretend it’s just another vet visit. They might even think this is an approach that will help the cat handle the experience better.

From the many people who have shared their cat feelings with me, I can say, with confidence, that this is not the best way to handle the situation; not for us, not for our cat. By all means, we should recruit someone to stand by us at this difficult time; to hold our hand and be our support while we support the cat.

But we should decide to be there for our cat, all the way to the end. Because, in the end, it will help both us and our cat.

The closer our relationship with our cat, the more our cat will need us.

I know there are concerns.

How can I be there at such a terrible time in my cat’s life? Won’t they know I’m the one who decided to kill them?

I understand. But this attitude is both misguided and self-destructive, and will interfere with the mourning process. We aren’t murdering our cat out of malice or careless cruelty. We are stopping our cat’s suffering.

When we decided on a relationship, and fell in love, with the cat, we promised to take good care of them. Part of our duty was to negotiate, and interpret, the world for them in a way they can understand. While this is never an easy issue, our cat is even less equipped than we are to deal with it.

It certainly isn’t the way we wanted to help our cat, and it’s lousy that it’s the only way we can help our cat, but helping our cat is exactly what it is.

What if I fall apart? Won’t that upset my cat?

This is a natural concern, but this fear becomes overblown in our minds.

Because we probably got our “falling apart” out of the way on the journey between bad news and The Decision. Whenever it is that we finally come to The Decision; that is when we fall apart.

What triggers “falling apart” is when our mind struggles with a reality we don’t want to admit; and then admits it.

We will always have time to pull ourselves together before we proceed. We will cope better than we think is remotely possible, because the greatest fear is:

What if I can’t do it? What if I bail on my cat just when they need me the most?

When we next see our cat, we think we will be overwhelmed with our sad feelings. We think we will not be able to handle seeing them for what will be the last time. Yet what happens is:

We will realize how much our cat needs our help.

We might have already discovered that, in our role as a parent or a friend, the plight of someone who has a greater need can bring out our inner strength. Even when our distress is great, seeing one for whom the confusion and fear is even greater will, as if by magic, make us the stronger one.

As upset as we are, we will not fall apart when we see our cat again. Their happiness at seeing us, their hope that we will help them, their trust in our love; these will, as if by magic, push our own distress into the background.

Every heart strengthens when the call comes: We’re needed.

All will fall into place when we realize:

We are the only one in the world who can do this right.

If we truly love our cat, there’s no way we can do this wrong.

The toughest part of having a cat is deciding to say goodbye. Find help in my posts on coping with end of life issues.

Got here from a Link or Search?
There’s more ways to care for our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on CAT CARE.