Ex-Cat

We were away recently (S was in Germany with the boys, and I was in England, teaching), so N came in every day to feed the cat, and generally look after it. (Also G recently started working at CoCE, and so he was staying here too - but he was either travelling to places for work, working, or partying, so he wasn't going to be great in the cat department).

The cat, I should mention, was getting on in years - she'd been in our possession for 12 years, and I got her from the Cat Protection League, who thought she looked about 2 years old. However, when I'd had her for 10 years, she still looked about 2 years old. She was getting a bit too old and dim to leave the house - when she did, we'd spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around trying to find her, because she didn't know the way home. She'd had other problems too.

Anyway, all was going well, until Friday, when we got an email saying that N had found her bleeding from her stomach, had taken her to the vet, and she'd been put to sleep (as they euphemistically say [euphemise? Is that a word]).

When we got back we rang the vet for the full story, and they said "She was hit by a car." (Amongst other stuff, they also said that she had a very weak pulse and low blood pressure, couldn't move her legs and was generally unresponsive.) Which was very mysterious, as she never (she can't) get out, and if she did get out, she wouldn't be able to get home, whether she'd been hit by a car or not.

So we don't really know what happened. The only thing we can think of is that she got into some sort of tussle with a raccoon - she had taken to spending a lot of time outside on the balcony, sleeping there for most of the night, and we have seen raccoons on the balcony occasionally (and we think they've come into the flat once, to get the cat's food), but I don't think that raccoons would attack, and if they did attack, the cat would leave.