Cats Archives - The Autism Dad

So this normal for a cat?

So we got this kitten about six weeks ago. I'm not a cat person by this cat is pretty amazing. There's a million interesting things about Harley but the most interesting for me is her attachment to Elliott and Emmett. Every single night, she sleeps face to face with one of them. She often literally sleeps with her paws on their face. Maybe this is normal cat behavior but I've never seen it before. She usually starts out with Emmett and then at some point, moves to Elliott. It's like shes protecting or looking over them while they sleep. The kids find comfort in this and that makes me happy. Does anyone else have a cat that behaves like this? Also, the kids are considering changing her name. Lizze had…

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August 24, 2019

Cats / Cleo / Family Pets / Ferrets / Maggie / My thoughts / Zane

I need to clarify something so please give this a quick read

I wanted to take a minute and do two things. First, I want to thank you all for the love and support you've shown over the past few days. We all very much appreciate it. ☺ Secondly, I feel like I need to provide some clarification in regards to the pets we've lost over the last year. Some people have expressed concern the we've had 3 animals die in under a year and at least 2 of them were cancer related. There have been suggestions that we look into our environment to make sure there isn't a reason for them having cancer. I wanted to clarify a few things and hopefully, that will provide some context that you'd be missing if you haven't been following our story for long. In…

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October 12, 2018

Cats / Maggie / My thoughts

Some sad news about our dog

Maggie is our roughly twelve year old English Staffy. We've had her since she was two years old and she's the best dog anyone could ask for. We have so many amazing memories with her and she's a loved member of our family. Sadly, I fear we're reaching a point in time where we may have some very difficult and painful decisions to make. Maggie is almost completely blind and deaf. She got tumors in several places, including places where they've already been removed. She's becoming very difficult to manage because she doesn't respond most of the time and just wanders around aimlessly, when we take her outside to use the bathroom. Tonight, she fell down an entire flight of step, only stopping when she slammed into the fire place.…

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March 13, 2018

Cats / Cleo / Family Pets / Heartbreak / My thoughts

What we experienced while putting our cat to sleep today

The boys left for my parents house about lunchtime today, and Lizze and I had a quiet afternoon. Neither one of us was looking forward to what 2:30 PM would require us to do. We've been dreading this day and the pain we knew it was going to inflict on all of us, but some things are outside of our control. It's difficult to know just how much an animal can impact our lives until the moment we must say goodbye. Cleo has been a part of our family for over thirteen years and today we laid her to rest. Making the decision to put her to sleep was not one that came easily. We tried for months to get her passed what she was going through but sometimes things…

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August 24, 2017

Cats / Cleo / Elliott / Family Pets / Heartbreak / My thoughts

One reason why this is so heartbreaking for me

The boys have left for my parents house and It feels like a countdown until we head to the vet. This is not how I envisioned spending my birthday. The reason I'm writing is because I wanted to share a letter Elliott wrote yesterday while at school. This is a large part of the reason we didn't send them to school today. Elliott gave his permission to share this because he wants people to know how he's feeling. Below is the letter he wrote. Please be warned, it's absolutely heartbreaking to read. 😭

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August 24, 2017

Cats / Cleo / Elliott / Emmett John / Family Pets / My thoughts

It seems like the right thing to do

Lizze and I have decided to keep the boys home from school tomorrow. They're going to be a mess and there's no benefit to sending them. They will be going to my parents house for the afternoon. That's not going to take the pain away but they will be much more comfortable there than at school. This is going to be hard on everyone and knowing the boys will be with my parents is a comfort. I don't know if this is the right decision but it seems like the right thing to do.

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August 23, 2017

Cats / Cleo / Elliott / Emmett John / Family Pets / My thoughts

The boys are heartbroken

The boys both came home from school today having not eaten anything the whole day. Elliott spent a part of the day crying, as did Emmett. They're really stressed out about losing Cleo. It hadn't occurred to me that Elliott and Emmett have never existed without Cleo. She's been a big part of their lives for their entire lives. I hadn't thought about that before now. This is a much bigger deal from them than I was originally thinking. Cleo was there for them during the separation, and if you recall, Emmett used to snuggle her like a teddy bear. She would tolerate it until he fell asleep and she would sneak away without waking him up. For the first time in their entire lives, they will go to sleep…

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August 23, 2017

Cats / Cleo / Family Pets / My thoughts

We’re heartbroken about tomorrow

The whole having to put Cloe down tomorrow is weighing heavy on us. This time tomorrow, we will be heading to the vet and saying our last goodbyes. Lizze is taking this particularly hard because Cleo has always been glued to her for some reason. Cleo is the kind of cat who always seems to know when you need her attention. We don't even know when we need her attention until she makes it clear that we do. Lol We've had to put down a few animals in our time and it was horrible. My cat Frost, was struck by lightning and survived. He eventually needed put down because of serious internal injuries that presented a few weeks later. There was nothing we could do. 🙁 Lizze had a seven…

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August 23, 2017