When Your Pets Do Creepy Stuff

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

I have two cats. Peanut and Pippy. I got Peanut from a shelter on the way home from my wife's mothers funeral. My wife had been wanting a kitten for sometime so I thought stopping at the animal shelter would be a respite from the grief.  We got to the shelter and found several cats. Most were quiet and just curled in the cages. Peanut, she was strutting around the cage rubbing her face on the bars and meowing. She's an orange tabby was about 8 months old at the time. We took her out of the cage and she went right to my wife and my wife held her. Peanut meowed and rubbed against my wife's face. She was very affectionate. After a bit my wife handed her to me to hold while she went to fill out the papers for Peanut's adoption. Her name was Ashley at the shelter. My wife named her Peanut immediately after we adopted her.

We had Peanut for almost to years when a cat of my mothers had kittens and again my wife wanted one. This is how we got Pippy. Again my wife named her because Pippy has a squeaky meow. Also at this time my wife was close to bedridden with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer which migrated into her ribs, hip and her T-10 vertebrae. So another cat would be good company for her during the day.

Peanut was with us for about a year before the cancer in my wife reasserted itself and spread. So she was witness to the extreme change when my wife was confined to bed and had to use crutches to get around otherwise. I was working 10 hours a day so Peanut was good company and then Pippy later. Peanut would lay with her and snuggle with her at night. Pippy wasn't nearly as affectionate and took some time before she felt comfortable around my wife.

Okay now the creepy part. My wife passed away in August of 2020 at 52 years of age. I brought her home for hospice care in early July 2020 and she got 8 weeks to be surrounded by all who loved her. And she was well loved my Susan. Peanut was by her side all the time and Peanut seemed to know Sue's days were few.

I recently moved and I have been going through pictures, I have a number of pictures of my wife in a envelope on the counter in the kitchen. I heard some noises and went to the kitchen where I found Peanut had somehow gotten a picture from the envelope of my wife and I. She was licking the picture where my wife's face is and seemingly obsessed. I took the picture and put it in a drawer. But Peanut kept getting pictures out the envelope and licking my wife's face. I burst into tears when I realized she was missing my wife too!

That wasn't too long ago and I have purposely left out pictures of my wife and when Peanut finds them she licks my wife's face! Okay probably more endearing than creepy. It is weird though and sadly sweet.

They mourn and grieve very much like we do. Sometimes maybe a little more.

I got Caleb, my Rhodesian Ridgeback a mate, Nia. Caleb lived to be 20 years old. I think him and Lazarus were having a Mexican standoff about who was going to go first. Caleb passed on when he was 20. Lazarus went over a year later. Lazarus was 21, but well heading toward 22 before he past.

Nia was seventeen when Caleb left us. She past on about eight months later, and I swear it was from a broken heart. I had never seen an animal grieve as intensely as Nia. Every time she went outside, she just kept going in circles around the house looking for Caleb. She whined, and laid around listless and disinterested in anything. We got two more dogs and she showed absolutely no interest in them at all. Lazarus did all he could to cheer her up. He washed her face. He would lie beside her. He would walk with her. He stayed by her side, but she just kept deteriorating until she just mourned herself to death.

They love just like we do. I think they can be more loyal and loving than some people.

So sorry about your wife.