Field Trip!

Ashes has not been doing too well. She's been declining the past couple of months enough that I was pretty worried about leaving her when Dan and I went to St. Louis.

Fortunately, we have some great pet sitters and the kitties have lovely grandparents - my mom (and dad) spent several days Ashes-sitting at our house while we were gone.

I knew there was a chance of something happening, but I asked Ashes to try to wait until we got back home. I think she listened because she did really good for the pet sitters and my mom, but has really declined in the past couple of days since we got home. I'm pretty sure she's in the last stages of kidney failure but at twenty years old (and with her history of kidney issues), it's not surprising.

So I'm trying to baby her and keep her comfortable. Fortunately, she seems confused but not in any discomfort so we are just continuing on as we have been. Except for one thing.

When Ashes was younger, she used to love going into the yard, walking on (and eating) the grass, squinting into the sun and letting the wind blow through her ear tufts. She's so frail that I haven't felt like that was a safe activity for quite a while. But, if the end is near (as I think it is), I figured there is no real need to keep her healthy (since she isn't) so let's concentrate on the happy.

Since today was a nice, sunny day, we went on a field trip to the front yard. She went across the driveway several times, explored our front yard and mounted an invasion on our neighbor's side yard. All in all, I think she had a fantastic time.

She seemed to get tired after about ten minutes so we went ahead and brought her in, but she apparently wasn't ready to go back to her room yet. She trotted her little self right out of her room and did a couple of semi-laps of the kitchen/entryway/living room before taking a short nap behind Dan's chair. She woke up a little disoriented so I took her back to her room where she's now napping on her nice toasty heating pad.

She seemed like she really enjoyed the outing so hopefully the weather will continue to be nice and we can have a few more.