Another Sad Pet Farewell

In 2005, I was living near Albany NY and actively volunteering at the local animal shelter. One day, toward the end of the summer, a litter of black and white kittens came in. They were all cute and friendly except for one who was gray and white. Another volunteer, a cat specialist, said to me that the gray and white kitten was unfriendly, unhealthy and would likely never get a home. She suggested that I adopt him, and I did:

I brought him home and named him Bramble. He was playful and happy, if not affectionate:

 I also fostered many dogs and cats. Bramble never much took to people, but he loved all other animals, and I have lots of pictures of him with various foster dogs. This was Bramble and Wally, who I eventually adopted also. Wally died in 2013, just before I retired:

 Bramble may not have been affectionate, but he sure was cute. I began submitting photos of him to the website, Kitten War! He did well, winning many of their cuteness contests:

Bramble never met a dog or cat he didn't like. Here he is in the middle bed of a cat tree in our old home, along with Snoozey (bottom) and Draco (top), both of whom moved with us up to the farm but have since passed away:

 Jump ahead to 2018 and Bramble was showing signs of aging. He had mellowed, and he began to enjoy human contact:

 But mostly, Bramble continued to like the dogs and cats he lived with:

 Unlike the old days, I never had to go looking for Bramble. He could nearly always be found in the kitchen corner or in his own personal bed atop a bureau in the living room:

 As time went on, Bramble forsook his personal dog bed and began sleeping on the chair by my computer. After awhile, he stopped sleeping there and spent all his time in the kitchen corner:

 Bramble continued slowing down. His spine began to protrude and his belly began to swell:

 He didn't seem uncomfortable, but I knew he was approaching the end of his life, so I let him be but kept a close watch on him. I began giving him canned cat food, a treat he loved:

 This was the last photo of Bramble I took. When it came time to bring him to the vet, I was told that his heart and kidneys were failing. So the vet quietly put him to sleep. I buried him outside, beneath where the hay bales had sat all winter. The ground was thawed and easy to dig there. The trouble with loving animals is that their lives are so much shorter than ours. Nevertheless, what would existence be without them?