LOSING MY SHOU MA

The first week Kitty came to live with me she was a bouncing bundle of joy and energy, racing around the room, puffing up like a porcupine, prancing sideways, popping up in the air, attacking, hiding, and generally playing energetically as young kittens do. She also ate, drank and poo-ed in large doses. Basically, she was “super genki’, as I’d say in Japan. “full of life”.

One night, about a week after her arrival, she began vomiting. I wasn’t alarmed as it’s quite normal for cats to vomit, mostly due to worms or hairballs. She soon settled down to sleep with me. The next morning she failed to wake me up at dawn with her usual frantic rampage around the bed, dashing, darting, jumping, hiding, attacking. I slept in and, uncharacteristically, kitty continued sleeping as well. By then I could tell she was a bit under the weather.

Once I got up, she also got up – to vomit some more. By now, not much was coming out- just clear yellowish fluid. She spent the day sleeping, vomiting, and visiting her litter box. She didn’t go near the food or water. Clearly she was sick. I continued looking for worms in her vomit or box, but never saw any. Anyhow, I rather discounted the worm theory since the vomiting would have come on more gradually and it would have been noticeable from the beginning. This was a sudden and dramatic change in her behavior and health. Hmmmm.. what could be wrong?

About midday I suddenly remembered reports about pet food from China containing poison, causing many pets to die!! WOW!! I thought back on the previous day and evening. I had just bought a new pack of wet cat food and had fed it to her yesterday morning and evening. She had been perfectly fine and energetic all day and all evening. Then just before bed I fed her some more food. I remembered she had eaten just a little and it was soon afterward she began vomiting!!! It was quite strange that she hadn’t eaten ALL the food, which was her habit. Anyhow, we went to sleep as usual.

The next morning, the food was still there. I remembered thinking it looked strange- I even wondered if it was vomit? It also left a particularly strong smell in the room. I’d thrown it out. Remembering all this, I became fairly alarmed. Kitty could be poisoned!!! What to do?

I figured the best thing was to make sure she drank lots of water- to stay hydrated after vomiting and to flush out the poison, if that was the problem. I decided if she wouldn’t drink I would feed her water via syringe, which I luckily had in my travel medical kit. Sure enough, kitty wouldn’t drink on her own. I began giving her water via syringe, every half hour. She drank it but was clearly weak, mostly sleeping and occasionally tenderly walking to her litter box or changing sleeping sites. I decided if she wasn’t better by tomorrow I’d call for help. One strange behavior was that she would go sit in front of the water dish, even dip her face down almost to the water’s surface, but would not actually drink! It seemed she knew she was thirsty, but just couldn’t bring herself to intake the water!

She vomited after I fed her water the first few times, but then stopped vomiting. She also seemed to regain a bit of energy, and even walked all the way down the hall into the living room and jumped onto the couch to sleep with me while I watched a movie. She seemed a bit better to my relief. We went to sleep as usual about 11pm….

In the middle of the night, I was awakened to her jerking around on the bed beside me. I realized she was having convulsions. Her little body would suddenly jerk up quite high in the air or flip over to a new position.. uh oh. BIG UH OH. I knew she was dying! All I could do was talk to her, prevent her from falling off the bed, and stroke her fluffy fur. Once in a while she’d look in my direction when I talked to her, so I knew she was aware of my presence. Occasionally she gave a faint distressed ‘meiow’, which made me think she was suffering.. The convulsions went on for ? an hour? longer? At one point they got quite strong, then became weaker and weaker.. I knew it was near the end…

Finally, she gasped out some kind of sighs or breaths. And then she was dead! I couldn’t believe it. Just a few hours ago she’d walked out to the living room and jumped on the couch!! Just 30 hours ago she was a bouncing, bubbling energy ball! Yesterday she was alive and beautiful. Now her life was gone. I cried to sleep and somehow managed to fall asleep until morning.

The next day, upon hearing the news, my housemate Ken had another, even more alarming suggestion. He said that many market pets/ pet shop animals are fed drugs to make them ‘super energetic’ and healthy looking in attempt to boost sales of the animals. Once the new pet owners get them home the drugs start to wear off, and a couple weeks later, the pets deteriorate and die!! What happened to my kitten was a common story here! WOW!! What SICK SHIT!!

Who could do THAT to little puppies and kittens? And why?! What kind of drugs could they be giving them?! If they HAD TO make the animals look energetic, sick as that was, surely they could give them more subtle drugs- small doses of amphetamines, speed, caffeine to name a few- that would boost their energy but wouldn’t KILL them?!! UNBELIEVABLE SICK SHIT!!

In any event, my beautiful super genki kitty was gone and dead! Whether it was the result of previously fed drugs or poisoned cat food, she was killed- and by some very sick people. What kind of insane country had I entered, I now wondered?!

Soon it dawned on me that I had to proceed with kitty’s ‘removal’. I couldn’t just leave her to rot in the apartment. But here I was in the middle of a huge city! How to dispose of a dead pet?! I couldn’t bear to toss her in the garbage like some kind of waste. Instead I bought a pretty brown velvet cloth with embroidery, which I wrapped her in. Then one night i took her out to the garden spanning the cluster of apt buildings, and buried her there under cover of darkness. I could see her grave site from the apt. window and over the next few days gazed down, sadly, and shed a few tears for my beautiful and short-lived shou ma.