Last Wednesday, December 28, 2016 something tragic happened. Our beautiful cat, Baby, was killed. I haven’t been able to bring myself to write about it for obvious reasons. I wrote a blog post about her in October…you can read about it here. We’re all very sad and the circumstance surrounding her death is senseless. Our new neighbor was moving in and her dog saw Baby, jumped out of the vehicle, and relentlessly chased her until he eventually killed her on our front porch. My kids were home, and although they didn’t know what was happening, it startled my daughter enough to send me a text while I was at work indicating that she was worried about Baby and hadn’t seen her. I called her to find out what happened, but in her mind, she thought two dogs were fighting and didn’t realize a new neighbor was moving in. 

We’ve been keeping Baby in the garage and attempting to let her outside during the day so she could do her business and get some fresh air. As time passed, we noticed that she had less interest in going out. However, the weather was warm for most of last week …as in 70 degrees and we could tell she enjoyed that. In fact, the night of the incident, she stayed out all night in the rocking chair on the porch. When I left for work, she was in the rocking chair and jumped down to walk me to my car.

My daughter mentioned that our existing neighbors came out to intervene during the incident. Thank God for our neighbors too because when my husband came home, they told him what happened. There were some other disturbing things they told him. When I first heard the news, I was obviously heartbroken, but then became pissed (angry). How could someone be so irresponsible with their pet? Why was the dog not on a leash? What kind of dog is this? What if my kids had been outside? The neighbor left a note with her phone number and when my husband spoke to her, he said she sounded apologetic. Normally, I’m a compassionate person, but my thoughts were that she should be sorry. I know she didn’t mean it, but our cat was killed by her dog. The neighbor placed the body in her back yard wrapped in a blanket. I couldn’t look at Baby’s lifeless, possibly bloody body, but asked my husband to confirm as I held on to some hope that she had survived. 

I’ve been experiencing a mix of emotions from guilt that we even let her out, sadness over her violent death, feelings of helplessness, anger, and even relief because it was going to be a challenge getting her acclimated with the kittens. Baby didn’t seem to like them very much because she often hissed at Beignet and Cannoli when she was near them. 

Despite all of this, I know that we took good care of her. I had just made veterinary appointments for all of the cats the day before this happened. I’m glad we were fortunate enough to take care of her unoffocially, then officially over the years. Our 2016 family vision board included obtaining one cat, then we got 2, then officially 3, and now we’re back to 2. 

We took her to the pet hospital the next day to have her body cremated. The staff were very kind and seemed just as devastated as we were. 

Rest in peace, Baby. We love you and thank you for being such a sweet cat. We will never forget you.