This morning we said goodbye to our sweet Scout. She had been sick for a long time, but she was a super champ and lived well beyond what was expected. Even though I hate that she’s gone, I feel like I got a bonus year with her. She had lots of health problems toward the end. She had hyperthyroidism, high blood pressure, kidney issues, IBD, and finally sarcoma. She got really sick last April, and I thought she was near the end at that point. But we got her on a million meds (I used to joke that she was more medicine than cat), and she really rallied. Up until about 2 weeks ago you would barely know anything was wrong with her. But she slowly started eating less and less even after we got her some appetite stimulants, and it just became very clear by yesterday morning that it was time to let her go.

She was part of our lives for a very long time, and I don’t know how I’m going to live without her. We got her in June of 2005, so we had her almost 18 years. We don’t know her exact birthday, but based on how old she was when we got her she would have been born right about this time of year, so she may have died on her 18th birthday for all we know.

She came to us as Rachel, clearly named after the character in Friends because the name of the other kitten in her cage that had already been adopted out was named Joey. So I always assumed she came from a litter of six, and they were named after Friends characters. We chose to name her Scout after the character in To Kill a Mockingbird instead. She had many nicknames. I know there are ones I’ve used and totally forgotten about, but she rarely just got called by her actual name. There were lots of variations of Scout including Scouties, Scouters, and Scoutling. Mostly there were lots of completely random names including my bud, princessy baby, sweeter boo, noodles, noodly, sweeter noo, and fuzzer head. My husband called her monster and cat a lot.

She was definitely not a monster though. She was the sweetest girl there ever was. She was the softest, cuddliest, most lovey cat I have ever had. She loved being around people. She was not a cat who ever hid away. She always wanted to be wherever the people were. Everybody loved her and said she was the best cat, even people with cats of their own. I was always a little curious about her background and wondered if one her parents was a long haired cat because she wasn’t a long haired cat, but she had the thickest, shiniest fur I’ve ever seen on a short haired cat. Everyone commented on it all the way until literally the vet putting her to sleep. A lot of cats’ fur gets kind of greasy and gross when they get old, but not hers. She had beautiful, luxurious fur until the end.

We adopted her with another cat from a different litter because there weren’t any kittens from the same litter when we got them. They became fast friends though. Charlotte sadly died much too young when she was only 9 years old, so Scout lived half of her life as a solo cat. I think to some degree she preferred that. She definitely mourned like crazy when Charlotte died, but I also didn’t feel like she would adapt well to us bringing another cat into the house after that. I think the thing she missed the most was getting to get all of Charlotte’s food. Scout was a real chunker, but she really always was. Even when she was a tiny kitten she would sit down and her round little belly made her look like she had swallowed a baseball.

She did have her moments of driving us crazy and getting into trouble. She had a short history of chewing on computer cables, which she cured herself of by chomping into my laptop cord and creating enough of an electrical surge that it fried my hard drive. Luckily she was fine, but it obviously gave her enough of a shock that she never chewed on a cable again. It is the reason that I have very few pictures of the first few years of her life. I was not good about backing up my digital photos back then and I lost a bunch when she killed that computer. The only kitten photos I have are ones my husband hunted down for me in his photos after Charlotte died, and I wanted them for her tribute post. She also had a longer history of peeing outside of her litter box on fabric things. For a long time she kept peeing on our bathmat. She peed on rugs. I could not use a Christmas tree skirt because she would pee on it every year. I stupidly kept trying, but finally gave up after about 4 years.

Mostly though she was just the absolute best cat you could ever ask for as you can see from all the photos below. I’m going to miss her so much. She was the best cat all the way until the very end. She had a spot we trained her sleep at the foot of our bed where we put a little blanket for her. But most mornings about a half hour before my alarm would go off she would come snuggle up on top of me. She never woke us up begging for food. She just wanted to cuddle. Food demands only started once she knew we were clearly awake. Anyway, the last few days when she was clearly uncomfortable she stopped coming to cuddle with me. Before bed last night I told her I needed her to cuddle with me one last time. I had to pull her up on me instead of her coming to me, but she did stay on top of me and cuddle for a half hour because she knew I needed it. My life is going to be so much sadder without her. I love you and miss you forever my sweet Scout.