at least mine aren’t…anymore.

Actually my last two posts were about our recently rescued dog. We adopted her 4 months ago, and we’ve certainly had a rough go at getting the two of our dogs energies to mesh. Hers is a very needy nervous energy, but shes a serious bossy pants and resource guarder. Our male that we have had for 5 years is a high energy, control freak who likes to attempt to “beat up” on our new female through very rough play. We do not like the dog he has become. They have had some serious fights over things that we have tried to eliminate or correct via training.  2 weeks ago they got into a fight that landed us at the emergency vet. We had decided to get a professional trainer once her wounds were healed to give them one last chance to make things work. Well, her wounds had healed up and she had finished all of her medication on Monday.

On Wednesday we stepped out of the house for a couple of hours, like we have many many times in the past, and came home to a horrific scene.
They had killed our beloved cat.

Ultimately we should have known better, and we are 100% responsible for what happened. We shouldn’t have been so trusting with animals that we had humanized into rational beings. We had provided a safe room for the cat, that only he could get in and out of… but it wasn’t enough.

I realize that people, children, young, old, sick and healthy die horrific deaths everyday, and sometimes they don’t have anyone…and that is heartbreaking. But this cat was a family member to us, and to think of the gruesome attack and death he faced sends me into crying fits.

I’m so angry. I am angry at myself for not being able to cope with infertility and instead wanting a furry family to fill the void. I am angry at us for being so naive and not being more responsible. I am angry at us for promising to give all of our animals a safe place to live peacefully….and we failed him. I am angry at dogs for being dogs. I am angry that I had humanized them into being my “children” and loving me and each other in “human”, rational ways. I am angry that we promised to give this rescue dog a forever home, but for their safety, we honestly can not now.  Now she will be bounced at least two more times (once back into foster care and then *hopefully* into a real forever home), probably setting her way back in any progress she has made towards rehabilitation. I am angry that I got so attached to her. I am angry at our older dog for being an active participant in the kill. He had lived peacefully with our kitty without the need of a “safe room” for 5 years! I honestly don’t think I will ever be able to look at him the same way. I am angry that my two favorite rooms in our home are completely ruined by terrible graphic memories….there is no way I will get the images out of my mind. I fall to pieces thinking about what happened to him between the room where he died and the room where we found him.

needless to say, we are both completely devastated.
This has changed me profoundly. Which is weird to say because it was such a small (albeit, traumatic) act; a cat’s death, hundreds and probably thousands of which die daily. But something in me has changed. These animals that once had all of my heart, only have a little piece of it now. I have loved animals since before I could walk. I grew up with chickens, pigs, sheep, ducks, turkeys, cats, kittens, and dogs. But, I realize now, I have to relearn how to love and appreciate them for who they really are (animals with prey drives, and natural killer instincts) and not who I want them to be (children).

I know time will heal this wound (unlike my experience with infertility and RPL. Time doesn’t seem to be helping that). I just wish I could figure out what god or the universe is trying to teach me. I am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong and why I feel like I am experiencing all this grief and heartbreak at once, and over and over again- experiences that feel like my fault– am I self sabotaging??!? Should I be doing something else in my life? Is there a different direction I should be going in, or something I am not appreciating?? I just don’t know what is wanted from me. What I’ve learned is to appreciate what I have more fully than I had been. 4 months ago I had a peaceful, untarnished home, a dog who was mild tempered and obedient, a cat who loved to snuggle on winter days and a husband who hadn’t yet had to dig a tiny grave in the pouring rain. And though my heart is yearning for a real live human family, putting a “new dog” band aid on the problem didn’t fix anything…not by a long shot.

All I do know is that throughout this struggle to create a family, I always relied on the fact that I had a wonderful little furry family to dimly light the darkness that infertility and RPL has left me with. And now, that light has been switched off and everything is a little darker.

(Again, it is not the loss of a cat that has me so torn up (he was 13 and had a heart condition so I often prepared myself for his passing).  It was the way he died and the empty wake it left behind. We haven’t been successful at having children in our 4 years of trying, and now I don’t even have a happy/delusional furry family either. )