BEAUREGARD
A Very Nice Siamese Cat
May (Memorial Day Weekend), 1976 ~ October 8, 1998
Beauregard was a seal-point Siamese cat. He was the only kitten in the litter (if you can call one kitten a "litter"...) born on Memorial Day weekend, just a couple of weeks before my husband and I were married. He was the very first cat I ever had.
Because he was an only kitten, his mother gave him all her attention. As a result, he was quite spoiled. Beau also soon adopted our dog Bertie and was not content to just lay beside him; he would lay on top of the dog. He was also quite an active kitten, climbing curtains and doing "hit and run" attacks, batting at my legs as I got ready for work in the mornings. One of his favorite activities was climbing into the bathtub to chase his tail. We called him "Speed Racer" because of his habit of suddenly taking off at full-tilt across the room. Woe to anyone who happened to be laying on the floor! He was so rambunctious that the year of our first Christmas together, I was afraid to put up a tree for fear that he might knock it down. Being an art teacher, I drew one on paper and taped it up to the wall, only to come home one afternoon, to find it on the floor, shredded!
When Beau was about a year old he had his first FUS attack--feline urinary syndrome. We almost lost him, but managed to control the problem with a daily dose of vitamin C. I never would have imagined that two grown adults could have so much trouble holding onto and getting a pill down a rather small 10 pound cat. Over the years, he suffered several more attacks until one of our vets started him on a catfood especially for FUS. This special diet kept him healthy over the years with very few FUS attacks. The condition was also the reason Beau became a house cat, which I'm sure contributed to his long life.
I was guilty of teaching him one of his worst habits--that of wanting to sleep under the covers of our bed. He would jump up and nose his way under the blankets to find the warmth he loved. You could always find him wherever there was a heat source--on top of the dryer if it was going, in a sunny window, on the waterbed, or right up under my neck. At a time when we had 3 cats, they enjoyed a heirarchy of where to lay on top of me when I took a nap--the calico on my knees, the tabby on my stomach and Beau on my neck. When we moved to our house here in Sequim, he discovered the joy of sleeping right next to the woodstove. We often wondered if he would just burst into flames from being too close, but it was his favorite spot on a winter's evening.
I never would have imagined when he was born that Beau would live to the ripe old age of 22. In these last few years, you could tell he was having more difficulty getting around, with stiff joints; he gradually lost a great deal of hearing (and got very loud with that siamese yowl as a result) and couldn't see very well. But he remained quite healthy otherwise, until these last few months. It was difficult to finally lose this last battle, but I know that he died before he was is any terrible pain. I'm sure some people wondered why I put so much time and effort and money into keeping him around so long. After all, he was just a cat. And in the ultimate scheme of things, that's true. But that's the point, I suppose. He was a cat. And he depended on us to take care of him, to love him and to make his last years comfortable. In reflecting back over such a history, I couldn't have asked for a nicer cat.
A very special Thank You to Dr. Mike Tyler, his wife Suzanne, and the entire staff at Greywolf Veterinary Hospital for all their care and compassion that they give our animals.
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