Akron Life April 2022

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[ Publisher | Colin Baker | cbaker@bakermediagroup.com ]

Love and Acceptance

All pets are unique, and so are their needs.

After our Boston terrier died a few years ago, we real ized that Marmalade was mainly afraid of her, and he started to come downstairs more. I thought, All is going to be well, and we will have a somewhat normal household . With two dogs gone, we only had a dog half the cat’s size left. But the little Brussels griffon carried on the tradition of harassing poor old Marmalade. Although it wasn’t perfect, we had

Our 19-year-old cat, Marmalade, recently died. I was only part of his life for the past 14 years, so I guess you could call him my “stepcat.” I tried my best with him, but we never really connected. I think he saw me as the other guy in the household, and I brought two dogs to the animal stepfamily, a Labrador retriever and a Brussels griffon. My wife also brought her Boston terrier, so we had a full house of pets. I love cats — don’t misunderstand that. I’ve had several cats over the years and always had great relationships with them. Marmalade was a different kind of cat, however. When I first met my wife, Marmalade spent most of his time perched on top of her kitchen cabinet, and he almost never came down. Those years were easy because I never saw him. Marmalade was an indoor cat, and he was not very curious and never ventured outside. He was afraid of dogs and people. When my wife moved from Columbus to Akron, Marmalade went into full panic mode. He had to be fed on a table because the dogs would eat his food if it was on the floor. When he ate, he didn’t like food in his whiskers, so he would shake his head, launching food all over the place, on the wall and all over the floor. There was con stantly some chaos. He cried if you shut any door in the house, but if the door was open at night, the dogs would eat all of his food. We continually had to juggle keeping the dogs from eating the cat food and giving Marmalade what he needed so he wouldn’t cry.

Marmalade

towards the end. I spent time with him, hanging out and petting him, and I think we were mostly good by the time he died. I’m no Mother Teresa, but I did my best. It’s not easy handling a difficult pet, but we gave him the best life we could. For more stories about living with pets, check out our pets feature on pg. 24. Some local pet owners talked with us about what they do to connect with their furry family members. I’m going to take a break from cats for a while. We still have the Brussels griffon and a 2-year-old son, which is plenty for me.

about a year where things were relatively calm. Then Marmalade developed a condi tion called yowling that causes cats to cry like they’re in pain. It’s about the most unnerving thing you could imagine. When our son was born, my nerves and patience for Marmalade’s yowling came to an all-time low. His crying often woke the baby, and you never knew what Marmalade needed. We opened doors, made sure his food and water were full and took him to the litter box. But caring for a senior cat — and a baby — was more than I was equipped to handle. After Marmalade was diagnosed with cancer this past year, I started to have more com passion toward him. We made some peace

[ Publisher Colin Baker is a retired racing driver and gearhead. ] Comments? Email them to Kelly Petryszyn [kpetryszyn@bakermediagroup.com].

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