Farewell, my faithful friend...

It is with great sadness that we had to put Valentino to sleep a couple days ago- a remarkably terrible coincidence, considering we lost Vincenzo only a couple months ago.

Valentino lost about five pounds since Vincenzo died, and we thought that it was because of some psychological "thing," maybe he badly missed Vincenzo, or he wasn't the alpha cat, so he didn't have "permission" to eat or something. We didn't really realize that Valentino had lost so much weight until one day, Denise began to notice that Valentino was looking rather bony, so I weighed him. That much weight was really more than just an emotional problem for a kitty, especially since we tried many, many kinds of cat food to see what he would like to eat, instead of the stuff we had been feeding him for so long. We found a couple of foods that he seemed to love, but after a bite or two, he would simply walk away, which is abnormal behavior for a cat.

Turns out that for the past few months, Valentino had been suffering from some kind of liver disorder, like liver cancer or some other kind of liver disease. The vet said we could aggressively treat his condition, but without guarantee of a relapse, especially considering his age: eleven. Basically, Valentino had been almost literally starving for months now, and we felt it was simply best to end his suffering. We feel very bad that we didn't catch this sooner and that he had to suffer as much as he did, but the vet did say that very soon and he would have started having seizures and other serious neurological problems. We are very glad that we will never have to remember Valentino in such a degraded position and that the last moments with him were relatively normal, him getting petted and held and loving every second of it.

I simply remember Valentino as an attention hog. He loved being petted and wherever we were, he was right there, snuggling up to us, purring his little heart out. Yeah, we called him psycho-kitty sometimes because he was so scared of everything, but that mellowed with age and while he never got completely over his skittishness, he became a very sociable cat.

I always loved how he jumped in my lap when I was on the computer, or he jumped in the bed with us and literally leaned against my side or chest, just to get petted.

He was always a finicky cat, but he loved a certain kind of cat treat and would come running when he saw the bag in our hands. I'll miss how he did that.

Valentino, I'll miss you, my friend. I know you are in better place, with no loud noises or sudden movements. I'm sure I'll see you again one day. I can't wait to pet you again.