Forty-Ninth

Hmm, guess I wasn't in as much need to vent as I thought. In my defence though, I did end up with the flu on Tuesday/Wednesday which pretty much took the wind out of my sails, otherwise I'm sure you would have heard something from me.

All told, I'm feeling not too bad about what happened with Otis. I'm still angry with myself for going through with the whole thing. Annie seems to be getting over it slowly, still a little nervous about coming in to the spare room, but she'll get over it in time. Other than that she seems to be back to her usual crabbit self, although we're pretty sure she picked up ear mites from Otis, but we dealt with that easily enough.

So, we took Otis back to the shelter a week ago yesterday. My girlfriend and I both lost it a littel bit as we were packing up Otis' stuff to take with him. We took the litter tray, bed, blankets and climbing frame we bought for him - there was no point in us keeping them; Annie wouldn't go near them anyhow, so the shelter may as well make use of them. We bundled Otis in to the cat box and set out, only to have to turn back 2 minutes later because we re alised we'd forgotten Otis' ear drops and anti-biotics.

It's only takes about 15/20 minutes to get to the shelter from our hose, and Otis was well-behaved in the box, spending most of the journey sulking in the corner. My girlfriend didn't come in to the shelter with us, and I don't blame her at all - it was hard enough for me to hold it together, I'd have lost it completely if she was there too. It meant I had to make two trips, one with Otis himself, and another with the climbing frame and other stuff.

There were a couple of forms to fill out, and we'd typed up a page or two talking about Otis, how lovely he is, how the whole thing was not his fault whatsoever, how bad we felt about it, and how he was damn near being the perfect cat - it's for people to have a look at if they're interested in taking him, so we didn't want people to think that he'd had to come back because of anything he had done.

I lifted him out of the box and took him into the 'general population' room, and he settled himself immediately. He sidled up next to a couple of the other cats, making introductions, then proceeded to chow down on one of the bowls of food there. By the time I came back with the climbing frame and stuff, he was already stretched out on one of the cushions there. That was the last thing I saw of him before I left with tears running down my cheeks.