Our darling Benjamin

We arrived home from holiday to find Benjamin a lot thinner than when we left. We had changed his food recently and assumed the dried food he was now on was keeping him trim. Now he seemed listless and looked decidedly unwell so on Saturday morning we took him to the vet. We saw David Harvey and he gave Ben a thorough feeling over and listened to his lungs and heart and couldn't find anything obviously wrong but said he would like a blood test done.

On Monday Win took Ben up to vets and left him for a blood test. Beccie collected him later, some mix up over when he was ready to be collected.

On the Tuesday Win took a phone call from the vet to say Ben had acute renal failure, there was no cure but there were some tablets we could give him that would ease his discomfort.

We spent the next three weeks experimenting with different ways of getting a tablet inside the little blighter. Win bought a variety of foods including tuna, sardines, a dozen or so of different chicken and beef catfoods plus some crunchie treats. We tried to hide half a tablet in pieces of meat or tuna but he always sniffed out the one with the tablet in and of course left it on the side of his plate.

In desperation I searched the internet and found a page, in fact several pages, of advice on getting medication into an animal. American mostly but just as applicable here as there. One suggestion was to grind the tablet to a fine powder, mix it into a knob of butter and put it on the animals paws. This proved to be our number one method and most of the time we were able to get the majority of the butter into his mouth before he knew what was happening. Now Benjamin always liked butter, we used to put the butter paper down for him to lick so it was no real hardship for him, he just spent the next 30 minutes or so licking his lips. On the odd occasion I couldn't get all of it into his mouth I did try spreading it onto his paws and of course, it worked. He soon licked it off.

As I said, we spent three weeks doing this. It was a good day for us when we succeeded in getting a whole half a tablet into him but as each day passed he became a little more listless, a little more sad looking. From the time we arrived home from holiday and found him so obviously very ill, he never had that old Benjamin smile we had come to know so well on his face. He looked sad and unhappy from then on. That's not to say it was all pain and torment for him. I don't think it was because we spoilt him rotten over those three weeks and, when he felt up to it, he would roll over onto his back, stretch then close his eyes and doze. Sometimes he looked comfortable but less so towards the end of those three weeks.

On Thursday evening, 27th July 2006, we saw him struggling to go to the toilet out front. He failed to do anything and ambled slowly in doors, his claws click clacking on the wooden floor. He looked so thin and so frail it made us cry just seeing him walking so slowly and, sadly, with no purpose. We knew then we would have to make a decision. We always knew that we would have to make that decision, we just didn't know when it would be and we hoped and prayed it would be later rather than sooner. It was not to be. Benjamin was in some discomfort. He found it difficult to get comfortable when he lay down and rarely stayed in the same place for long. Constantly moving to somewhere else. Looking for somewhere he could be comfortable. We knew the time had come.

We had decided we could not put him through the trauma of boxing him up and transporting him to the vet. We would have the vet come home here and help our Ben out of this life and into the next, so Win rang them on the Friday and they agreed to come out at 6.30pm that day.

His last day with us was, for him, as far as we could tell, pretty good. For us it was dreadful. All during his illness over the last three weeks the weather had been fine, in fact a bit too fine. Too hot and humid on several days and he would lie exhausted under the conifers, his little head resting on a plank of wood, another of his favourite places. On Friday there was a little bit of a breeze and it felt a little less humid. Ben obviously found the change to his liking and was a little more active, to the point where Wendy thought the vets would see him looking sprightly and demand to know from us why we had even considered putting the poor chap to sleep! But that was not the case. Again we saw him trying to go to the toilet. Again he failed.

They arrived in a big black Range Rover promptly at 6.30pm. A coloured guy and a girl. They had their kit and asked us to get Ben in from the garden. To my utter shame I had to drag him from under the conifers, one of his favourite places, to have him put to sleep. I just wanted to say "No, leave him there, he's quite content" but I knew that wasn't true. We got him inside and they got to work. Win couldn't face this and so Beccie came round and between us we held him tight. We had to wrap him in a towel because, as poorly as he was, he was still strong enough to struggle free from the hands of a vet. I'm under no illusion that he had any idea as to what was going to happen, he just didn't like vets. The coloured guy patiently cut the fur from Benjy's left front paw much to Benjy's distaste. He then slipped a needle into the flesh and within a couple of seconds Ben relaxed. The vet then cut the fur from Bens right paw and injected him again. By this time I guess our lovely boy had passed away.

Throughout this time I had sobbed uncontrollably. I took his still warm body out into the garden, his favourite place. He loved the arrival of spring and sunny days when he could flop down against the bungalow with the warmth and protection of the brickwork against his back watching the birds, high enough up in the pyracantha and well out of his reach.

I sat and stroked him and talked to him thanking him for the time he gave to us, for the unconditional love he showed and the pleasure he gave us.

I then dug a hole in the garden, in a spot he was frequently to be found sunning himself. I dug with the fury and anger of one deprived of a loved one. It was hot and the perspiration was dripping off me. Win had telephoned Nick and he came round and took over from me. I then took his boney little body, wrapped it in a blanket he used to sleep on and gently lowered him into the hole. Unceremoniously I scraped the earth so frantically dug out earlier back into the hole and covered our lovely boy. Oh the tears as I type this.....

Joe and Zak had brought a furry mouse round earlier in the week and my Dad had given us a little windmill which Ben proceeded to spray on so I placed these on top of the mound covering his little body and once more thanked him for being our friend.