Death of Peppino
Thursday, May 19th, 2022
Peppino is a name, a diminutive of Giuseppe, just like Joe is a diminutive of Joseph. Peppino was 16 years old which would be a short life for a person but a fairly long life for a cat.
Laura has had him since he was a kitten and of course my relationship with Peppino has been much more brief, about 3 1/2 years. He was kind of emotionally needy I would say. If I would let him he would spend almost every waking hour on my lap but obviously that wouldn’t work for me. At least he did finally learn that he could stay on my lap longer if he didn’t use his claws to adjust his position. He was doing damage to my jeans.
So while I’d say he was not the smartest cat that I’ve known, he was capable of learning. He had been pretty healthy until recently. At about 6 weeks ago he no longer could jump up enough to get on my lap when I was sitting down so I would give him an assist.
Then about 3 weeks ago things changed radically. He could barely walk and when he did he didn’t seem to be able to see obstacles. He would bump into walls and get stuck in narrow spaces. Laura took him to the vet a couple of times and there was no clear reason for his decline but in the end it was something obviously neurological. So reluctantly about 2 weeks ago Laura asked the vet to come to the house to provide euthanasia for Peppino. Laura has been very sad but is recovering.
