Good-Bye Kitty - Tribute to Our Wonderful Sable

Our Beloved Sable ~ May 22, 1994 - Feb. 8, 2009

It is so difficult to even think of our Sable as no longer being with us. This is one of my favourite photos of him, when he was a young cat. He not only took over the dog's bed but didn't hesitate to claim the dog's hedgehog toy as his own.

Sable was known by a variety of names: Grickle Grackle & Capt. Hook were the only other 2 he'd answer to on occasion. I raised him from birth. His parents were 2 young feral cats. Neither of them overly friendly, but his mother trusted me with her babies & brought all 5 of them to live under the back porch. As the kittens grew, a couple of them found other homes, a couple eventually left for parts unknown but Sable chose to stay on. Sable was the only marmalade kitten in the litter. When he was quite small, his fur was bright orange & white. As he grew older, it deepened to a more tawny & white colour. He was a handsome fellow.

The first 6 months of his life, he mostly stayed outdoors. Then the weather grew chilly & I would open the doors to the cellar from the inside & call Sable. And he'd coming running from wherever he was, more like a dog responding to his owner. I kept him in the cellar & set up a litter box, food & water for him. At the time, I had an older, angora cat & a peke-a-poo. My angora cat was declawed & even though Sable was used to being around my dog outdoors, i didn't want to risk my other pets being scratched even by accident thru play. In the mornings, I go down the cellar, open the door & Sable would run out, seeking adventure. Until one day it had snowed a little overnight.

The following morning, I opened the cellar doors for Sable as usual. He sat at the very top of the steps & looked around at the snow. He then tentatively placed one paw on the snow & pulled his paw back to the step. He looked at me as if to say: "If you think I'm going out in that, you're crazy!" And back down the steps he ran. After that, I just knew that Sable wasn't going to go outdoors anymore. I then had him fixed & declawed. When he was declared fit by the vet, I started bringing him upstairs & introduced him to my other cat & also to let him get used to being around my dog indoors. As far as my dog was concerned, he liked having his buddy inside. Ah, but my cat was not very pleased with this. She walked up to Sable, smacked him across the nose with her paw & sat back, glared at him & the expression on her face said it all: "I am in charge around here, mister! Don't you forget it." In time she accepted Sable but always smacked at him with her paw when she felt he deserved it. Or to just remind him that she was "the boss."

Sable was always a member of the family and not just a pet. When Sable started becoming ill over the last few months, it was so hard to accept what would be the inevitable. All of our pets mourned his passing. He went peacefully. Right to the end, he was loving and fought a good fight to survive. It's not the first time we had to say good-bye to a much loved pet and it won't be the last. Our lives were that much richer for having our wonderful Sable in our lives. While some will say that 15 1/2 years is a long time, to us it was all too short.