9 lives

Lesson of the day: Always purchase the safety collar for your cat.

One more time: Always purchase the safety collar for your cat.

I stopped buying them after Pumpkin kept losing them, and for the last few years she's had a regular collar.

Today, something crazy happened.

She likes to sit on the old bbq out in the yard. Well, today as she was jumping off of her perch, her collar got caught in the grate. My aunt was on the back porch and heard something, but dad was like, "Oh that's just Pumpkin." And then after a little bit they didn't see her, and that was when my dad saw her legs dangling.

I was hanging out with Akhtar in my room when I heard my aunt run into the house screaming, "GET THE SCISSORS! PUMPKIN'S CAUGHT!" She later said that her tongue was blue when they got to her.

I had no idea what was going on, but grabbed scissors and ran outside.

At this point she was literally hanging herself, and my dad was trying to get her loose. If she would have sat still it would have been no problem, but you know how cats get all crazy and she was scratching the shit out of him, continuing to choke herself in the process.

I ran outside, grabbed her, and tried to shove the scissors into any available space around her collar without hurting her. The way she was scrambling and trying to breathe, it wasn't happening. We were running out of time and it was like that "mom adrenaline" kicked in- my baby was dying and she was not going to do it in my arms, dammit.

I took hold of the collar and in one freakishly strong pull, I yanked it free. I could hear her take a humongous breath of air (Seriously, have you ever heard a cat breathe? I haven't, and this was definitely an audible breath of air), and she took off, leaving us all scratched, but my dad got the worst.

The collar had gotten pretty twisted in the struggle, and I was afraid it was still tight around her neck, but we couldn't find her. After a few minutes she had calmed down and came to us when we called, and I took it off immediately. Then I went to Walmart and bought 2 safety collars that come off at the slightest tug.

I don't care if I have to buy a new collar every week. Safety collars are the way to go from now on.

That was too scary. I am so thankful that someone was outside when it happened. Can you imagine if no one was outside, or no one noticed? I would have gone looking for her at some point and found her hanging on the edge of the bbq, dead. What a horrible thing.

The eerie thing was, when I was watching Marley & Me she was bugging me for attention and being annoying. But then I stopped to think about how she's going to get old and die some day. I know I'll be really upset when it happens, and after that I'd give anything for just one more pet. So I brought her up on the couch and gave her some, and wondered how long she would live. I sat there and wondered if she'd be hit by a car, get some disease, or die of old age.

And then this happened today and it was so close. I could be sleeping in a cat-less bed tonight. I could be packing up her food bowls.

She's been a big source of comfort for me lately, especially since Chris has been gone. It's a little less lonely in the middle of the night when there's a purring furry to reach over and pet.

Like I said, I'm just really thankful that she's ok. It was quite the scare.