You don’t realize how well a pet cat has you trained until they’re no longer around and those things don’t need to be done

I had to kill my best friend yesterday. Knew he was sick but turns out he was even sicker than that. Earlier this week, his vet found a half dozen tumors in his lungs and his head. My dad died of lung cancer and I’ve seen where that road leads so yesterday I made the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make.

Today I’ve started to realize just how well I’d been trained.

Over the years, I’d developed a morning routine that involved rushing around to do cat chores before work. Prepare his food/water, clean the litter box, open the window blinds behind his perch so he could watch the birds do their thing, do a quick check around the house to see if he left any messes overnight, give him a quick brushing if he wanted it… I realized this morning after I got dressed that I now had a lot of extra time on my hands because those chores didn’t need to be done anymore.

And then there’s the camera…Over the last couple years he’d started having difficulty cleaning himself “back there” so we’d have to intervene and wipe him after he used the litter box otherwise he’d leave a “stamp” wherever he sat. So I set up a camera that sent an alert to our phones when he was in his box so we could stop what we’re doing, grab the TP and wait for him to finish. I’ll never hear that alert chime again.

As I was sitting at my office desk this morning, I’d realized the parallels between my behavior this morning and how a trained animal behaves when you suddenly change the routine. So, yeah, I’d been trained.