Senior cat facing illness gets best possible medicine

A steady stream of meows greets Cynthia when she gets home from work. She knows what this is about: Wanda’s food bowl needs to be topped up. The time is now. Right now.

She follows Wanda to the bowl and fills it. Of her five cats, Wanda is the most recent arrival. She’s petite but has a sizable personality. She eats well — and not just when Cynthia returns from work. Wanda is up when the sun slides its first rays over western Oklahoma, alerting Cynthia to the fact that it is time to dine. As Cynthia prepares her breakfast, Wanda jumps and frolics around her legs, not what you might expect from a senior gal of 11. In fact, if no one told you, you’d never know that she also has a terminal diagnosis.

Friendly, playful Wanda came to the Best Friends Pet Resource Center in Bentonville, Arkansas, from a Missouri shelter. As more communities embrace no-kill, one of the ways Best Friends supports shelters is by working together to save pets who need extra care or time.

Wanda was adopted briefly, then returned to the pet resource center after falling ill. The Best Friends veterinary team went to work to help her feel better. At first, they suspected she had feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), a viral disease that can cause neurological symptoms.

Hope for a cat with a once-fatal prognosis

Wanda improved on FIP medication, but soon after this upturn, the team found and removed a tumor from her side. It was an unfortunately common and usually malignant type of feline cancer: mammary carcinoma. Knowing that a complete cure was unlikely and that further treatment would cause Wanda a great deal of stress, the team decided that adoption would be the kindest, best medicine.

Wanda needed someone who could give her a safe and comfy home, a place to spend the time she had left.

That person was Cynthia. She had driven five hours east to visit her cousin’s family in Bentonville over a long weekend, and they had taken her to the pet resource center to show her the cats and dogs. For this family of animal lovers, the center was a “Disneyland” they visited regularly to spend time loving on the pets there.

Cynthia has adopted many other pets over the years. Since she’d recently lost her cat Onyx, she’d been feeling that the time was right to adopt again. This was the perfect opportunity.

Cynthia’s search for another senior kitty to love didn’t take long: When she met Wanda at the pet resource center, Wanda purred and nuzzled against her hand. That was it. Learning about Wanda’s health issues only reinforced the happiness Cynthia felt knowing that she could give Wanda the home she needed for the rest of her days.

Wanda wasted no time fitting in with Cynthia’s feline crew, quickly becoming a member of the family. She established her morning rise-and-shine-for-breakfast routine, the second half of which is one of Cynthia’s favorite parts of the day: After Wanda finishes her breakfast, she curls up in Cynthia’s lap while Cynthia sips her coffee. It’s quiet, except for purring, and very peaceful, the passing moments filled with a deep sense of satisfaction.

Making every moment count for a cat in hospice care

Nothing is better than seeing Wanda happy, relaxed, and loved. Their time together may not be long, but it is full of the simple joy of being together. The time is now. Right now.

This, Cynthia says, is the beauty of adopting senior pets. Heartbreak may come sooner, but the time spent together is more than worth it.

Our goal at Best Friends is to support all animal shelters in the U.S. in reaching no-kill. No-kill means saving every dog and cat in a shelter who can be saved, accounting for community safety and good quality of life for pets. 

Shelter staff can’t do it alone. Saving animals in shelters is everyone’s responsibility, and it takes support and participation from the community. No-kill is possible when we work together thoughtfully, honestly, and collaboratively.