I looked around, and I'm surprised they are still posted, but some years back (about 3 years) I made some entries here under my real name (Tom Horn) about a male Rex rabbit named Louie whom I found after he had been abandoned in July 1999. I had wondered whether Ingrid would tolerate his presence, because by then she was almost 12.

They got along just fine.

I think Louie was born sometime early in 1999, then abandoned by some ignorant person who thought he could survive on his own. I nearly ran over him the night I found him; he'd gone looking for water and food, then wandered into the street. Poor guy was thirsty and hungry! Very near-sighted, too, I think.

Louie lived with us from July of 1999 until November 3, 2003. That Sunday night in November, I got out of the shower, and his body language was something no one else could have read, but it was very much as if he had taken a shower himself and shaved and put on a tie, and he was waiting for me. Of that I am absolutely sure. He wanted to say goodbye.

I knew the second I picked him up that he was dying. He had just been hanging on to see me again. I had been working on my car that day, not paying much attention to him, and I'm sure it was an effort. It was like he thought it would be too impolite to leave without saying so long.

I picked him up and cradled him, and within ten minutes he was gone.

Funny thing--Ingrid mourned Louie. A few days later, she was sitting in the hallway and I was on the couch, and I said "Come here, Sweetie." She took two steps toward me, then turned right and went over and sat down by Louie's cage, and she looked in there for a solid 20 seconds or so. That's a long time for a cat to peer at something that isn't there. She remembered him. She missed him.

Then she came over to me and hopped up by me. She was sad.

I could tell, also, that in her last few days Ingrid was afraid of letting me down. Can you imagine that? She didn't want to leave me alone. She didn't want to cause me any pain. I'm certain of it. I've heard some people say that cats have no sense of their own mortality, that everything for them is here and now, but if you'll pardon the expression (and if it's not out of bounds here--I apologize if it is, because I don't want to offend anyone and if it's forbidden I will never do it again), I believe that that assumption is bullshit. None of them will do calculus or learn to speak Russian, but the range of intelligence and prescience is every bit as wide in cats as it is in human beings.

It was hard enough when Louie died. It's much worse now.