Breed: Siamese
Birthday: February 23, 2003
Died: May 7, 2010
Sooty and Sparks are brothers and were adopted from the Humane Society by Kristin's roommate when they were just 6 months old. A few months later they were left behind when the roommate moved away and Kristin became the unexpected mommy of two darling boys. Sooty was such a Teddy Bear, he loved to be cuddled up with and brushed. His fur was so soft, especially underneath his chin. He was very vocal and always had something to say. His sweet meows were the constant music of our home. He was known for always walking just far enough in front of you so that he would have time to flop over and beg for some tummy scratching before you got to him. Unlike our othercats he didn't like to play outside. He would occassionally venture into the backyard, but never too far from the door. He mostly liked to sit inside and feel the breeze. He loved his brother most of all. Sooty and Sparks were always together. They played together, slept together, ate together, and cleaned each other's faces in a ritual that we called "the love fest." Sooty loved to sleep on a fuzzy orange blanket on the corner of Kristin's bed, and loved to play with the orange toy mice. Whoever said that cats can't see color didn't know what they were talking about. Sooty liked orange.
After many years we learned that Sooty had some real problems with anxiety, possibly the result of something that happened to him before we got him. He was very traumatized by his stay at the Humane Society and even little changes to our house and routine really stressed him out. Sooty's anxiety evenutally triggered a genetic predisposition to urinary tract disease (actually something that is quite common in Siamese cats, especially males), but his appeared in the very rare form of urate crystals and stones and his bladder. This is something that is very particular to dalmatian dogs, but no doctors that we talked to had ever even heard of it in a cat, so all of the treatments and medications that we tried were experimental at best and were often met with differing opinions from different vets leaving us torn about what to do. It took a year of seeing many different vets and getting misdiagnosed, before we finally met Dr. Cartisano at Cottonwood Animal Hospital who was able to figure out the problem. She saved his life with an emergency surgery to remove a bladder blockage, and gave us two more wonderful years with our sweet baby boy that we wouldn't have had otherwise. We will be forever grateful for her many kindnesses, but unfortunately, all the abuse that his poor bladder and kidneys went through prior to understanding his problem couldn't be reversed. There was too much internal damage and Sooty died from renal failure on May 7, 2010.
There isn't a day that goes by that we don't think about him and feel his absence in our home. We love him and miss him dearly. He is buried at the Cottonwood Canyons Pet Memorial Garden at 3115 East 7800 South in Cottonwood Heights, Utah if you ever want to go visit.
