It’s been over two months since Scout died and I’ve been remiss in not thanking those who were so helpful during her final week.

First to the veterinary teams who treated her, Laurelhurst Veterinary Hospital (our regular vet) and Northwest Veterinary Specialists (an emergency vet). We’ve been going to Laurelhurst since we moved to Portland over a decade ago, Dr. Abbott is our regular vet and saw Scout when we brought her in after she got sick, while Dr. Ross saw her at the end when it was time to euthanize her. This was our first visit to NVS and Dr. Brown managed Scout’s treatment. Everyone called when the said they would, the two groups communicated with each other and with me, answered my questions and gave advice, and everyone was friendly and supportive. They also sent cards after Scout died signed by those who knew her.

Thanks to cats unknown who contributed the blood for the transfusion that kept Scout alive long enough for her diagnosis to be completed, and let me spend one last day with her and be there when she died. Having cats donate blood is tricky since they have to sedated, and different places have different policies. The blood bank at NVS for example is collected from cats owned by the staff, while the blood bank at DoveLewis is collected from rescue cats they adopt.

Thanks to Apple for their iPhone and TomTom for their navigation app, as one drawback to NVS is that it isn’t close to us and is in an area I’m not familiar with, and I get turned around pretty easily. On the way to pick up Scout after her transfusion, traffic was a mess on the freeways but the little genius woman in the phone put me onto surface streets that were busy but not backed up, and I arrived in good time to get Scout, all without getting lost (and even more stressed).

Thanks to my wife for many reasons. Towards the end when Scout was getting her transfusion, the city inspector was also coming by to inspect our new heater. I had taken the day off work so I could get Scout at a moment’s notice. My wife repeatedly asked if she should stay home too to meet the inspector, since I was visibly upset, but I repeatedly said I’d be fine and she should go. But after she left I started to worry that there would be trouble with Scout’s transfusion and I’d have to leave right away. More than anything, if Scout was going to die, I wanted to be there with her. I started having trouble breathing so I called my wife and she came back home and met with the inspector. She also took care of everything when Scout was euthanized so I didn’t have to deal with anyone in my heartbroken state.

She’s also the reason Scout came into my life in the first place. A dog lover growing up, I fell in love with cats when I met her cat Templeton, and later she suggested we adopt Scout after her friend found a litter of kittens under their house.

And thanks to my black-and-white cat who I dearly miss. I’m close to all my pets but Scout and I were so perfectly matched, and she so completely devoted to me, that I doubt I’ll know a bond like ours ever again.

Rest peacefully, little one.

Scout would have turned twelve today.

This was my view these past twelve years as I edited nearly every image you’ve seen here, Scout in her heated bed, sitting right in front of me. Usually she’d be curled up in the bed, but sometimes she’d watch me as I worked. She was a tiny little thing so if she was laying down she had to stick her head up to reach the top. It didn’t look too comfortable but it always made me laugh.

Oh Scout, you were the best, and I miss you so.

This picture is from the first batch I took of Scout after we brought her home as a kitten in May of 2001. I don’t think I’ve put it online before, I suppose because she looks upset, but as I was looking at it I was struck by how her life with us began and ended in a similar fashion. We kept her isolated from Templeton when we first brought her home but she hated being on her own and was only comforted if one of us went in with her. I’d lie at times on the hard linoleum floor and let her sleep under my chin.

Not unlike her last day when she was isolated from the others to avoid any stress as her life ebbed away, and she was only comforted when I went in with her and let her sleep on my chest. I learned from those early days with her and this time isolated her in our bedroom where I could lie down in comfort.

I can’t look at the picture without thinking of the day we brought her home, so full of hope, and of how far this little one exceeded those hopes. What a blessing she was!

Scout’s mother disappeared very early in her life under mysterious circumstances. She was hand-reared by the family who initially discovered the litter under their house, but it wasn’t clear if there would be any developmental issues with Scout either because she didn’t get enough milk before it was discovered her mother was missing, or because she wasn’t going to get the training her mother normally would have provided.

We needn’t have worried.

Scout was not only incredibly sweet and affectionate, but clever. A Scout speciality was getting into places no matter what obstacles stood in her way. A useful trait for a master thief, fortunately she turned to a life of snuggling over a life of crime. She displayed her knack for opening things and getting into strange places from an early age, with these adorable paws her tricks of the trade.

When we first brought her home, we kept her isolated in the guest bathroom so she and our cat Templeton could gradually get to know each other. The inside doors of the house where we living at the time had handles that you pulled down on to open the door, and after observing us going in and out our tiny little kitten would take a running jump at the handle and try to pull it down to open the door.

We put up a baby gate, hoping it would calm her if we left the door open at times so she could see us moving about the house. But she scaled that in no time flat, so we started putting boxes in front so she could still see out a bit but not climb the gate. So instead she climbed the boxes, and as we stacked them higher, and she kept climbing higher, we were worried she was going to fall and hurt herself.

Thankfully Templeton accepted her very quickly and we were able to grant Scout her freedom. But she was just getting started showing off her skills. Since she attached to me right away, she spent a lot of time in my office. I wanted to keep her out of my closet and kept the door closed, but she learned if she stuck a paw under the door and rattled it at just the right frequency, the latch would pop open and she was in. She got amazingly good at it, to the point that she could open the door as quickly by vibrating it as I could with the handle.

When we moved to our current house in Portland, she loved hiding up in the heating ducts in our finished basement. The door to the furnace room was a folding wooden door which she could open in a heartbeat, so we put objects in front to try and keep her out. Those barely slowed her down, so I set up a series of objects that she’d have to move in order to get to the one that was actually blocking the door.

I don’t know how long it took her to solve the puzzle but when I came home from work she was up in her usual spot in the ducts.

There was the time we took her to the vet and she jumped and climbed up to the top of the cabinets and they had to get a step stool to go up and get her down, remarking that in all their years there they had never seen a cat do that.

And of course there was the time we had a contractor do some work in the house and we told him we’d put the cats up so he wouldn’t have to worry about them. We rounded up Scout, Sam, and Emma and put them in the upstairs bathroom and left for work, since that door latched pretty securely. The cats were out when we got home, we assumed he let them out when he finished up, but he said they were out when he got there, and he arrived not long after we left.

It’s almost embarrassing how many times I matched wits with Scout and lost, but, well, she was Scout.