Safe travels, little Cookie girl – July 5, 2018
On July 5th we lost our sweet Cookie girl. Struggling to find the words to even write about it is impossible. What was a routine procedure to knock her out and pull blood ultimately cost her life. And I was the one who made the decision to do it. Her recovery was not good, and despite everything, we lost her the following morning. To say this was a shock doesn’t begin to explain how stunned and horrified we are. In over twenty years we have never had anything like this happen. Necropsy results showed heart disease that had never been detected. She had tissue wrapped around tendons to her heart and she had thrown blood clots. Erica also found necrotic sections in her kidney. Even though Dr. Lipanovich said it could have happened at any time, it’s not a comfort knowing she’s gone. In my wildest nightmares, I never would have imagined that we would lose Cookie this way, she was just twelve years old.
Cookie came to us in 2006. She was purchased at auction by a woman who thought it would be cool to have a cougar cub. That only lasted a few months before she changed her mind and wanted her gone.
Cookie was such a sweet-natured girl that we joked she was an angel in a cougar suit. She thrived at the sanctuary even though she was the smallest of the cougars. She shared a habitat with Nyssa until we moved to the new site. At that point, she moved in with Caden because Nyssa was too pushy. That worked out great because both Caden and Cookie just wanted to enjoy life and get along. It was quite a sight to see Cookie letting Caden know she was the boss even though he was so much bigger.
Cookie had the most endearing face, the fuzziest ears, the sweetest purrs, and chirps and we all adored her. She was never aggressive, always welcoming, and hearing her chip when she saw us warmed our hearts and made us love her even more.
Losing so many of our wildcats has been difficult, but with the older cats somehow it gives us the opportunity to make peace with it.
Losing Cookie was gut-wrenching in a way that I didn’t think possible and left me wondering if I’d ever be able to say her name without bursting into tears. So far I haven’t gotten to that point and even thinking about her being gone is crushing. We love all of the rescues and our hearts break with each loss, but having cared for Cookie from such a young age and watching her grow and be such a huge part of our lives makes the grief even harder to live with.
I apologize for such a long post, I had hoped by writing it would make it easier to process but it’s only made it more painful. Cookie was supposed to grow old with us having many more years left to live. This life is so cruel and I don’t understand why things happen the way they do especially to the most innocent of creatures. Safe travels little girl, it was truly an honor and joy to love and care for you. Many broken hearts are left behind.
