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Jazzy

By Karen Musselman

Jasmine was born sometime in the spring of '94 so she'll be 15 years old this year. She started out living with a family who had a BIG dog. Dog thought she was a fluffy little toy and tried to play with her, messed up her one eye instead.

The family was friends of my fiancé at the time, so loving animals the way he did, he wrapped her up in his coat and walked her home. I was taking a nap on the sofa and something was tickling my nose. It was her whiskers. He'd put her on my chest while I was dozing. She was a tiny little thing then!!

We had another cat at the time, a female black short-hair domestic named Sabbath who was about six months old. Well they got along great, often took naps cuddled up together. Then my fiancé brought home a puppy. Big puppy. Sabbath didn’t like that very much but Jasmine loved her. Those two played a lot!

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A couple of years later my fiancé and I broke up. By then my son was so attached to Jazzy that we couldn't leave her behind. My fiancé took the dog and Sabbath and we took Jazzy with us. So that was Jazzy's second move.

Since then Jazzy's been moved about 13 times!! All within family. If my son didn't have her, then my daughter had her or I had her. The last time she got moved was when my daughter moved and I told her that Jazzy was now staying with me. Our house is her "nursing home" now.

Complementary and Alternative Veterinary Medicine Considered

When her vet checkup came around a few months later, she was diagnosed with early onset kidney failure. Not uncommon with cats her age, but I was upset, obviously. But her last checkup showed it was a very slow progressing condition and since she started her meds and new food, the condition had stabilized.

And she loves her KD food! It's expensive, prescription only, but she loves it. We have her on a self-feeder because with the KD food your cat can eat as much at it wants.

The vet told me that at a little over 12 lbs. Jazzy would be a little overweight if she were a younger cat without the kidney disorder. But once the kidneys show signs of early failure, you want to keep the weight on. So he told me to let her eat as much as she wants. No more measuring out her food.

She's funny though. When we're downstairs, we'll hear her running around upstairs, back and forth from one end of the house to the other. Then when you come upstairs, she'll hurry onto the sofa or quick lay down like, "Hey, that wasn't me. I'm too old to be running around like that!"

We do have a dog, Skye, a 3 year old Lab/ Weimareimer who we keep on the lower level of our bilevel house - with a gate so she can't get upstairs. Jazzy's not too fond of her either. Skye's pretty big! But Jazzy loves to tease her anyway. She'll come down the stairs to within a step of the gate and just sit there while the dog whines and whimpers and tries to get at her. Skye just wants to play with her, but Jazzy's not into it so she just stays on the steps and teases the dog from there.

But she does still like to play a lot, even at her age. And we hope she's still with us for a few more years.

So that's the story of Jasmine ("Jazzy").

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Jazzy

By Karen Musselman

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