Do you take pictures of your cat after s/he has died?

In 2010, when Flash was nearing the end (I was waiting for the vet to come over to euthanize him), I took pictures of him laying there looking so tired, so sad, so depressed.  If he was going through this then it was something I wanted to keep with me - it was part of his life and, in a sense, it shows that I was NOT abandoning him.  That through good time and bad, I was there for him and loved him no matter his state of health.  If he was suffering I wanted to suffer with him.  His life wasn't just the good times, it was the bad, and both are important to me because both were part of him.

That said, when I inadvertently caused Back to go into cardiac arrest, I had no time to say goodbye, I didn't take pictures of his last day, I was not able to hold him and comfort him.  When his body was brought to me I had to make a decision - do I keep a physical memory of this moment or do I let it fade away.  It was difficult, but I took pictures of Back, his eyes wide open and vacant, his mouth slightly agape.  I caused his death and in a sense don't ever want to be able to let go of that moment, maybe it's a form of punishment, maybe it's a way of saying I am sorry, maybe it's simply the very last time I ever got to see him (I buried him that night).

I don't look at the pics if I can help it - I just know they are there.  But, tonight while transferring some files I did see them.  It was... difficult.  Very difficult.  I told him I was sorry and asked him to forgive me.  He can't, obviously, and I wondered whether I would have taken the pictures if his death had been from euthanasia rather than an accident.  I think I would take them.  Not to look at them, but to have moments of time with him both during his life and after. 

I see nothing wrong with wanting to have a last memory of your loved one. My mind is good enough 'picturing' my baby after she died, and I do feel it is a form of punishment since I am guilty of her death. It's so hard to ever let go of the guilt and anguish but we have to think that our precious ones would never want us to suffer so much for something we would never purposely do. I too beg for forgiveness and cry for my loss when I clean her grave stone and see her likeness looking at me. I admire you for having that last moment of time, and do understand why you would want it even though it breaks your heart to see them. One day they will even bring you comfort. Try not to dwell on the death though and instead celebrate her life and the time and the love you two shared. I do believe that even death cannot break such a strong bond that we forge in life, and on that day our soul departs this earthly body, we WILL once again be reunited with those precious souls we miss so much. The essence of our souls is as natural as the rain and the wind, it is what makes us who we are and will return to nature at the end of our lives. You will surely be blessed for loving so much to hurt so bad. Take care of and be gentle with yourself, my heart goes out to you.

I don't believe that you caused Back's death and I bet that he doesn't either. If he was still here and heard you ask him to forgive you he'd probably say, "for what? loving me unconditionally and being my best friend?": Giving me a home and taking care of me when so many others like me have no one and nothing?"

You know that there's no way that you would ever have caused him any harm intentionally. Death doesn't always come after a long illness. Sometimes it comes suddenly. That doesn't mean it wasn't their time to go. I know it's not fair and it doesn't seem right but unfortunately, we don't make the rules about stuff like this and life is often out of our control.

Back loved you. He still loves you. He will always love you. I don't think he'd want you to do this to yourself. You don't deserve to suffer this way. Try to hang onto the good times you had with him. All the cuddles, the times he made you laugh by being silly and the fun times you had because I'm sure there were plenty of those. That's what he'd want you to hold onto.

If you want to keep the picture(s) you took of him after he crossed the bridge, then tuck it (them) away somewhere. Keep the pictures you have of him happy and healthy out where you can see them. Find your favorite one and put it in a nice frame out where you can see it all the time. Death is a part of life but just a small one. Sending you hugs and vibes so you can get through this.

We seem to be all very good at regrets & blaming ourselves.  My grief is very fresh; 6 days, 2hrs and I am doing the same everyday.  I don't think you caused his death.  In my mind it was good that he did not have the stress of the vet coming in & doing the process.  Plus, I believe they can choose when to go.  Maybe Black wanted to save you this experience as well.  For me it was an awful experience which was my fault.  (here I go again) 

You appear to share the intense love for Flash that I have for my Rizzo.  Wish I would have taken more pictures over the years but I am not good with the camera.  I do have some really good ones that were taken two years ago and will figure out how to post from a Mac.  Rizzo seemed to never show age and looked beautiful up until the last week of his life.  The vet said this was the case with cancer. I tried to take some of him after I was sure he had to leave but he let me know this was not his wish.  I have seen many "after pictures" that people have taken on the internet.  For some this becomes a source of comfort.  I could not.  I wanted to remember him as a beauty and could not even spend the last minutes before the final shot because he was so lifeless. I am sorry I rushed the whole process. There was no time to decide on pictures.   In your case this may be a remembrance that you were there for his  final moments and honored your life together, both before & after.  I may regret not doing this later.

Flash knew that you loved him and tried your very best to help him enjoy life;  in sickness & in health.  I have been told their spirits stay very close to us after death and he most certainly is aware of your grief.  He is probably trying to tell you there is nothing to forgive; I had a great life because someone really loved me.  I work at a Humane Society & so many people dump their cats if they become the least bit inconvenient.  Ours knew that their time with us was treasured. 

I was so shocked by his end that I could not stop sobbing.  The animal communicator send me a message a little later and said "he is fine, off playing right now.  This is what Flash is probably doing as well!

I am so sorry Cataan. I got your pets names mixed up and thought you were talking about one cat.

Hey everyone; I appreciate the thoughts and comments.

Flash was the first cat I'd ever lost (2010).  I was sad, and it took a year to let go, but I accepted that he was an old man with genetic heart disease.  We all get old and we all die.  He lived a long, happy life and I did everything I could to prolong it (16 months of medication and hospital visits) but ultimately his "ticker" wore out.

Back, on the other hand, well, there was nothing wrong with him.  He didn't need to go to the vet; I overreacted.  He was a very anxious and scared animal in general.  A knock on the neighbor's door would send him into hiding under my dresser for 8 hours.  No exaggeration.  I don't know why he was so easily scared.  But I do know that he was terrified of the cat carrier.  Whenever he was put into it, for any reason, he would howl and howl and howl in fear.  Thing is, I had never put him in it while he was in distress.

For weeks he had been having bad, three inch hairballs (he was long-haired), crying about them and even beginning to scream before spitting them up, but afterwards it was like nothing happened - he was totally fine.  I didn't realize it but there was less and less fluid with the hair balls - imagine trying to vomit up a hairball without any fluid in which to vomit it up.  It would be very painful. So, that night he was crying about a hairball and I decided we were going to the vet.  In the back of my mind I told myself to wait until he first spit it up because I didn't want to stress him out, but I didn't wait.  I put him in the carrier and the moment I did he screamed and started howling and howling and howling. 

Instead of howling all the way to the vet, though, this time he stopped, which was unusual, and I called his name a couple times -- he whimpered in response.  And then his breathing became labored.  Apparently he was DOA.  CPR resuscitated him, he was intubated, then a few minutes later went back into cardiac arrest and could not be brought back.

The first thought is this is an obvious case of HCM.  Case closed.  Except he had a cardiac ultrasound after he was brought back and the ultrasound was completely normal.  He was hooked to an ECG -- normal sinus rhythm and normal heart rate.  He was apparently very dehydrated, so much so that his jugular vein could not be accessed for a blood sample as the veins had constricted too much, but the vet said he wasn't so dehydrated that he would suddenly drop dead (he had no prior symptoms like lethargy or anything at all except the bad, dry hairballs).  This dehydration would explain the very difficult hairballs and lack of vomit/fluid.  An x-ray after he died showed no internal bleeding and no fluid build-up anywhere.  It did, however, show a hairball in his stomach.

Putting him into the carrier while in distress from the hairball scared him to death.  Why he went back into cardiac arrest after he was revived is unknown.  He was described as being "unresponsive" after being revived, so maybe his brain was deprived of oxygen for so long that he could not hold on.  Or, maybe being intubated while conscious was yet another infliction of fear and distress on him and, again, he went into cardiac arrest.  There is no way of knowing.  But what caused this whole escapade was me putting him in the carrier when he was distressed about that hairball.  I should have just waited 30 seconds for him to spit it up.

That's why I blame myself for his death.

Oh, Cataan. I am so so sorry. I am so sorry that you lost Back, and I am so sorry that you're feeling such guilt about this.

How tragic and awful. Please, please stop punishing yourself for this. I'm going to take your word for it that Back's heart attack was from fear of the carrier, and I understand why you would feel responsible, but I hope you'll listen when I say that any wise, loving person would have done the exact same thing you did in your situation. There is no way any reasonable person could have forseen what happened to Back. Beyond that, there is no way any exceptionally educated, exceptionally insightful person could have forseen what happened to Back. No one without magical powers to see the future could have known.

My best friend told me, when I was abusing myself over the death of my beloved cat, that guilt is your mind's way of trying to make sense of how terrible you feel. You feel awful, you loved Back and you miss him so much, and your brain is trying to logically account for your incredible grief, and the only thing logical it can come up with is that this is your fault. It is -not-. Please stop listening to that voice. It's not helping you. It's not helping Back. It's not teaching you any lessons. There is nothing meaningful and useful you can take away from this. All it's doing is making you hurt more than you already do, and you hurt enough.

The only point of guilt is to teach you to do better next time. How could you do better? Is doing better to let your cat scream in pain and not try to get him to someone who can help? I really hope not. I hope that you always follow your instinct that tells you to help when someone under your care is suffering. You did what you did because you are a loving, responsible pet owner. Don't punish yourself for that.

Well sad, Flowerdew!

Catann

Anyone would have rushed their cat to the vet under these circumstances!  Did the vet say that this was the cause?  I did just a little reading on the internet and could not find any reference to cats having heart attacks due to stress.  Could it have been a stroke?  I will read more tomorrow and see what I can find but right now have to go to bed.

PS  I called the Aspca hotline tonight and would recommend you call them.

Well, keep in mind that a heart attack and cardiac arrest are different things.  Cardiac arrest is sudden cessation or arrhythmia of the heart, which is what happened to Back.  Unless there is underlying heart disease it will be the result of some external factor like electricity, poison, massive stress, lack of potassium due to severe dehydration, massive blood loss from a wound, etc. Back did not have any kind of heart disease.

Normally, fear/stress won't cause cardiac arrest in a cat (though it can in smaller animals which have smaller hearts like rabbits, birds, etc.), but because Back was dehydrated his veins were constricted and his heart had shrunk a bit to compromise for lower overall blood volume (less water = less volume).  So, the massive stress was too much given the extra work his heart had to endure.  Unfortunately, what was stressful for him was, for most cats, completely irrelevant.  Pizza delivery?  Any other cat would be like no big deal.  Back would be hiding under my bed until the following day.

What did the vet say?  She said he has no idea why he went into cardiac arrest, either before or after he was revived.  Said she had never seen anything like it (she is a critical care veterinarian at an 24 hour emergency hospital - I went there because it was Sunday after 6 p.m. so there was nowhere else to go) because there were no signs diagnostically that there was anything wrong with him.  And I can attest that he was absolutely fine all day and all preceding days.  Plus, the timing of his scream was the moment I put him in the carrier followed by his incessant wailing and howling.  It just points to me as setting the ball in motion.

Oh, Catann, I am just so sorry for your pain & guilt.  I am not a vet, but many times not even vets can figure out the cause of death without an extensive autopsy and I doubt if this would have helped you at the time. Your Back knew he was very loved & well cared for.  Seeing a cat in distress would cause anyone to act as you did.  Whatever happened, you can not keep blaming yourself for things you had no control over.  Someone here told me to think about his life, not death, and celebrate the good times.  It has only been 1 week for me and I have been trying to relive the wonderful memories I have of my Rizzo.  This causes me to start sobbing but it is better than thinking about all the regrets and things I should have done differently at the end.

Think about him on the other side; playing, running in the grass, chasing mice with no fear or pain. 

As I mentioned, I talked with the ASPCA last night.  I think they will be able to help you, as well as using the forum.  It was so nice to talk in person with someone  who understands our loss.

Take care & keep us posted on how you are doing.

No matter how it ends for our fur babies, if we are the last ones with them in the end, we all feel guilt.  There's no one else around to blame, so we blame ourselves.  Whether it's because we feel we could or should have done more, or not done enough, or done the wrong thing, the list goes on.  We react because we are programmed to react to an emergency situation.  Afterward, when things turn for the worse, we question everything we did in the heat of the moment, and then begin to blame ourselves.  We start replaying everything we think we did wrong in our minds.  You could not possibly have known what was going to happen to Back.  You felt his life was in danger, so you did the right thing by trying to seek emergency help for him.  You did this out of love.  Words cannot make your pain and guilt go away, only time can help that.  Please just try to tell yourself that you did what you felt was right at the time because you loved Back so much.  I still carry guilt over having to make the decision to let my Tabby go, but I am so weary of the torture I have put upon myself that I try to remember that I did the very best I could at the time, and the rest was simply out of my control.  I acted out of pure love for my Tabby, and second guessing my decisions is only hurting me more.  Try to replace the thoughts in your head with more positive thoughts about the time you both shared together.  Eventually those thoughts will outweigh the negative thoughts you are carrying around right now.  I hope you can find some peace.

I took  photos of Boots in the little wooden box (with a collar and two toys) my pop built for him when we had to put him down due to cancer. He's buried in a garden patch in our yard with a cat statue over it. 
I didn't with Scoot. As she was an outside cat it took us a while to realize she couldn't open her mouth. A vet visit revealed she had cancer in her ear that had traveled down to her jaw, locking it. They did what they could for the night. I forget why I couldn't be there at the vet's when my Gran called. Work I think. While I'd have liked to have been there, I said for them not to wait for me. Scoot had been starving for a few days and I figured she needed peace as soon as possible. My being there would've been for myself at that point.

I haven't taken pictures.  But that doesn't mean I am against it.  My heart goes out to you.  You did not cause your cat's death in any way; you were only trying to help.  I feel so bad for you...I wish I could say something to make you feel better, if only a little.  Guilt seems to get all of us who love and care.