Bunny Comes Into Our Lives
Daughter of Kitty-buns, granddaughter of Ghost Cat the Feral, sister to Baka, Dust Bunny has been in our lives since we picked her (the runt of her litter) in March 1993.

Tiny Buns as a kitten!
When we first got Bunny in Spring of 1993, her eyes were bright blue.

Tiny Buns in Sue’s lap
Even then, at about 5 weeks old, she wanted to go everywhere and get into everything..

Out of focus, Bunny plays with Sue’s shirt!

Baby Baka
Even as a baby, Baka didn’t have much of a kitten face. And he had discovered his great love: FOOD!

Bunny in Her Prime
She turned out to have the softest fur.

Smartest cat EVER. This was the one Sue taught all the tricks. Taught her to butt her head against the back of the sofa instead of Sue’s ribs. Taught her to stand on her hind legs and beg without raising her front paws. Taught her to jump across multiple bookshelves and back across large gaps of space, like a circus animal, and all for some kitty treats. She was extremely talky, and very opinionated, and always seemed to resent that she wasn't one of us people.

Bunny at Age Three
Buns as a young adult. Already "Queen of the House".

Buns' adult face - So serious!
Here she is, about age 8, in October 2001. She was a beautiful cream tabby, sometimes called "pink" or "lilac."

Beautiful Bunny
Another picture at age 8, but you can see her markings. She was a solid, 12-pound cat at this age, and loved any new toy we brought home - Until she got bored with it, 10 minutes later.

She’d been in our lives through a lot of events and changes.

Bunny’s Last Days
But over the last few years, she hasn’t been herself. She’s been suffering from a wasting disease. Now her suffering is over.

Bunny was first diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (a disorder that grades into a low-grade lymphoma) about a year ago, but was probably suffering for it for much longer before then. She was less than half the weight she was back three years ago or so, and a lot less energetic. She was treated with the anti-inflammatory prednisone ever since the diagnosis, and the anti-cancer drug Leukeran for much of that time. Over the past year she's had her good days and her bad days.

The Grumpus
Bunny’s grump face, one that we got to know well.

Bunny’s Last Day
Bunny and Sue together on April 19. That will always be "Bunny’s Couch".

A couple of weeks ago she started to go into one of her bad phases again. On Monday April 17 she had her worst day ever: startling amounts of diarrhea and vomiting. I ran her to her specialist (Dr. Nancy McGuire) who said we should up her dosage of prednisone, but that if she didn't improve that the only other step would be chemotherapy.

Since Bunny was 13 years old, and unhappy as it was, we thought that we'd rather have her put to sleep than have her suffer through the effects of chemo. Because she HATED going to the vet (even more than her brother does), we felt it better to do it at home. So Thursday April 20, Dr. Pat Kriemelmeyer (whom Sue knows from riding), came out.

But before then, we took Bunny and Baka (both normally inside-only cats) outside on Wednesday and Thursday. The weather was nice. We hope that as Bunny went to sleep she might have dreamed about chasing bugs or the feel of wind on her soft fur.

Bunny is gone now. We’ve buried her in a plot in the forest in our backyard.

We miss her already.

Tom & Sue