When a Pet Is Family: Grieving the Loss of Susie, the CatDog
On August 24th of this year, we said goodbye to my beloved Susie, the CatDog. Susie was everyone’s friend.
When we first went looking for another cat, we went to the county shelter. I always prefer to adopt from a shelter when I can. We went into the cat room where there happened to be several black and white cats. When I took Susie out of her kennel, she immediately snuggled in and started licking my forearm. As I walked past some of the other kennels, the other cats started hissing and growling but she didn’t even flinch. She just kept purring and licking my arm and I thought this cat would likely do well in a house with other pets.
We have always had multiple pets. At one point we had four dogs and two cats but at that particular moment, we had no cats, and the house felt incomplete for me. Susie was so comfortable in my arms so quickly, I knew she would be a great addition to our house, plus I loved her little black nose.
Susie became everyone's friend. She was very stubborn. She was always a snuggler. She spent that very first night in our home snuggled between my husband and I in between our pillows and she was always with us, like a dog. And, once Buddy, our 80-pound mountain dog stopped trying to eat her, they became best pals. one good bop on his nose from her was really all it took. They would chase each other around the house, and he’d put his nose under her belly and lift her up off the floor. She would get him back by jumping on his back and scare the heck out of him.
All our cats had always been indoor outdoor pets, and I was fairly certain that Jake met with a coyote or some other animal on that last night. I had been trying to get him to come in, but he was stubborn and that was the last time we saw him. I was heartbroken and if I could have gotten him to come in, or gone out there to catch him, I absolutely would have.So when we adopted Susie, I really wanted her to be an inside cat.
However, she made it very clear that was not going to work for her. By the time we adopted her from the shelter she had already been there a while due to a complication from her spaying surgery, so she was very keen to get out of that kennel. After she’d been here a few weeks she started making moves to the front door. I kept heading her off hoping she’d get the message but no. She ran out the door, up the tree in the front yard and turned to look at me, meowing, as if to say, “do you get it now?”
We made a deal that if she’d come in when it started to get dark, she could do what she wanted. And she certainly did. She became the neighborhood cat, and everyone knew her. There was even a man on a bicycle who was a distance rider, who told me he would plan his route so he’d end at our house so he could stop to see if Susie was around for a visit. He didn’t even live in our neighborhood!
She loved rolling in the dirt and sitting under that tree. Absolutely filthy she’d then insist on coming inside! She loved snuggling with her boys and, even though they don’t like at home anymore, she’d stop whatever she was doing to sit with (or on) them anytime they came over. Even towards the end, she’d get herself up and go sit by their feet, just to be with them. She was a dog in a cat’s body.
She freely went into other people’s houses to visit and often spent her days with my next-door neighbors, which we affectionately called Day Camp. She would have her breakfast and then go next door. They are retired and doted on her. She’d sleep in their front window and when she saw us walking the dogs later in the day, she’d hop up and go to their front door to be let out and come on the walk with us. And even though some evenings she could be extremely stubborn about coming in, she always did.
Then she got sick. Even with cats and hairballs, there is apparently never a good reason for a cat to be coughing. X-rays showed masses in her lungs. Six months earlier, she had x-rays for a bladder stone and her lungs were clear, so we knew we were likely dealing with an aggressive cancer. We were shocked at how complicated it was to get an appointment for her to be seen by a specialist. It literally took two weeks. We started her on homeopathic treatments, medication to increase her appetite and even an inhaler which she absolutely hated, but it helped. She was diagnosed with lymphoma, and her lungs were nearly half filled with tumors.
There were three options, none of them good and none that could cure her. One drug could potentially stop the cancer from growing but not reduce it. One could potentially shrink the tumors where they were but not stop new ones from forming. Neither drug had been tested for treating lung cancer in cats and the side-effects for both started with nausea and vomiting. Not great when you’re already struggling to breathe. Both of these options meant putting her in the carrier and taking her across town on a regular basis. She hated the carrier and she hated the car. I mean, really, if all you ever did in a car was get taken to vet appointments with shots and prodding, who could blame her?
We chose option three. We didn’t want to put her through treatments that offered so little hope. Perhaps if there had been any research at all to suggest a level of success with these drugs in cats with cancer, we might have made a different choice. We took her home and loved her as fully as we could.
We lost her a month later.
The absence of her presence in the house is enormous. I feel it every day, the other pets feel it as well.
So do my neighbors. I hated telling them she was ill and they would come over to visit when Susie wasn’t feeling up to going outside. Even towards the end, on days when she wanted to go out, we let her and watched as she slowly marched herself next door to her “daytime family.”
The heaviness in my heart is made heavier by the sadness of my neighbors and friends who loved Susie as much as we did and I find myself modifying my own grief to create a safe space for theirs. While I am so grateful they loved our girl I find myself comforting others while still struggling to navigate my own pain and loss.
Our pets bring out the best in us and for many people their loss deserves to be honored like any other. I know there are people who will say losing a cat is not the same as losing a spouse or a child and I get that. The thing is that grief is grief and there just isn’t some kind of equivalency. Every loss is different and every person grieves differently.
I made her picture be the home screen on my phone so I can see her sweet face all the time. It’s kind of a double-edged sword to be honest. I want to see her; I want to know she is still here but it’s hard. I couldn’t bear to put her food and water bowls away but I took all the medication and supplies we had for her and put them out of sight. I didn’t want to be reminded of her sickness. I wanted to remember her happy, loud purrs and her insistence in sitting on me or whatever I was working on. Honestly, all I had to do was rustle a paper on the couch and she was there to sit on it with one paw possessively on my leg, repeatedly making little puncture marks in my skin and the paper she was laying on.
That first day after she died, I was so productive. I kept busy and really got a lot of things done. The next day, the next week, all I could manage to do was lay on the couch, sleeping or mindlessly scrolling on my phone. Those cake-frosting videos are oddly comforting.
Now I have her ashes and at first, I thought I’d put them out front under the tree she loved so much but I don’t love the idea of her being always outside and not inside with us. Those evenings when she wouldn’t want to come in always sent my blood pressure up. The idea of keeping her always inside or splitting her up doesn’t feel right to me either. For now, I’m trying to do what I tell my grief coaching clients… take it one step at a time, one decision at a time and not feel like I have to do everything all at once. The right answer will come, eventually.
In the meantime, for me at least, it helps to stay connected to the people who loved Susie like we did. My friend Jane, like so many others, called Susie her friend. And that's really the thing. Our pets are our friends. They are beloved members of our families.
Even though we know the deal when we welcome them into our lives, that we're so likely to outlive them, we do it anyway because their love, their friendship and their companionship are so totally worth it.
I will be talking more about Susie and dealing with her passing on the next episode of my podcast, Beyond the Loss coming out on October 15th, 2026. Find Beyond the Loss wherever you get your podcasts.
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