{"id":93,"date":"2011-07-04T10:09:51","date_gmt":"2011-07-04T14:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/?p=93"},"modified":"2011-07-06T13:50:12","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T17:50:12","slug":"puff-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2011\/07\/puff-ball.html","title":{"rendered":"Puff Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>Is it possible to get too close to your pet?\u00a0 My favorite cat, Puff Ball, was the most loving animal I have ever known.\u00a0 He had beautiful long white fur and his eyes were two different colors, one blue, one yellow.\u00a0 He would sit on\u00a0my lap\u00a0for hours in the evening.\u00a0 When I went to bed he would race me to the bed.\u00a0 Then\u00a0he would get as close as possible to my head and flop right on my face.\u00a0 I didn’t mind because that was\u00a0 ‘kitty love’.\u00a0 Puff could nuzzle and purr with the best.\u00a0 He was definitely my snuggle bunny.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then he stopped grooming himself and wasn’t eating or drinking as much as usual.\u00a0 I took him to the vet and he spent five days in the ‘kitty hospital’.\u00a0 I brought him home on a Sunday to wait for the biopsy results.\u00a0 When the vet called, the news was not good.\u00a0 Puff had a cancerous mass in his abdomen.\u00a0 It was wrapped around his intestines and he was going into kidney and liver failure.\u00a0 He was also slowly starving to death because his food couldn’t get past the mass.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 There was nothing that could save him except a miracle.\u00a0 I prayed for that miracle, but to no avail.\u00a0 When the vet put him down, I held him in my arms and wept like a baby as he breathed his last breath.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I know that God loves animals.\u00a0 Otherwise, why would He have created so many kinds of them and each with a special personality all their own?\u00a0 I know God understands my broken heart.\u00a0 I know His grace is sufficient for me.\u00a0 So why does it hurt so bad?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>It has been six months now and I still wait for someone to race me to bed.\u00a0 My other cats try to fill in for Puffy, but it just isn’t the same.\u00a0 I miss him terribly, but I couldn’t let him suffer any longer.\u00a0 I can’t believe that I loved that little fur ball so much.\u00a0 I still get misty eyed when I think of him.\u00a0 He was my baby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is it possible to get too close to your pet?\u00a0 My favorite cat, Puff Ball, was the most loving animal I have ever known.\u00a0 He had beautiful long white fur and his eyes were two different colors, one blue, one yellow.\u00a0 He would sit on\u00a0my lap\u00a0for hours in the evening.\u00a0 When I went to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[15,23],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","tag-caring-for-our-pets","tag-pets"],"yoast_head":"\nPuff Ball - Small Town America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2011\/07\/puff-ball.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Puff Ball - Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is it possible to get too close to your pet?\u00a0 My favorite cat, Puff Ball, was the most loving animal I have ever known.\u00a0 He had beautiful long white fur and his eyes were two different colors, one blue, one yellow.\u00a0 He would sit on\u00a0my lap\u00a0for hours in the evening.\u00a0 When I went to…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2011\/07\/puff-ball.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-04T14:09:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-06T17:50:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2011\/07\/IMG_0127-294x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dhanny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Puff Ball - 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