My cat Tigger just had a stroke.

I find it difficult to concentrate on my blog, or anything else, because my beloved cat just had a stroke. The veterinarian calls the condition vestibular disease, and Tigger seems to be unbalanced, both physically and mentally.

My beautiful daughter, a former Little Miss Bayshore, found Tigger at a Bayshore, Ottawa park in the year 2000, when he was only a few weeks old:

My daughter after winning the "Little Miss Bayshore" beauty pageant.

 Tigger follows me everywhere---when I watch t.v., he sits beside me on the sofa, and when I wash the dishes, he sits on the counter. When Tigger suffered a stroke he was drooling and his eyes were quickly darting back and forth, and I thought he had rabies, even though he has been inoculated against the disease. 

The vet knew right away what was wrong with Tigger - vestibular disease - and he was prescribed cat sedatives and from now on he has to eat geriatric cat food. My family jokingly said "The tranquilizers are for the cat, not for you"; and I had to find a baby gate to keep him from falling down the stairs. And I surrounded my bed with pillows, so he wouldn't get hurt when he flopped off the bed.

I have always admired celebrities who love animals. An actress named Sandy Dennis lived in Connecticut with her mother, three dogs and 37 cats. Sandy Dennis acted in several movies, including "The Fox" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff" and she died of cancer at a relatively young age.

Elizabeth Taylor rented a 120-foot yacht for her four dogs, and moored it on the Thames River because the United Kingdom had strict quarantine laws.

Mickey Rourke buries his beloved dogs at pet cemeteries. He is currently filming "Dead in Tombstone" in Romania, and has already adopted one dog, and plans to build a pet shelter in Romania.

 Tigger is recovering slowly, although one of his eyelids is droopy, and he is still uncoordinated when he walks.The oldest living cat in the world is Pinky, who was born in 1989 and lives with her caretakers in Hoyt, Kansas. (From:The Guinness World Records 2013).

I hope Tigger lives even longer than Pinky; Pinky had cancer and conquered the disease, so Tigger may have a chance at longevity.