Sad news — the body of Kevin Drum’s cat Inkblot was found last night. Inkblot has graced his blog every Friday for a very long time, and he’ll be missed.
Inkblot RIP
by @heymistermix.com| 46 Comments
This post is in: Absent Friends, RIP
Inkblot RIP
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Maude
Inkblot will be missed.
Valdivia
That made me very sad when I read it. My cats are indoor cats and have always been (except for one time when one jumped out of our window in nyc–awful roommate left windows open—and landed in a scaffold and I had to jump after him to save him) but I have many friends with outside cats and I always get scared when their cats go missing. Will miss Inkblot.
ArchTeryx
@Valdivia: Inkblot was actually an indoor cat. He basically made a run for an open door and escaped outside. Though he didn’t go very far, Irvine’s infamous for coyotes, and one of them killed Inkblot.
Valdivia
@ArchTeryx:
yes sorry my post made it seem I thought Inkblot was an outside cat. Just thinking of the shortened life spans of cats outside. Truncated thought. It makes it even worse because it was that unlucky escape.
ArchTeryx
@Valdivia: Unlucky to say the least. Many places, he probably would have reappeared in a matter of days at the door as if nothing had happened; lots of escaped indoor cats will go walkabout, but eventually return. It’s just that in that part of CA, cats are not the top predator, and any cat that gets out quickly ends up coyote food. :/
Valdivia
@ArchTeryx:
I know. My good friend who lives in NoVa has an outside cat who also goes walkabout for days and then returns looking like he has been to the wars. But as you say, in that area his adversaries are just other cats. Very sad. :(
jeffreyw
So sad. All of our cats spend the day in and out but Mrs J rounds them all up in the evening. They spend the nights in the house. We catch coyotes cruising through the yard pretty often.
debg
So sad for Inkblot and his family.
JCT
We just moved to a home in Tucson that is surrounded by desert and teeming with wildlife. One of our cats was an outdoor cat in NY and his conversion to an indoor cat has been rocky. But there is no way around it, if our cats get out they would not survive long.
I grew up in the canyons of LA, and lost several of our cats just like Inkblot – poor puss and poor Kevin.
John Cole
Goddamnit.
SiubhanDuinne
That’s so sad. Poor inkblot. Poor Drums.
Woodrowfan
aww, I’m so sorry….
schrodinger's cat
Poor kitteh, so sad…..
A kitteh of my friend’s got into a scrape with a raccoon, she was badly injured, lost half of her tail, but survived to tell the tale. This was in Maine.
@John Cole: How is our blog lord, Tunch. He must not be happy with all the repairs going on.
Bobby Thomson
That sucks.
JPK
I’ve been reading Drum for nearly 10 years and felt like I knew that cat. It hurts to hear this news. I’m so sorry for Drum and his family. Inkblot is already missed and will be for a long time.
merl
I’ve had two old cats who just disappeared when they got real sick and were about to die. It’s like they just wanted privacy or to spare me from finding them
Chat Noir
I’ve been worried all weekend about Inkblot since I saw the post Friday about his disappearance. I feel so bad for the Kevin Drum and his family. I have three indoor-only cats and I would be out of my mind with worry if any of them went missing.
RIP, Inkblot. You wait for your family at the Rainbow Bridge.
Ash Can
What a shame. At least he was found, and there’s closure. Condolences to the Drum family.
Garbo
Inkblot and Jasmine were the founding felines of cat blogging Fridays, back in the Calpundit days. He should be remembered as such. So Sorry for Kevin and Marion.
Tokyokie
When I lived in Tennessee, I lost a couple of cats to a friggin neighbor’s dogs. (The neighbor would let his dogs run loose at night — government leash laws I’m sure were impinging on his right for his dogs to knock over everybody’s trash on garbage day — and they’d form a pack with a neighborhood stray.) It wasn’t until I talked to kids in the neighborhood after the kitties went missing, and literally pulled Kevin Shapiro Cat Orphan from the maw of the lead dog on my front porch, that I figured out what had happened.
The trouble ended a few weeks later when my all-time favorite kitty, Cat 9 From Outer Space, killed the lead dog. But nowadays, the kitties stay inside (although we’ll sometimes take Marvin the Siamese out on a leash). Pretty sure the neighbor in the back has pit bulls, and I doubt even Cat 9 could deal with one of those.
Tokyokie
@merl: Cats, when they’re really sick, will hide. Knowing they’ve lost the ability to defend themselves, they’ll find a hidey hole as a means of protection. Years ago, when my beloved Cat 9 hadn’t slept in his usual place — curled around the top of my head — for a couple of nights, I found him at the back of a shelf in a dark corner of the apartment. His liver was shot, and he had to be put down.
Rosalita
Aw this breaks my heart.
khead
RIP, Inkblot.
I had never seen a coyote up close before this year. One morning this critter comes walking out of the woods behind our house, walks up to about 5 feet from a basement window and looks right at me. Then sits there for a few minutes. No fear.
rikyrah
sorry for him. Not a pet owner , but I feel for Drum
Elizabelle
So sad this didn’t have a happier ending.
Appreciate Kevin’s letting us know what happened. RIP Inkblot.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
RIP Inkblot.
gogol's wife
I’m so, so sorry. I know how painful this is. It happened to three of my cats over the years, in daylight (they were always brought in at night), so the cats I have now are always inside, and thank God, they show no interest in escaping. My heart goes out to him.
danielx
@jeffreyw:
Yup – during the day they can come and go as they please, but at night they are in the house before we go to bed. I’ve seen several coyotes in the neighborhood, but they generally take cover once it’s fully light and people are up moving around. We’re being even more careful right now because with the drought, predators of all sorts (coyotes, hawks, etc) are having a harder time feeding.
Maude
@John Cole:
This.
Kristine
I am so sorry to hear this.
I live in a small town on the edge of a wilderness preserve. Late at night, I can hear the coyotes yip. Occasionally I will see one during the day, but they stay out of sight for the most part. I have seen fox trot down the middle of my street in broad daylight, though. The coyotes mostly stick to the bike trail and walking paths.
When I see signs posted for a cat or small dog that has gone missing, I fear the worst.
CaseyL
I’ve read Drum since his Calpundit days, when Inkblot and Jasmine graced the masthead. This news hurt like losing an old friend. Much, much sympathy to Kevin and Marion.
Jennifer
The coyotes are literally everywhere these days. I was one of the first to see them after they moved into Little Rock, way back in the early 90’s. I bring kitty in before going to bed, even though none of the coyotes have ever been spotted in the neighborhood.
But coyotes aren’t the only danger in the dark for our pets. Thursday evening, I had been on the back porch watching Eartha loll in the grass about 30 minutes before dark; 30 minutes – an hour after dark she came to the door wanting in, and was acting very strange. She kept walking from one spot to another and seemed unable to settle down and get comfortable. 30 minutes after she came in, I find her lying on the bed, which is odd – she never gets into bed before 11:00. Then I notice there’s a spot on her left shoulder where the fur is matted and it looks like she’s been licking it. I touch it, and she yowls. So I figured she had scrapped with another cat who got a tooth or claw in pretty deep, even though I couldn’t see a wound. 30 minutes after that, I come back and now she’s on the pillow in a contorted position, with that left front leg twisted up under her, and she’s got her head hanging down off the edge of the pillow like she does when she’s having a hard time breathing from an asthma attack. Now I was really freaking out, thinking she might have been bitten by a snake. But after a quick check on the internet and not seeing the swelling that’s associated with snakebite, I decided to just watch her, and if she got any worse, to call the emergency vet clinic. So I had set my alarm clock to go off every hour during the night; I would get up and check her, and she wasn’t getting any worse though I don’t think I’ve ever seen her looking that uncomfortable before. By morning she was sitting normally and ready to eat.
I couldn’t figure out what had happened, until I talked to my mom and she said, “maybe she got stung by something.” Well, what? Wasps, bees, etc. are not active after dark. Then when I look online, I find lots of information about cats stung by scorpions, and yes, we have one species of those here, and yes, they are active at night. All the symptoms matched up. But oh my god, I can’t imagine how much pain she must have been in; from what I’ve heard, scorpion sting is one of the most painful things to go through. I told her, “I hope you got a good look at that thing so you’ll know to stay away from the next one you see!” I never did figure out exactly where she got stung – it was probably on the paw or lower leg, and she was licking at that shoulder because of the pain radiating up the nerves. I just hope she never gets stung again.
Maude
@CaseyL:
I imagine Domino is wondering where that cat she doesn’t like is hiding.
I hope they get another rescue cat.
I hope that our hearts going out to Keven and Marian (Marion?) has some small comfort for them.
Mnemosyne
@Garbo:
I could not remember Jasmine’s name yesterday for the life of me, so thanks.
The coyotes are pretty thick around So Cal lately. When I was at the vet a few weeks ago, some people brought their small dog in for a follow-up visit — it had been attacked by a coyote in their fenced-in backyard. They managed to scare the coyote away and save their pet, but it was pretty terrifying for them. The dog was there to have the drain taken out of its wounds and looked pretty peppy even after having gone through such an ordeal.
John Weiss
@Jennifer: Many years ago I lived with my parents, brother and the magnificent kitty Lilly, an ‘old fashioned’ Siamese, outside of Austin, TX. Crazy wonderful cat. Well, central Texas has plenty of scorpions.
Lilly somehow developed a taste for them. Usually the cat came out on top: she was fast enough to bite the sting off and then happily crunch scorpion. Occasionally the scorpion ‘won’ and she’d show up with half of her face twice the size of the other. But, she never quit her scorpion habit.
Cats.
rickstershierpa
@Valdivia: Actually, no. There are foxes, racoons, and coyotes are moving into VA. There is even an occasional bear. And of course cars. One of our five cats is (or big tom, much like Inkblot, is an outside cat. Fortunately, he is also a good tree climber. But every morning I hold my breath to see if he comes home. One day, he won’t I expect, and it will break my heart. But being outside now is essential to him, so I grant him his choice.
RIP Inkblot. Mr. Drum, you will have the memories and I understand the pain. It never really quite passes.
daize
Oh, how heartbreaking. Condolences to Kevin and his family.
Yutsano
@CaseyL: Your absence has been conspicuous wonderful! Not to make light of a sad thread, but new meet-up plans mid-August, still finalizing the day. Details coming!
Wrye
Fuck coyotes.
Greed Is God
I am so saddened to see this happen to Inkblot, and so sorry to Kevin for his loss.
We have 4 indoor cats, all feral, two from the shelter and two brothers that I trapped on my porch when they were kittens.
Somehow the brothers survived their infancy from our area’s raccoons and occasional coyotes that have slaughtered many of our landlord’s chickens and also harrassed his goat to death.
A couple of our cats managed to sneak outside, fortunately to come back that same evening, except one time when one was lost for weeks. I eventually trapped him — on the day I was scheduled to return the trap I borrowed.
So I always freak out when one of our cats escapes. But I have bought my own trap to have handy in case one of them does.
Oh, and coyotes are not even the top of the predator chain in our area.
This gal is: nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Mountain-Lion-Spotted-Near-UCs-Greek-Theater-163617046.html
RedKitten
That is so sad. My heart goes out to them.
Last week, we were driving to town, and were behind an Acura on a twisty country road. We saw a cat dart out from the shoulder, and my heart leaped into my throat, as I hoped that it would run back at the last second. It didn’t — the tire knocked it sideways and it stumbled and hobbled away, several bones obviously broken. The bitch who hit it never even slowed down. I pulled over and looked for it, but it had already crawled into the woods. I didn’t know whether or not to go into the woods and look for it — alone and pregnant, tangling with an injured, possibly feral cat…well, I was pretty torn. I wound up turning back to the car after calling for it for awhile with no luck. It haunts me to this day.
I’ll never have a cat. Not only because I’m allergic, but because it’s pretty much impossible to keep them onto your own property. My mom’s cat went missing last year, and then after seeing this, it firmly cemented my decision to never again be a cat owner.
FlipYrWhig
We have a big black and white cat who isn’t doing too well lately, so this story is upsetting me in multiple ways today. Damn time and aging, you cruel sick bastards.
kc
I am SO sad about this. I’ve been admiring the mighty Inkblot since Kevin’s Calpundit days.
WaterGirl
After Martin spotted Inkblot, I was so hopeful that he would make it home. This is just heartbreaking.
burnspbesq
We don’t see coyotes down in the flat part of Orange, but they are ubiquitous in the hilly parts east of here.
Laettner likes to be out at night, but she doesn’t go far and she’s got an easy way up onto the roof if she needs to escape from something bigger than her.
Soprano2
That is so sad, my heart goes out to them. I’ve got a young black cat with white under the chest who wants to go outside, even though I don’t want him to. Because my husband is home during the day I agreed to let the cat go out during the day, but I insist that he come in at night. So far he’s staying in the yard, but I live in fear that one day he’ll figure out how to go over the chain link fence. I’m hoping when it gets colder (someday that will happen, I keep telling myself) he’ll decide he doesn’t want to go out anymore. He lived outside for the first three months of his life – I rescued him and his mother after a neighbor across the street moved and left them behind. I guess that’s why he wants out, he remembers liking it and doesn’t understand the dangers. His mother shows no sign of ever wanting to go outside again.