The pain of watching the pet you love grow old By Jane Shilling Jane Shilling and her beloved yet ageing cat, Caspar For my sonâ€™s ninth birthday, I gave him a kitten. I grew up with a succession of much-loved moggies, so I knew that we would be taking on a big responsibility. But I missed having an animal about the place, and when Alexander said he wished that we had a pet, I took him at his word. His birthday was a month away when I saw a card on a newsagentâ€™s notice-board offering kittens free to good homes. I rang the number, visited the family whose beautiful black cat had recently produced a litter, and convinced them that we would be responsible owners. All young cats are adorable, but Caspar, as we called him, was particularly sweet: sooty-black, except for a tiny frill of white hairs at his neck, with huge, jade-green eyes. He sat calmly in his cat basket and purred throughout the journey home. When we reached our house, I opened the front door a little way, then tipped the kitten gently out of his basket so that he could walk into the front room where Alexander was waiting. The kitten looked at his new home, while Alexander looked at the kitten. And after a pause he said: â€˜Where are we going to bury him when he dies? There isnâ€™t room in our garden.â€™ To say that I was taken aback doesnâ€™t begin to describe it. Where was the delight in this new addition to our family? The excitement that Iâ€™d been expecting? The cries of, â€˜Isnâ€™t he sweet!â€™? Later that evening I worked out where all this stuff about burials had come from. At Alexanderâ€™s grandparentsâ€™ house there was a patch of ground where a succession of beloved pets had been laid to rest over the years. There wasnâ€™t space for a similar arrangement in our own little garden â€" hence the anxiety. At the time, Alexanderâ€™s concern for the end of the kittenâ€™s life struck me as vaguely macabre. But now, 13 years later, I think he had a point. For when you take on a companion animal, especially if it is still a baby, it is easy to forget that you will almost certainly outlive it, and that youâ€™ll have to cope with all the difficulties â€" the infirmity and sorrow, not to mention the expense â€" that old age involves. From having no animals for more than a decade, Jane Shilling became responsible for a black cat and a grey mare in the space of a couple of weeks Caspar wasnâ€™t the only animal to join our menagerie in the winter of 2000. I had begun learning to ride a few years earlier and now I thought it was time to get a horse of my own. â€˜Weâ€™ll go to Ireland,â€™ said my instructor, Mrs Rogers, discarding the possibility of finding a horse closer to home. A couple of weeks later I was in Lismore, clambering onto the back of a mud-caked grey mare in a field full of thistles. Mrs Rogers watched us for a couple of circuits and delivered her verdict: â€˜Too sharp for you,â€™ she said. â€˜Get off now. Weâ€™ll find you something quieter.â€™ I got off, but as we left the yard I glanced back and saw the mare looking at me with what seemed like entreaty in her fine, dark eyes. Something about that look caught my heart. I bought her, deciding to keep her in livery at a stables near home. The Irish dealer didnâ€™t know her name, so I called her Molly. From having no animals for more than a decade, Iâ€™d become responsible for a black cat and a grey mare in the space of a couple of weeks. All new relationships have their complications, and ours were no exception. Caspar grew into a magnificent adult â€" the sort of large black feline that persuades excitable tourists on Exmoor that theyâ€™ve seen an escaped panther. After struggling with her for several months, I realised I had bought myself in equine form He was fiercely territorial, and he considered Alexanderâ€™s bedroom his territory. He used to sit on the landing, hissing like a kettle when poor Alexander tried to get past him â€" a habit that earned him the nickname of â€˜the stair trollâ€™. Molly proved to be an even bigger handful. Groomed, clipped and put through her paces by Mrs Rogers, she turned out to be a talented part-thoroughbred with a difficult temperament. She was highly strung and given to brooding lengthily on failure. After struggling with her for several months, I realised I had bought myself in equine form. My friends urged me to sell her and find an easier horse, but I couldnâ€™t bring myself to do it. For all their quirks, I had come to love both Caspar and Molly, and I couldnâ€™t imagine life without either of them. As the years passed and my son grew into a bolshy teenager and then a young man, towering over me and setting off for university 500 miles away, Molly and Caspar didnâ€™t seem to change at all. Deeply familiar, much-loved, they became an essential part of our family story. When Alexander went to university, it was the animals that saved me from the shock of the empty nest. For 18 years, my boy and I had been so close that I might have been overcome by loneliness when he left. But the black cat and the grey horse still needed me â€" and I needed them more than ever. We were all middle-aged by now, but while I noticed my own grey hairs and wrinkles, the animals didnâ€™t seem to get any older. They were still beautiful, still bad-tempered â€" and in Mollyâ€™s case, still up for a headlong gallop. The change, when it came, was shockingly sudden. One day this autumn, I noticed that Caspar was looking unusually thin. A visit to the vet confirmed that he had a thyroid problem. The recommended treatment was an operation, or an implant of radioactive iodine. The latter would involve a month-long stay in a special clinic. In the meantime, we could try to stabilise him with medication. â€˜He could have another few years yet,â€™ said the vet, meaning to be kind. A couple of weeks later, I was cantering Molly on her favourite hill, but she didnâ€™t hurtle up it in her usual Cheltenham Gold Cup style. I got off. She was lame. Another visit from a different vet confirmed that she had damaged a ligament. It could have happened any time, said the vet. The ligament might heal with some months of rest, but her galloping days were over. At best, it would be walk and trot from now on. In her head Molly is still a feisty, beautiful, outstandingly talented three-year-old It seemed a bleak future for an alpha mare who had always wanted to be in front. Having lived with these two beloved creatures for 13 years, I find myself thinking with deep sadness about the endgame. Twice a day I give Caspar a little orange pill (amazingly, he is quite willing to swallow them, so with luck we may have some more good times together). In my handbag, sachets of the equine painkiller Bute nestle next to the mascara and mobile phone. These days, instead of riding Molly, I take her for gentle walks on a lead-rope. It isnâ€™t easy. In her head she is still a feisty, beautiful, outstandingly talented three-year-old. I keep a firm grip on the rope as we march around the paddock, and I think how much she has changed my life since I first met her in that thistley Lismore field. She taught me so many worthwhile lessons: to be brave, to be patient, to laugh at myself, to get up off the ground and back in the saddle when I was hurt and humiliated. And now she has one last lesson to teach me, which is how to make the hardest call of all. In a few monthsâ€™ time, the vet will re-scan her damaged ligament. If it hasnâ€™t healed, the decision will have been made for me. If it has, Iâ€™ll have to balance my longing to keep my dear friend with a cool assessment of her quality of life. I have no way of explaining to her that she mustnâ€™t canter round the field or sheâ€™ll hurt her leg again. It may be that the best way to repay her for all those years of companionship and love is to send her off to those Elysian fields where Desert Orchid, Red Rum and every other brave, generous horse who ever lived has gone to gallop for all eternity.