On February 24, 2007 my cat Emmy died.

She was my first cat, you see I have always been more of a dog person. She came to me as a stray. I didn’t pay anything for her. She was a gift from God. I was standing in my kitchen that day and I heard a knock on the sliding glass door. I looked down and there she was. I had never even seen this cat-thing before, at my house, or yard, or even in the neighborhood. She came in. I thought “ what the heck?” I always keep my front door open during the day so that I don’t have to get up from my home office to let my dogs in and out. The dogs came in the front door. And that cat ran like a cougar and chased them right out of their own house. I nodded. I was impressed. I said to her, OK, you can stay and she did.

Everyone got along fine, even though my dogs Daisey and Pepper never really forgave me . They had “cat issues” and always stayed their distance. Since I never had a cat before, I treated her like a dog, literally. She came for biscuits, she could sit and stay, but unlike my dogs, she was picky about what she would eat. After trying out different types of cat food, we settled on Sophisticat Supreme, cuts and gravy style food. All Flavors. When I sent others to buy food at PetsMart for my pets, I would make them take a photo which I had taken of the exact cans of the flavors she WOULD eat. That is just how it was.

When Emmy quit eating her food, I became suspicious that something wasn’t right. Even though she was a little thing, she had always been a voracious eater. I bought her some food at a country store the next day, but she wouldn’t touch that either. She was listless, depressed, her tail wasn’t swaggering as usual. Sometimes it would appear that she was just staring off into space. Her walk was the biggest clue that she was in trouble. She walked tenderly around the house, as if on eggshells. No jumping, chasing dogs, sitting on my keyboard, or begging for pets. I swooped her up and took her to her Vet. I thought for sure that it was just an upset stomach. After 3 hours, the vet called worried and said that Emmy was EXTREMELY dehydrated and thin. She was not responding to any of the fluid therapy- they were dumbfounded. Off to the emergency room we went.

Within one hour her situation got worse - her blood pressure had dropped from 90-40, her heart was racing off the charts, nothing they did made any difference. I brought her the pillow she liked to sleep on,. I brought her my I-pod so she could listen to pleasant sounds.  I begged for medical pain relief as she lying. crying in pain, then staring as if blind, then suddenly pushing off the oxygen mask and IV’s. She suffered and she died Ten hours and $2,000. Later Emmy became Menu Food’s victim # 11.

I'm begging you. Please don’t Emmy’s life be in vain. Please help us change the law - so that the pet industry will be liable for their carelessness, and therefore Safer for us ALL.

RIP Emmy.