Simba's Memorial Page

Simba was rescued from San Francisco Animal Care and Control on 9/19/94, after visiting room after room of caged kitties. Richelle was only 4 years old and I wanted
a kitty that she could hold and Simba seemed to like her.

Richelle and Simba became fast friends. Richelle had devised this game where she would charge through the dining room and into the living room and with a flying leap, land into "the big green chair" a very large leather piece of furniture. Simba thought this was great, and would "hide" under the dining room table, wait for her to zoom by, and leap out, charge after her and also with a flying leap land on top of her in the chair. He would grapple and nip at her, but Richelle laughed and didn't care. They would do this over and over until one of them tired.

Simba also became very found of Richelle's baby blanket and would cuddle with Richelle on the sofa, and knead her blanket. Simba would often knead Richelle's hair, too. When we went on vacation, I always left some of Richelle's clothes out so Simba could
smell her and feel more comfortable.

One time we came back from vacation and found that Simba had moved the tiny dollhouse family out of the doll house and had carried them into his bed! None of the furniture or other toys were touched, only the little people.

Labor Day weekend 1996, Simba was having difficulty breathing and I rushed him to Emergency. After many tests he was diagnosed with severe hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This came as quite a shock, since he had a good annual check-up less than 3 weeks before. Ultra-sound revealed that his left ventricle was in very poor shape. The chamber size was very small and his heart had very thick muscle mass. The prognosis was "a few months". We stayed close to home for several months until Simba's heart meds seemed to be turning him around.
He actually did quite well for awhile, and even played nurse maid to 4 month old Moses.

In August, 1997 Simba went into heart failure again. We manged to get him through it even though he had to live under the bed for a few days and be carried everywhere because
blood clotting had weakened his back legs.

On October 10, 1997 Simba's heart failed for the final time. He was in terrible pain, had lost all mobility in his back legs, and his lungs were very congested. After 4 hours of agonizing over it, we asked the vet to help him die.

Simba went to Rainbow Bridge at 1:30pm that afternoon.