Our oldest cat is having declining health

Boots is our oldest cat. She adopted us about 11 years ago. I still remember the day she showed up on our doorstep. My daughter was 4 years old at the time and she even remembers what she was eating that day when Boots showed up.  We had 2 other cats at the time and both of them were part of the family before my daughter was born so neither one of them really liked the idea we had a new human in the house. They both avoided her attempts to make friends with them. Boots on the other hand loved my daughter.

Boots hung out for about 3 weeks and my daughter during that time had named her Boots and she was officially her cat. Then Boots disappeared. We figured she had gone back to where ever she came from. About 4 weeks later she showed up again and this time she was meowing for me to follow her. She took me out behind our hay barn and there in the underbrush was a litter of 4 kittens. Boots was now a mom.

After all of her kittens had new homes and Boots was fixed she lived the life of a farm cat. She tolorated our assortment of dogs and could fight their attentions off if she needed to. She always stuck close to the house and never did hang out much by the barn or the horses.

Just today I noticed how pathetically thin she is getting. I had to go to our bookshelf and grab a book called "The older cat" that I got several years ago during a book fair sale. Thumbing through the book I found some interesting information as well as stories about other older cats.

Boots will be missed when it comes her time but I am glad that she chose us instead of us choosing her.