I guess I've finally gotten around to posting here -- but this is actually older news. Some of it was happening right around the time of Aspen and Corky and the other losses, and I, for some reason, didn't want to add (or detract) from the better known and beloved members.
Ringo was Misha's dad. A Chow mix who's mother wandered up one day. He shared a birthday with ALOK's horse Legacy (he was born around the same time, and they used to play together), and was her papa's dog. He's had a growth on his side for a while, a sort of open weeping wound that with a lot of careful care had gotten much smaller and healthier and almost disappeared at times. He disappeared for 3 weeks and when he came back the growth was huge. It was tearing off and was infected. They'd taken him to the vet before and there was nothing they could afford to do about, and really no guarantee that it could be fixed. That was when it was manageable. The decision was made to put him down before it got worse or the infection spread or caused sepsis or something terrible. Ringo was well-loved and many tears were shed over this decision, but ALOK took him to the vets' he knew and they put him down on a Saturday. Ringo was, as far as we know, the last surviving member of Misha's family. He was beautiful (a total hard-ass too) and talkative. I haven't been down there recently, but it will be very strange not to hear him "aroo"ing at me and talking about his day, not to see him out in the horse pasture totally nonchalant. I saw him that Friday and pet him and told him goodbye, seeing the growth and seeing Ringo made me feel that that was really the right decision, even though it was hard since he was otherwise a healthy dog.
Marie -- the shelter-shocked cat. I'm not going to say she's passed, because I'm not sure. We spent months working with her and she made huge improvements when I came home. She was out and being social. She was laying with Misha, she was asking to be fed, and asking to be pet. But she was still very nervous and skittish, and I could see how her presence upset both Misha and Socks (cat). The plan was to move her into my new room to give her more space and interaction, to eventually allow her out around the house, and maybe back outside. She was housetrained though (not box trained, literally housetrained -- both she and her brother Pluto were, I don't know how they learned), and would sit at the garage door and cry to be let out. I let her out into the garage a few times, and on the back deck. She wanted to wander around outside, to explore, to see Socks, to really see the sun again. I let her outside in the front one afternoon. The plan was to sit out and give her stinky food for about five minutes then bring her back inside. Through a series of events the front door got closed and the high school jogging team came by scaring her (right as I was going to go get her, too). She flew by the front door and into the woods behind our house. I spent hours and days trying to find her, but in the woods I'd have no chance of catching her without her coming out. I put out food. I looked for her every night and day. I went to the shelter, the humane society once she'd crossed into real woods (there's a creek with a lot of trees on one side, then there are acres of forest on the other side of the house). I went to the humane society to look at all there black cats when I couldn't tell online. I called them about several others. She's been gone since August. Part of me hopes she's living with the feral cat colony that got her in trouble in the first place. Part of me can't stand to think that she has to be that terrified all the time. I still check the shelter's website, but no longer daily. I'm very sad she's gone, I feel super guilty (I was harassed on another forum about how I was handling her shell-shock, saying it'd be better to just let her outside than keep her in our bathroom; they didn't seem to be understanding of the situation and our house layout). I'm keeping a little hope she might wander up this winter, but I really can't say I'm holding my breath. I still check the shelter's page time and again, trying to see if I can find her -- but not knowing if a life here or euthanasia would really be better for her if she were captured again. It took five months for her to become a very skittish and neurotic cat, and that was with daily calming supplements. How long would it take her to recover a second time? And how much stress would her return cause the other animals? I feel like she's better somewhere else, I just wish I had handled her better and found her a new home where she could have been a normal cat, or even an insane one, without causing the stress and strain and distress I saw in my own house.