When dogs and cats get sick, they don't complain. Instead, they may sleep more or eat less. Sadly, we often don't notice these subtle changes until their illness is serious. Then we wonder how we could have overlooked our pet's suffering.
This is exactly where Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) finds herself on the season opener of "The Closer," the TNT crime drama that started its fifth season a few weeks ago. "Why didn't I know this could happen?" she says when she learns her "Kitty" is very sick.
Pets are great at masking their pain, struggling quietly to keep up with us. It might seem like they will always be here, but they practically leave us over night. Over the last few episodes, "The Closer" has woven this emotional journey into the story line, from the moment Johnson realizes her cat is sick to the final moments when she is holding Kitty in her arms.
Kitty became part of "The Closer" in season one when Johnson reluctantly takes the feline in after the cat's owner is murdered. Since then, the show has introduced some valuable pet lessons, including the importance of sterilization and the anguish of searching for a lost pet. This year though, the real-life cat was diagnosed with kidney disease. Rather than replace Kitty on the show, James Duff, executive producer for "The Closer," wrote the cat's illness into the script.
"That just seemed like the honorable thing to do," Duff says. "Pets are part of the family."
Knowing the real cat was dying, however, had an unexpected and emotional impact on cast and crew. "I can tell you that there were lots of people weeping on the set, when she (Sedgwick) was going through the last scene with the cat," says Duff. "Her last moments with Kitty are so heart-rending."
What Duff didn't know until after the scripts were written and production had begun was that Sedgwick had put her own feline down over the hiatus. My guess is her personal pet loss generated real tears and grief while filming her television Kitty's final moments. The cast and crew — and every pet owner watching — could easily cry along with her, including Duff, who referred to the loss of his own dogs and cats as "devastating" and who nightly ponders the aging of his current 12-year-old dog Henry, who "pauses before going upstairs to make darn sure I am not coming back down, because he only wants to go up once," he says.
Jone Bouman, communications director for the American Humane Film & Television Unit says, "This is the first time we, who are on more than 1,000 productions a year, have heard of this kind of episodic story line in covering a pet's illness and death."
I was pleased to see a television show delve into the universal moment all pet owners share. We readily accept the joy of our pet's friendship, knowing all the while the heartache that awaits us at the end of the journey. It's a brave thing we do.
Send your stories and questions to Cathy M. Rosenthal, c/o Features Department, San Antonio Express-News, P.O. Box 2171, San Antonio, TX 78297-2171, or cathy@petpundit.com. Check out a picture of Miss Kitty on Cathy's Animals Matter blog.
