Kipling was appropriately named as he would often sit and ponder his world as if he was writing poetry. We miss his huge purr, his head butts, his stoicism, and his sweet, sweet presence. We could see the sunset by stepping next door to get Kipling from the neighbor’s yard. The neighbor lived somewhere else most of the time, and in nice weather Kipling loved to hang out in her yard. Before dark on most days, one of us had the joy of going to get him and seeing the sunset, Puget Sound, and the Olympic Mountains. We really enjoyed calling him in the evening to come in, walking over, picking him up, and putting him over a shoulder to carry him in the house for the night.

We feel sad about not noticing his cancer sooner when we were busy packing to move to Whidbey Island and selling the Burien house. He seemed to have a sense of abandoning us and didn’t want to feel like he'd let us down. He was never wild about a car ride and would always act like we had “saved” him when we brought him home from a trip to the Vet. One time, we took him camping in the trailer, and for some reason, he loved the ride there. However, when we set up camp and he looked out of the trailer window he realized it was not familiar ground and he freaked out. We had to camp the entire weekend with the shades drawn in order for him to stay calm. He never went camping with us again. The dogs, Priya and Tessa, miss him a lot. And even his sister Amelia, although she got in a final hiss at him just after he passed.