"Nine years old. That's all. The vet said she should have lived twice as long." That's what I overheard the vet tech whisper to her colleague as they carried a carrier past me in the waiting room. The owner—a woman about my age—sat crumpled in the corner, clutching an empty collar. "I did everything right," she kept saying. "Everything." What happened next changed how I see my own cat's daily routine forever. Dr. Mitchell emerged from the back, saw the woman crying, and did something I'd never s