We first met Muffin in April of 2006 at Purrfect Pals. All we knew is that she was found on the streets of Everett, Washington. She was about a year old. They called her a “medium hair” cat which was eventually shown to be an understatement. She was a beautiful kitty, very affectionate, well behaved (she only scratched on designated scratching posts, she didn’t get into things, etc). She didn’t get along too well with our other cat, Freya, but they reached a truce only interrupted by an occasional hiss (from Muffin) or a brief chase.
In July she started hiding under the bed and was very testy. Something was definitely wrong, so we took her to the vet. After some examination and X-rays we found she had two pins in her back leg (which had to be removed). Someone spent a lot of money to fix her broken leg. This deepened the mystery of her origins. She wasn’t just a stray, someone cared deeply for her. How did she end up on the street? Here’s my theory/story: an elderly woman bought a cute long-haired kitten. At some point she broke her leg and was treated (at no small cost, to be sure). The woman then passed away, and her children, while cleaning out her house, left Muffin outside. Perhaps intentionally, but Muffin was pretty scatterbrained so it is plausible she had wandered off and came back to find a locked and empty house. I am sure she innocently wandered up to any humans she could find, meowing at them for food and attenion. One of them dropped her off at the Everett shelter. From there she was picked up by Purrfect Pals, and the rest is history.
When my daughter was born, Muffin was not immediately aware of the change in the household, but she did like the new “cat bed” in the house. But it didn’t take long for Muffin to become absolutely bonded with my daughter. Any time she would cry, Muffin would run around our feet, as if to say “My gsvirl is in distress! Do Something!” They were inseparable, all Muffin wanted was to be with her girl. During the last summer, between high school and college, they spent a lot of time together, Muffin often sleeping on top of her or right against her. Muffin would spend much of her days sleeping on my daughter’s bed right where she had been sleeping a few hours earlier. After she left for college Muffin rarely slept on her bed, partly because of her artritis, but probably also since the clean bedding no longer had the scent she was seeking.
Did I mention she was kind of scatterbrained? She often didn’t understand three dimensions. Several times she unwittingly walked right past the chair Freya was sitting on, who would bat at her tail. When you called her name, she would look left and right, but not up. This made taking photos of her very hard: she would look everywhere but at the camera. After many attempts we got a good enough shot to use for her to appear in the Purrfect Pals calendar as Miss July (the first photo, above).
She also had a habit of going into the bathroom where the litter boxes are, and then when she was done, push on the door until she closed it, and then scratch and meow until I let her out. After several rounds of this I found a small board and put it in the way so she couldn’t close the door. Now the same thing happens: push, scratch, meow, and then, after little bit of this, she peers around the corner of the still ajar door, with a surprised look.
She was definitely not a medium hair cat! That hair was long! In her younger years this made hairballs a frequent and sizable occurence. Sometimes in inconvenient places. Towards the end of her life she had a hard time grooming herself so I would have to brush her in a futile attempt to keep the mats at bay. A couple times we had her shaved for the summer. I am not sure she ever forgave us for this.
So after Freya passed, Muffin’s arthritis continued a slow progression, but the monthly arthritis treatments definitely helped. On Monday it occured to me that she was due for her next shot and I must have forgotten to schedule it. The vet said I could bring her in later that day. At the appointed time I gathered her up into her carrier, as I had done so many times before. No sign of anything amiss. But as soon as the vet tech got her out of the carrier, she noticed Muffin’s breathing was labored, so after an X-ray and deeper examination, it was found she was in the advanced stages of congestive heart failure. She passed away a few hours later.
She was the sweetest little cat. It’s hard to think of anything she did wrong (yowling in the middle of the night is the worst thing I can think of). She loved her girl to the moon and back again. Now one girl is gone forever and the other is away at college. It’s going to be a lot of emptiness and quiet to get used to.