Miz Poo

Miz Poo

September 17, 1999 – June 22, 2015.

We said goodbye to Miz Poo on June 22, 2015. You can read the post about that here.

About Miz Poo.
(Written in April 2012.)

Miz Poo’s our second oldest permanent resident; she’ll be 13 in September.

I first saw Miz Poo when she was, oh, maybe six weeks old? I saw her and fell in love with her, but at the time we had (um…. doing the math…) four cats and Fred was dead certain that adding another cat to the house would make us the looniest people in the state.

(I’m pausing so we can all laugh and roll our eyes.)

So Fred said “no” and I stomped and pouted and pouted and stomped, and when we got home I started with the begging and pleading (are we sensing a theme here?) and when I finally wore him down and he agreed that I could adopt her, I second-guessed myself. I worried that maybe we just didn’t need another cat, that the boy cats would pick on her, that I should just be happy with the cats we had. I decided that he was right, and put her out of my mind.

Then a few weeks later, it was the day before Thanksgiving. My daughter had the day off (or half a day off, maybe) from school, so we went out to lunch and we were going to go to the movies. Only, when we got to the movie theater the line was really long, and I said “Hey. Let’s go visit some kitties!”

I absolutely knew that the kitten I’d fallen in love with would have been long adopted and wouldn’t be there, but when we walked through the door, she saw me and started howling her head off. I carried her around and snuggled with her and she sneezed on my face (which was not the last time BY FAR that that would happen), and then I was going to put her back and asked Danielle if she was ready to leave, and Danielle said “Can’t we keep her?” and I said “Um… OKAY!”

For the first few weeks she wasn’t playful at all because she had an upper respiratory infection. But once she got over that, she was your usual playful girl. She was okay with the other cats (might have even snuggled with them), but her heart’s always been with her humans. She sleeps with me and has every night of her life (except for the times when I’m out of town); she’ll perch on the pillow next to me and put her paw on me, and purrs and purrs and purrs. If I got one of those baby carriers and strapped it to the front of me and carried her around in it 24/7, that would be absolute nirvana for her.

We were going with an “S” naming theme at the time, so we ultimately named her Scrappy. Which is a cute name and all, but no. She is just not a Scrappy. I called her “the kitten” until she was a year old. I’m sure she had a thousand nicknames, but eventually she became Pooh and Pooh-pie and Pooty McPooterson and that all morphed into Miz Poo at some point, and it’s stuck. Until a few years ago I still gave her name to the vet as “Scrappy” (and then had to stop and think when they called about her – I’d be “Who’s Scrappy? Oh, right…”), but we’ve pretty much given up and she’s Miz Poo to everyone.

She is not picky about humans. If you’re a person, she’s willing to love you with all of her heart. Anyone who’s been to our house knows that Miz Poo will greet them with hopeful eyes that say “My god, can I come home with you and be your best friend, can I, huh?” It doesn’t matter if she’s never seen you before – if you sit down, she’ll climb in your lap. She’s the one cat in this house who’s never met a stranger and wholeheartedly loves absolutely everyone.

She’s had a hard 12 1/2 years – there’s always something going on with her. Several years ago, she had a blockage (a large amount of hair being the cause of it) that almost killed her. After the operation for that, she had a huge incision on her tummy that then got infected and needed a drainage tube and took her forever to heal from. She’s got a rodent ulcer on her upper lip that comes on suddenly and unexpectedly and can only be treated with steroids (nothing else has helped). She’s an overgroomer and licks her belly bald. When she got sick a couple of months ago, she was so sick (the vet said it was an upper respiratory infection, but I’m not convinced that it was) that (he didn’t tell me this until later) Fred didn’t think she was going to make it. She did, though, she hung in there, and she is absolutely back to herself.

This is how you know Miz Poo is feeling fine: she picks up a toy and carries it through the house, keening at the top of her lungs until she finds a person, whereupon she puts the toy down and looks very smug about it. She’s doing that almost constantly these days.

She puts up with the fosters better than she used to, and if she wakes up and finds that one of them is snuggling with her, she doesn’t lose her mind too much – but she’s also willing to bring out the Paw o’ Doom when need be. Someone’s got to keep the little monsters in line, after all.

I don’t know how long she’ll be with us – don’t the cats who rack up the most in vet fees live the longest? (yes, she’s worth it!) – but I am trying to enjoy every moment with her. Even when she sneezes in my face.