In One Word.....Moo!

It started out innocently enough two years ago in December. Our older cat Max, had just lost his zest for life, and was content to ride out his final years as nothing more than a stuffed cat that breathed. Pathetic, really considering how most cats are.

Our solution to breathing life back into Max was to find him a playmate. His personality was so easy going, he could tolerate a barking dog, pulling full force on a leash, and just walk casually by as if he hardly noticed. So we went to Petsmart on Pet Adoption day which was on a Saturday.

We knew in an instant this little, white, fluff ball had won all three of us over, when three audible sighs were heard in unison. My two daughters, and me. The sign on the cage was simple enough, lone survivor of a coyote attack. Ready? Now you hear Ahhhhhs! I mean how could you resist a sign like that? We checked the breed, Tabby/Siamese mix, female, and 12 weeks old.

Getting a kitten isn’t like getting a puppy. You don’t deal with the yelping and whining all hours of the night, when you are trying to remember why you wanted a puppy so bad in the first place. Perhaps that had to do with last nights viewing of Marley and Me?

So we paid $40.00 cash and took our kitten home. We hand carried her, since it seemed awful cruel to put her in a cardboard box, you know the ones with the holes punched into the sides for breathing? So we carried her to the car. I held her and passed her to Cait for the journey home. She was content, purring all the way, nestled safely in her arms.

We pulled into the garage, closed the door and prepared the cat for her new life in our home. We introduced her to Max, letting him sniff her. He did and went back to his nap sprawled out in the sun on the back of the couch. So that’s the zest? That is it?

We had to come up with a name. You know how that goes with kids. How about Snowy? Mittens? Fluffy? Just couldn’t see it. My daughter Kailee suggested Blue since she had blue eyes. We agreed it was fitting for her, so Blue it was!

Blue tried hard to make Max her new best friend, sneaking up on him whenever she found him sunning himself on the carpet catching the first rays of the morning. She would pounce on him and Max would run away. Blue thought this was an invitation to continue the tormenting, and following in close pursuit.

Over time, Max and Blue would play during the early hours of the morning. That is 2am for most of us, but prime play time for cats. We could hear them talking to each other in a bizarre game of Hide and Seek for cats. One would call, and then the other would answer, and then the pounding of paws up and down the stairs would commence. This would continue for about 30 minutes.

When we would wake in the morning, both of them were sacked out, exhausted from a full day’s worth of playing and were sleeping side by side on the carpet waiting for the sun to rise.

Everytime we tried to call Blue she would never come. Could be that most cats, when called don’t come. They never do. They come when they want, not when they are called. Blue was like that.

Upon countless times of me calling her, my hubby said, “She isn’t going to come. Either go get her and pick her up or forget it.”

I said, “ I could call her Moo and she wouldn’t come. Makes no difference to her what we call her.”

So I began to call her Moo. When the kids asked why I was now calling the cat Moo instead of Blue, I simply pointed to her ever-growing belly and said she kinda looks like a cow, so we should call her Moo. She eats like a cow too!

So that is how the cat got to be called Moo. She is amazing. Here is the way we usually find her most days. We figure the reason she sleeps so much isn’t so much the abundance of food she eats but all the growing hours she puts it. She is super soft, especially the white parts.



She doesn’t just lie down gracefully; she flops down with an audible Humph!

She spends hours watching the birds come and go each hour from our bird feeders, although she has never managed to catch any. We keep her safely from them behind the screen but we let her watch hours of Bird TV in her mind.



The hummingbirds in our backyard, love to hover just out of reach right about 3 feet above her head and just watch, whenever she spends her time outdoors in the backyard. She watches the butterflies come and go, and will catch any lizard that happens into our backyard. Perhaps that is why we haven’t seen any this year. She doesn’t kill them, just plays with them. Sick game of catch and release and catch again!

She loves the outdoors and will never attempt to climb the fence. She is content to just have this additional space to enjoy the outdoors without leaving.

On cold nights or mornings, she will jump up on our bed, and pull at the covers until we lift them up and she snuggles inside. She stays there until either it gets too warm or too boring.

She refuses to drink out of a bowl and has trained us all very well. She will wait in the bathroom until someone shows up, meow until we pick her up, and she puts her two front paws in the sink and waits for us to turn it on. We have to wait ‘til she is finished drinking from the faucet and then she leaves. By the way, she doesn’t fit in the sink anymore.She liked laying in there when she could. But not anymore! Too big, but it was funny to find her this way when you woke up in the morning! All curled up, wedged under the faucet just looking at you!

She will talk to her only if you stand in the kitchen and then you can ask her anything. One time, Caitlyn and I swear we heard her say “I love you” in a well thought out series of Meows!

Most days we make a game out of figuring out what part of animal she is mixed with, “Does she have a raccoon tail or a Lemur tail?”



“Is she part rabbit, Oh let’s call her a Cabbit!!”

Hubby thinks she is part otter since she prefers to lie on her back. It just think it’s the only way to get comfortable with a belly that big.

She isn’t really fat, either. When she was fixed, they didn’t do a great job with the stitching job, so she has a big flab of hanging skin beneath all that fur! Still we love her anyway. She keeps me busy in the morning, lying on my desk while I blog. She persists in hiding behind my monitor waiting for me to move the mouse. Life couldn’t get any better!

But most days she sleeps until we all head off upstairs to bed and then she will sleep under out bed until morning. So that my friends, is the story of the Moo!