Adventures of a Crazy Cat Lady

Moosh Pit

Chapter Seven

Moosh Pit

Every week, the news seems to carry a story about a ‘bust’ in a puppy mill.  The video clips are full of heart rending shots of tiny puppies and adult dogs being carried away, hopefully to better lives. Rescuers take the animals to various agencies, to be fostered to willing, loving families. 

However the clips don’t show kitten breeding farms.  Maybe cats are considered less loveable on screen, or seen as independent and capable of fending for themselves. TV stations don’t seem to see much mileage in cats and kittens.

Not long ago, I received a call from a local organization.  A puppy mill had been raided.  Seventy-five small dogs, mostly terrier and poodle mixes, were seized.  The dogs had horrible skin conditions, and needed shaving before they could be treated.  They ranged from four weeks old to six years.  The adult dogs had all produced multiple litters, and some were too ill to be neutered.

I was baffled. I knew about the raid, because it had been all over the news: so many dogs were rescued that they had to be spread over three different states. But why call me?  I have cats. Five of them at present.  Dogs are generally not a good fit here.

It seems my vet had me down as a foster mother.  He treats my cats, and cats I foster,  and keeps my name in his ‘just in case’ file.  So the rescuers called me.

It seems the puppy mill was also breeding pedigree Persian and Himalayan cats.  No kittens, but a tortoise shell female and a black female, both just over a year old, and a two year old silver male.  The rescuers asked me to foster all three.   I didn’t agree, but said I would come meet them.

I was handed the tortie the moment I walked in the door.  She was a big cat, compared to the American shorthairs I usually foster. Big feet, a big pansy face, huge amber eyes, and no nose to speak of.  I fell in love. Then I met her father, the silver male.  He was even bigger, and even sweeter, and no nose either.  Nobody introduced me to the black female. She was terribly shy, and wouldn’t come out of her corner. I couldn’t judge her nose.

What could I do?  I agreed to foster all three, with the understanding that I might or might not adopt.  Yes, I am a sucker for a pretty furry face.  Sadly, or  perhaps fortunately, I was told they weren’t ready to go yet, as they all had skin conditions most likely caused by the stress of being surrounded by barking dogs, while the male’s feet were still cut and bleeding from spending his life in a wire cage.  

I stopped back in the following Friday, and found all three cats ready to go.  But there was a hitch, and it was a good one:  I had competition. A cat-less person was there.  Her own kitty had gone ‘over the bridge’ a while back, and she had an empty spot in her heart waiting to be filled.  She wanted the tortie and the silver.  Which was fine. That left the black.

A volunteer dragged her out of the kennel kicking and clawing.  Kitty was not happy.  The volunteer thrust her into my arms.  Kitty immediately climbed me like a tree and tried to make a break for it.  She would have punched me with her nose. if she had one. I grabbed a handful of tail and stuffed her into a crate, signed the papers and off we went.  For good or ill, she was going home with me.

My five cats are generally easy going.  Oh, like all siblings, they have the odd disagreement, and every so often exchange a few swats.  But on the whole, everyone gets along.  I figured one scared little Persian wouldn’t be a problem.

I walked into the house to be greeted at the door by five curious kitties.  I set the carrier down on the floor, and five noses jockeyed for position to sniff at the newcomer.  I thought that a good sign.  I put down some canned food (I don’t think our new arrival had ever experienced the joys of a good tin of tuna).

Then I opened the crate.  So far so good.

Step two: I let the cats meet.  My three girls stuck their heads into the crate, said howdy, then went on about their business.  Things were working out.

So I introduced the boys.  Farouk and Worthing, as the newest members of my herd, and my only two males, didn’t know what to make of the newby.  They both took one look at a pair of big yellow eyes looking out at them, and ran to the other side of the kitchen.  Then they sat together at the threshold to the living room and stared.  

Step three: time for an exit.  My little black Persian stepped out into the kitchen.  She blinked,  a slow and deliberate motion probably done for effect.  She took a look at the girls, and blinked again.  Then she stared hard at my two boys, hissed, and made a dash for my laundry room.  One jump, and she was hiding behind the washer.

I felt horrible.  Here I was, bringing a new cat into the house, and expecting her to fit right in.  Somehow that seemed a little too optimistic. Then I thought about it.  She was doing what cats normally do.  A cat likes to hide.  Sometimes, like people, they want to be alone.

This little cat had never been alone.  She had been stuffed into a wire cage, about three feet by three feet.  Cats were always on either side of her, and probably stacked above and below, with never any privacy at all.  She had also been forced to live twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, with a constant cacophony of yapping, barking dogs. It was time she had a hidey hole.  And that’s how she got her name.

I was sort of at a loss for names for a Persian cat.  Pishi seems to be the norm, as it means ‘Pussycat’ in Farsi, the language they speak in Iran, which is Persia by another name. Another common handle is ‘Gorbeh’, which means a young cat, or small cat. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, neither of them seemed to fit.

But this wee black cat deserved a special name of her own. She was smaller than her father and her sister, with a flat little black face and squished up nose, and very shy.  She wanted nothing more than some good eats, a clean litter box, and a place to hide.  I thought that she deserved a boost to her self-esteem, a handle to make her stand out from the crowd. She looked to me more like a mouse than a cat, so I thought of calling her ‘Mouse’. Well, maybe it might not boost her self-esteem, but it was certainly a name to make her stand out in a crowd.

I thought about it a bit, and found that I kept changing my mind. Somehow ‘Mouse’ didn’t fit a cat.   So after some  research, a phone call to a friend and coworker who was born in Palestine,  I found the perfect name.  Moosh.  Persian for Mouse.

Moosh has now been with me almost two weeks.  I get to see her sometimes, without having to look behind the washer with a flashlight, and tonight, for the first time, she came out in the open while I was awake and all the other cats were inside.  

One day, I’ll wake up and that flat little black nose will be pressed to mine.