National Cat Day: Celebrating Life with Plush
Last Updated on May 12, 2021 by Holly Anne Dustin
Feline Fans across the internet celebrate National Cat Day on October 29th. The goal of National Cat Day is to celebrate cats and encourage adoption. Cat slaves are encouraged to spoil their fur babies today a little more than we already do. If you need some ideas on how to make this day a little more special for your feline friend, the National Cat Day website has a list of 20 Ways to Celebrate National Cat Day.
Meet Plush
Life&Cats is more educational than personal, but today I want to celebrate National Cat Day by telling the story of one special cat. I believe his story is but one of many that show how adoption changes lives. This cat is not as famous as Bob the Street Cat or Little Bub or Grumpy Cat, but he is special to me. He survived odds that many do not and achieved goals that many will, but haven’t yet. Please meet Magic of Purrs Purrcival Plush.
We call him Plush. The rescue that saved his life named him Beau (after discovering that Beauty was inappropriate, given his gender.) Who knows what his name was originally. Plush is one of the abandoned. The cats left behind when their guardians’ lives fall apart leaving the cats to suffer. Some of these cats are left outside to scratch out a living on the streets the best they can. If they are lucky someone will feel sorry for them and put out food.
Plush wasn’t so lucky. Someone left him locked in a foreclosed home. Alone. For months. It breaks my heart to think what he must have gone through. He’s a Persian (though not a show standard version), someone purchased him and must have loved him at one point. Did he wonder about what happened to his people? Did he worry about them? What did he think while he was slowly starving to death?
Abandoned and Starving
Yes, starving to death. Neighbors reported that they would see him in the windows of his home and saw him getting skinnier and skinnier. Finally, they called Animal Control. In my area not all Animal Controls respond to “cat calls.” (Perhaps #National Cat Day will help wake people up to the fact that cats and dogs deserve equal shares of the budgetary pie.) Thankfully, the local animal control officer responded. Then a trapper for the municipal shelter could access the home and get him out. His intake paperwork says he weighed 1.5 pounds. I have a litter of 4-month-old kittens about that weight. But Plush wasn’t a kitten. The shelter vet estimated him to be 3-5 years old!
I suppose some shelters might have euthanized a cat in that poor condition, but someone called my favorite rescue group. Another Chance took him in, placed him with a caring and dedicated volunteer foster mom with a passion for the extreme cases. She rehabbed him back to health. After a few months they placed him for adoption. That’s when I was lucky enough to make him part of my family.
He was 7 pounds when I brought him home. Still too skinny for a cat of his size but healthy enough to go home. He fit in my family easily. Most Persians have an easygoing personality. Maybe he was extra grateful to have a home and family again. We went a few rounds of urinary blockages, but getting him on a good diet and enriching his environment had him on the right track.
Better Life as a Show Cat
A few months later there was a CFA cat show in my area. I showed Plush in the household pet class. I didn’t know it the day I put him in his first ring cage, but I would find my passion, a new career, great friends, and another way to celebrate living life with cats along the way. This weekend, four years from that first show, Plush earned CFA’s highest household pet title. He is now a GHD–a Grand Household Pet of Distinction. He also holds a Supreme Grand Master title in TICA and is a Master Grand Companion in CFF. He has traveled all over the Northeast, to regional award shows, and competed against cats from all over the country. Next year I hope to take him to the CFA International Show.
If I let myself, I could feel hate for his previous pet parent for abandoning this beautiful boy to suffer and nearly starve to death, but I don’t. I do not understand the circumstances that brought them to that place. For my heart’s sake, I have to believe his people intended to go back for him and somehow could not do so. I’ll never know. It doesn’t really matter. What I know is that I’ll spend today, and every day, celebrating this special cat who brings me such joy.
Celebrate National Cat Day
I’ll celebrate his survival, and his show ring achievements, but more importantly I’ll celebrate the love we share. The bond that lets me wake up today to his soft furry face beside mine and his purring as my alarm clock. And Plush is thriving now, those dark days are behind him forever.
How are you celebrating National Cat Day with your feline friends? We will celebrate today with a few National Cat Day photos and treats along the way as we travel home from his show. Follow us on social and join in. One way you can celebrate is to donate to your favorite rescue group in honor of your rescue kitty. If you want to honor Plush’s story, you can donate to Another Chance here.
Tell me the story of your special kitty, rescued or not, in the comments or on Facebook.
