WHEN WE FIRST MET: March 17, 2018
Today was the day that we met Roxy, now named Pumpkin. Tiemen drove us to Abbotsford, which took about one hour. We found her current human's house. She had told us she was in the basement of their parents’ house. We knocked and they let us in. We met her and her husband, and their young daughter. We also met Roxy (now Pumpkin), and Sydney (the other cat, a lot like Cristobel and Isabel combined).
My friend had to leave for a meeting, but the other two remained behind. Sydney was okay with me, but Roxy let me pet her. My friend handed me the lint and fur roller, and the cat went crazy over that. I tempted her with a lint roller many times in the future. It was a great way to get her attention and have her come to me. My friend left for her meeting while her husband and child stayed there. We sat on the couch and the cat was beside me. She let me pet her and purred. I leaned my head in and asked, “Do you do kissies?” And Roxy leaned forward and placed her nose on mine! “Yes, you do!” I exclaimed.
Tiemen asked me if I wanted to bring her home. I said to him, “I think they want both cats to go together.” My friend's husband said we could think about it. We used the bathroom and then left.
NEW HOME WITH ME – April 2, 2018
After a few weeks of back and forth, and my friend finding a home for Sydney, I agreed to adopt Roxy. Kitty Delivery Day was on the afternoon of April 2, 2018. My friend arrived with her family. She opened up the carrier, and the cat came out. Roxy was really excited to explore my place and ran around investigating everything. My friend looked around my place to be certain it was adequate for her, and seemed pleased.
The cat then realized what was happening. She hid behind the right side of the couch. My friend told her daughter to say goodbye to her cat. Her husband and her daughter both said goodbye. My friend had one last peek behind the couch. They left.
I had the thought that my new cat liked it here, so she hid from them so she could stay. But she had a bit of trouble settling in, so that couldn’t be it.
The cat came out a couple of hours later, to food and treats. She had her kitty basket with a towel in it, which she slept in. Her first night, I decided to place her in the bathroom. I let her out the next day. She also had Isabel’s old burgundy kitty couch, washed and cleaned, to sleep in too. I placed a blanket on the couch for her also. She used her basket for a few months, but then abandoned it. She enjoyed playing with a Hello Kitty cat toy and others from her first day there.
It wasn’t until May that we settled on a name for Roxy. I wrote three names down on a sheet of paper and told Tiemen to circle which one he liked. I think that Roxybel or Laurelbel may have been other options. I know “Pumpkin” was one of them. He circled that name and I saw it and he laughed. But I agreed. She was a Pumpkin!
Two months in, I was worried, and maybe regretted adopting her, much like Cristobel. There was only one Isabel, who had settled into my place so quickly. “You’re not Isabel!” became a common saying during her years with me. One time, she even hissed back at me when I said it. Later, I felt bad, but around 2022, I just said it, because it was the truth. But Pumpkin did settle into my home, and then into our townhouse after we moved, and I know she loved and trusted me, and vice versa.
My aunt Marg told me to wait for Pumpkin to come to me for attention. After a few months, she did, and she enjoyed being brushed and petted.
It wasn’t until summer 2019 that she jumped on the bed. By the end of the year, she’d sleep on the foot of the bed. I set up an orange cat blanket for her to sleep on, as if she didn't have anywhere else to sleep!
DEMEANOR
Overall, Pumpkin was an extremely intelligent cat and would often understand what I was saying, or what I was asking of her. But if she didn’t want to do something, you couldn’t make her do it. She wouldn’t hesitate to hiss at me. She even bit me and drew blood a few times, and swatted my face and scratched me once.
In August 2023, I took her to the new vet clinic in Poco. There, the vet tech told me she was the “sweetest” cat they had that day. I’m like, “What? Is that my cat?” But she did get less feisty and spunky as she got older. By the time she passed away in January 2024, she was quite the sweetie, and would trust me to look after her like a meowmie would. She purred more often and loudly in her later years than the quiet purr she had when I first adopted her.
She was curious of her surroundings, particularly when we moved. She only liked her two humans, Tiemen and I. The rest she could leave. She asked Tiemen for food all the time, even though she knew I fed her too. She demanded her food or a treat if she was hungry, and would not take no for an answer.
She was scared of the vacuum cleaner, and even with the second one I bought, but the smaller ones didn’t bother her much.
Generally, she was a good girl and didn’t get into things she shouldn’t, or wreck things, with the exception of chewing on plastic bags, or the corner of the wall, or tearing up the Lil Bub calendar at the beginning. She understood a yes, nod, lap, or up command, and even no. She knew that “upstairs” meant we were going upstairs.
MOVING
In July 2022 we bought a townhouse. That meant me and Pumpkin would be moving from my condo to the townhouse, and Tiemen would move from his Mum’s house to there. I was worried about Pumpkin and the future move in November, especially after the way she had settled into the condo at the beginning. So, I was worried about our new place.
In November 2022, I put Pumpkin in the van with a towel covering the carrier. We drove to the townhouse. There, I put her in the bathroom with water, food dishes, and a litter box. I let her out of the carrier, and put a sign up on the door that there was a cat within, and to not open the door.
Once the movers were gone, I opened the door. I blocked the hall with two long boxes stacked on each other. She now had access to the bathroom and my bedroom. She ran all over the place, excitedly exploring everything. All the furniture and bed linens were the same, just in different spots. That night, she slept with me on the bed.
The next day, I decided to let her explore the rest of the house. I was worried about the two sets of stairs, as we didn’t have stairs at the condo. She loved the stairs, walking up and down them, sometimes running much faster than I could go! She sniffed all the furniture, which was the same as at the condo. Same stuff, just a new location. She didn’t venture downstairs to the front door for quite a while yet. Besides, she wasn’t allowed down there.
She quickly found her second litter box under the desk alcove in the dining room, and used that. She had her food dishes in the kitchen on a tray, and also some upstairs on a small tray. I set up her water glass on my bedside table.
At first, she didn’t like it when I picked her up to peer out the window. A few months later, she got curious and would go right up to the windows, or patio door to look out. I had to be careful when I opened doors, because she never did that before. At the condo she hated being near the windows and doors.
Pumpkin settled in so quickly, and I was happy. I guess it was because I moved with her, and that was good enough for her. We lived here together for 14.5 months, until she passed away on January 31, 2024.
PUMPKIN HUMOUR
Normally, I could touch Pumpkin’s tail at any time. But sometimes we’d play this game where she’d walk past me in the living room, and I’d gently grab the end of her tail. She’d hiss at me, then carry on. She continued to do this into 2023, but stopped hissing at me around Fall 2023.
I’d often joke that I’d have a Pumpkin, or, “I don’t have a cat. I have a Pumpkin!” Or I’d say, “It’s a Pumpkin!” when I’d see her. “Why is there a cat on my bed? I don’t have a cat!”
Sometimes she’d be staring at me and I’d stick my tongue out at her. She’d watch, likely amused, or thinking, “Whatever.”
If I ever talked about pumpkin pie or pumpkin food, I’d say, “But don’t tell Pumpkin!”
Pumpkin was generally quite smart and intelligent, but at other times she wasn’t, and I’d joke that she only had “one brain cell”, but that was mostly an orange cat joke from the This Orange Cat group on Facebook.
I’d joke to Tiemen that she had him trained, as he gave her food when she meowed, or yowled early in the morning.
Sometimes I’d ask Pumpkin, “Are you cutes?” or, “Do you want pets?”
If I was cuddling her and her toesies were cold I say, “Did you know it’s illegal for pawsies to be cold?”
MORE READING MATERIALS ABOUT CATS
If you need help with caring after a sick or senior cat, please see my Just One More Purr non-fiction cat care book here: getbook.at/purrprint
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