Muchkin is gone.

He was a neighborhood stray that looks similar enough to a rescue kitten that had gone missing shortly after we first let him outdoors that he picked up his name. The original (I’ll call him Munchkin beta as the cat that just passed from this world earned full title to the name over his many years with us) was adopted with his brother butterfly. After butterfly died of liver disease, muchkin beta went out one day and didn’t come back in.

Some time after that we saw a black and white stray around the neighborhood that from a distance looked like the original. He didn’t want to come in the house and quite a few folks were feeding him so we just let things ride, assuming that our Munchkin had gone a bit wild and keeping an eye on things.

One day, Munchkin arrived at the door with his head an neck pretty badly ripped up and he walked right in and lay down in the house. We took that as a sign and brought him in to get his wounds cleaned up. At the vet, they mentioned that he was unfixed which pretty much dismissed any possibility that he was the original cat come back. We got him fixed and vaccinated and from that point forward he was part of the household.

He still ruled his stretch of the neighborhood and roamed far and wide. He became a wonderful pet who loved laps (but hated kissed on the head).

More later…