Morgan – Floppycat of the Week

This is my cream point mitted ragdoll – Morgan. We rescued him from the North Pinellas Humane Society in Clearwater, Florida. He was six years old when we found him. Morgan was a beautiful 20+ pound, declawed behemoth of a male cat. According to the lovely people at the Humane Society, Morgan’s owner had passed away and so he was subsequently surrendered by a family member of the owner.

Hunting for an Ugly Cat

I had brought my daughter to the Humane Society to look for, and rescue “an ugly cat” because (as we all know) pretty cats will always find homes. I was pointing out some really friendly, yet homely cats to my daughter when she plaintively called me over because Morgan had climbed over the other animals in the cat habitat to force himself onto her lap. My daughter kept saying “But Mom, he’s really scared!” as I was reiterating to her that the huge cat in her lap was too pretty. Well, he WAS really scared – although all that huge cat had to do was sit on top of any cat and he would have been fine.

In the end, I realized that this huge, furry goofball had chosen us (and who was I to argue with him?) and he came home. Once he had settled in, it became apparent to us that our home must have been a “step-down” compared to Morgan’s former home. He refused to walk on our carpeting for the first 2 weeks (pardon me, your majesty!), but he adjusted when he realized that instead of just one owner as before, he now had 3 human servants to meet his demands. About six months later, I entered Morgan in the Humane Society’s annual calendar contest. Morgan ended up as “Mr. January” and had his photos professionally taken for us.

Calendar Model

A few months later, we went to the humane society to the “problem” cat room to adopt a companion for Morgan. I swore THIS TIME, no beautiful “Mr. January” candidates. We found Toby, who had been returned 3 times and I decided that he needed us.

Toby had a “little” OCD issue. He became our head of security as he went from door to door and window to window all day long and then sprayed all of them to keep other cats out. It took 9 LONG months, but between our love and Morgan’s firm paws of tutelage, Toby finally settled in. Morgan took his role as alpha cat very seriously. Anytime that Toby started acting manic, Morgan was there to set him straight. It was a partnership made in heaven.

Toby – Rescue Cat #2

Toby developed into a wonderful cat and Morgan had a close bosom-buddy. One of their favorite games was to chase each other around the house, culminating with one (or both) leaping up to the back of our recliner. You would know when they achieved “endgame” when you would hear someone shout in horror as the 20 pound furry freight train came barreling at whoever had the misfortune to be sitting in that chair.

The last photo in my email shows Toby – who had just spent a FULL five minutes manically digging at a piece of paper. Finally, Morgan had enough of Toby’s noise and (being the alpha cat) he came over and just loomed over Toby until he got the message. I shot the photo just as Toby realized that he was going to get pounded by Morgan if he didn’t stop. Morgan is 16 years old now and not slowing down much – although he hasn’t turned into a freight train in quite a while (thankfully!).