Pookie Mine

It’s official: Pookie is now my cat! It’s legalized in this German document:

It’s his vaccination pass. He is registered under his official name, Swarte Freund (Black Friend) - but he’s become Pookie to me and my brother over the summer, and that’s the name that stuck.

His date of birth is a bit of a guess. He was found as a kitten at a camping site nearby, by the neighbor’s kids’ friends. My mom took him in. For a long time, he was a half-inside, half-outside cat.

Then my mom went to a nursing home and I moved into her house, with Pookie. You can read the comic I made about it here.

I became his caretaker, but he wasn’t exactly my cat.

When he got wounded in Spring, I had to ask the neighbor for help getting him to the vet. And as long as I can’t get a cat to the vet totally on my own in case of emergency, I dare not take full responsibility as its owner.

But he got wounded again.

And again.

This was his year:

Here’s what it looked like in reality:

The bandage

and:

after the bandage was taken off.

I also made this video when we got just back from the vet, Pookie still woozy with the anesthetic:

I had gotten him into his bench single-handedly that time, but he was practically asking me to take him as he was bleeding profusely. So it didn’t quite count towards ownership, in my opinion.

I did get him to the vet on my own a second time, a month ago, to get him his shots. Because if you want to “own” a cat, you got to give him his yearly shots (my mom never did that, he was too fierce for her to handle).

Today we had to go for the follow-up.

I was nervous - three times is a charm, what if he was “onto” me now and wouldn’t let me take him? I got nervous about being nervous - cats feel these things, what if he would run, fight, hate me forever…?

But!

I picked him up, explained in a calm voice what we were doing and shoved him unceremoniously in his (new, XL) bench. And packed him in the car.

At the vet:

The appointment was over in a jiffy, and if he doesn’t get himself beaten up again, we won’t have to be back until next year!

Here’s Pookie’s happiness when we got home again:

And another video, because the world needs more cat videos:

(I should have asked the vet to clip his nails! Oh well.)

All of this to announce that I am now The Official Person to this fluffy big old sweetheart! We are a pair!

Pookie in his happy place, where he spends about 22 hours a day

That means I have three cats now, two in Amsterdam (with my husband) and one in Germany. No idea how that will play out if I’ll ever live in one place again, but we’ll see.

For now, this is the best of worlds - because Happy Cats!