Happy Burphday, Murph!

April 20th marked the start of our cat Murphy’s 12th year on this planet, demanding all of the soft blankets, lap time, and treats.  We don’t have kids of our own yet, so this little one is our fur child and we celebrate his birthday accordingly!

Let me tell you a little bit about this guy.  We adopted him 5 months after we started dating in 2004, when we were broke college students.   WHO DOES THAT?!  We did, because in your early 20’s you always make really good decisions and this seemed like one at the time. (Reason: brains take a long time to mature.).  We adopted him from the Kalamazoo Animal Rescue when he was just a scared, quiet little kitten.

Little did we know that he was part Ragdoll, which meant he would grow up to be the most talkative, friendly, floppy cat we’d ever meet.

Although we were dumb kids when we adopted him, I don’t regret it because he’s been with us for the entirety of our relationship, and we’ve all sort of grown up together.  He’s our little buddy, and a really great cat most of the time (except for 5am when he’s tapping my nose, demanding food because he’s “STARVING”).  If you’re interested in adopting, check out your local shelter.  There are tons of cats out there just like Murphy, waiting for you!

In honor of Murph, and all of the shelter animals out there, we volunteer every year for the Humane Society of Huron Valley’s Walk & Wag 5k fun run.  It’s a really unique fundraising event where you can run or walk a 5k with your pup, and all proceeds go to helping the shelter animals.  If you’re interested in donating or signing up for the walk/run, go here.  We hope to see you there in May!

For Murphy’s Birthday, we celebrated by giving him a “cake” crafted from all of his favorite foods:
Wet Food + Tuna + Cheese + Grass.  Yum?

He didn’t even know where to start, but once he realized what it was made of, it was GAME ON.  It lasted for about 2 seconds before he demolished it, and now he expects that same treat everyday.

For years, Murphy has begged and cried to be let outside.  Unfortunately with his genetic makeup, he isn’t suited to be an outdoor cat.  Ragdolls are too friendly and trusting of other people, which can lead to bad things happening to them when they’re left outside on their own.  So as a compromise, we got him a harness so that we could take him outside under supervision.  The instructions say that you should be careful to acclimate the cat to the harness indoors with “lots of praise, petting, and play”.  But I’m telling you, once we got the harness on and set him outside, he was like:

Not. even. phased.  He LOVES it, so I think we did pretty good with the gift this year.

Happy Birthday to the master of making beds, “helping” with projects, being our shadow, and getting comfortable wherever he is.  We love you, Murph!

Have a great weekend!