This One Time at Fat Camp

This letter is a copy from several years ago.  I got Muffin, the orange cat, from a friend and coworker at the vet clinic who couldn't keep him anymore.  When he arrived here he weighed 40 lbs.  When he passed away several months later he was down to about 22 lbs, though he died of urinary tract disease.

Dear Susan,

I just wanted to send you a note to let you know how I’m doing here at Kim’s Fat Camp.  At the last weigh-in I was at 34 lbs, and Russet, my personal trainer, says I can do even better.  He works me pretty hard now that he’s decided I’m a cat and not a mountain lion taking over the shop.  He and I have rousing games of chase, we do WWF cat wrestling, and I’ve recently discovered the outdoor adventure park in the barn.  Today I did a few reps up and down the hay bales (3 bales high!)  Last week I had a good time with the other cats hunting the barn swallows for our team-building experience.

Z is my other roommate, though she doesn’t like me as much as Russet does.  That’s probably because I spend an immense portion of my time stalking her and sniffing her butt.  Since I can’t jump as high as she does, she mostly hides in the rafters of the shop when I get that twitch in my tail. 

The food here isn’t so bad, I’m eating healthy (Purina One Light), and I’m now officially trained to go into my crate like the other cats for our twice daily meals.  We hear supper coming and leap into our designated crates, get fed with our doors shut so we don’t share, and afterwards I get brushed and my bottom scrubbed.  Really this fat camp is more of a spa, between the luxury sized litter box and the bidet!

Thanks for letting me move in here, I really enjoy the local wildlife (geese, blackbirds, horses I don’t go near but are fun to watch, and plenty of field mice).  And Kim isn’t too bad, either, even if she does groom me with horse brushes.  Come and visit anytime! 

Russet giving me a pep talk before our long hike to the tack room

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Love,

Muffin