Mogg and Willow's Story

His name is Mogg (short for - wait for it - Moggit - yuk!!) such a horrible name for such a handsome fella!

But he does answer to Moggie - so it has to stay. The other photo is of Mogg taking care of my Willow, my baby for 12 years. Their story is as follows:-

Willow had developed a kidney infection and was very poorly last spring and in June we had to have her put to sleep. But before she died a rather curious cat started visiting our garden. He only lived three doors away and was/is a very handsome ginger tom cat - flea ridden and scabby, he was. We tried to discourage him from coming around as he used to spray everywhere, including the house if and when he got in! But those eyes of his made you really look at him differently - they were so appealing! Willow fell in love with him and they spent the last few weeks just lying around the garden in the sun - she showed Mogg all her favourite sunny spots. He started to cry to come in at night but I couldn't do it, not until he stopped spraying.

Eventually, I went to look for his owners and asked would they be willing to have him neutered to maybe solve our smelly problem. They did just that and apparently we saved his life as he only had one testicle - the other had not appeared at all and when they operated on him they thought it was cancerous! So only that we asked for him to have this operation, my lovely Mogg would have been no more.

A few weeks later, Willow died and Mogg was heart broken - so much so he was battering our cat flap to come in to look for her. When he realised she wasn't here anymore, he took up residence on one of our rocking chairs and refused to budge!! We hadn't the heart to put him out, so we came to an agreement with his owners - we would keep him. Two brothers, who worked 12 hour shifts, could not really look after him properly, so we de-flead him and gave his ears and eyes a good clean and now you can see the result.

I will always love and miss my baby, Willow - but Moggie tries so hard to take her place. He has even started sleeping on our bed with us at night, just as Willow did. I love him to bits - he's my handsome boy! 

Submitted by Anne Jones.