Goodbye Mahone

For the last 18 years Mahone has taken great care of me, he ensured my feet were never cold, he saved me from having to eat any peas and he was always ready to listen. I first met him when he was a few days old and his head was twice the size of his body. He came to live with me when he was six months old and the first thing he did was bite me and proceed to fight with the other cats in the household.

Mahone had a lot of wonderful traits, however he was just never very bright. It took him a year to figure out I had a purpose besides giving him baths. It took him another year to realize he liked to be cuddled and laps were fun places to hang out. He was always very accepting of any other pets I brought home, especially my blue betta.

Mahone assigned himself a few jobs that I enjoyed such as foot warmer and pea eater; however, he was also an official boyfriend picker. I'm not sure when he assigned himself this job but it was most annoying, basically if he didn't think a boy was worthy of my attention he began to mark (yep, pee on stuff that didn't belong to him) the boys possessions. Given a choice between cleaning up cat urine or fining a new boyfriend...well Mahone always won.

He had excellent recall skills and had I discovered clicker training earlier, I'm sure Mahone would have had quite a few tricks up his paw. He used to play fetch until he became 5 years old and the thought it was dumb game. He had the loudest purr I have ever heard, he would sit in my lap and people could hear him purr over the phone.

Mahone was not particularly athletic, he prefered finding the best nap spots. I always thought "had he been a person" he would have been the high school jock, who scored 5 touchdowns in a single game and now lived for his tv and beer while reminiscing about the good old high school days.

We loved Mahone and he is greatly missed.