Jungle Cat - Muffy, the Panther

by Kipp
(Anacortes, WA)

I'm a grown man with a black male cat named Muffy. He is not burdened by the implications that mere humans put on his name, for he is, in his own mind, a Jungle Cat.

I got Muffy when he was probably about 2, from some other apartment dwellers where I lived. He was very skittish and for the first 2 weeks, hid under the covers of my bed. That said, he was an indoor cat who craved 24 hour access to the outdoors. I gave him as much access as I could, leaving the front door of the apartment ajar so he could come and go as he pleased when I was there. That worked out pretty well, but he was always getting into fights with other cats in the parking lot at night, usually flying into the apartment with a couple of new scrapes or scratches.

Within a year of that time, I met and married an angel (which is another story for some other website) and moved to 6 acres in the country, where there were chickens, ducks, a rabbit, a couple of miniature horses, a dog and another cat. Although it took some time to adjust to the new situation, this is just where Muffy belonged.

Like any self-respecting Jungle Cat, he sleeps all day long. When I get home from work, he is my shadow until I feed him... and after he has had his dinner, he is ready to hunt. For the next 2-3 hours he patrols the jungle for rodent prey. We can see him occasionally on the far side of the field as he scouts the perimeter of the property.

Sometime after dark he is ready to come in and he loves to strut around the house letting us know he was the biggest cat in the jungle this day. Then he'll curl up next to me and allow me to scratch his stomach for the rest of the evening while we watch TV or read a book. If I am at the computer, he is usually on my lap proofreading what I have written (like he is at this moment), or walking in front of the computer screen.

He is a cat who loves his time outdoors, knows the dangers in the wild... and knows when it's his time to come in. Both indoors and out, ...in his mind..., he is King of the Jungle.