On Your Knees Before The Queen!

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We have a vet appointment set up for our senior cat. We think it will likely be her last. She is about 20 years old. She was already a senior when she was given to us by a family member. She is a beautiful long haired calico...And she knows she's pretty. Her name is Mincemeat, and she is used to ruling the roost. When she was a young, she was a farm cat who chased horses off of her favorite hilltop! She had one fear: thunderstorms. So when her first owner moved to Florida, she decided to give Mince to her friends, M's uncles. 

They liked her well enough, and took good care of her, but they just aren't cat people. They also had two chihuahuas that constantly got on her nerves. She had a room to herself, and sometimes she sat on the porch with one of M's uncles. She liked the uncles, but the dogs stressed her out so much, she had a bald patch. 

Then, something happened when we visited. You don't pick cats, cats pick you. And Mince picked M. She followed them with her tail up, batted at them, and let them hold her like a baby (something she did not let anyone else do). After we went home, she wandered around the house, crying. She was given to us a few weeks later.

Even after we got another cat, Lady Grey, Mincemeat maintained her status as the queen. She can hiss and growl loud enough to be heard across the apartment. As she got older, she stopped going out of her way to assert dominance, and contented herself with reminding my cat who was boss any time she tried something funny. 

This casual attitude also extended to my mother's cats, who we occasionally house while she is away. Freyja met Mince when she was barely out of kittenhood, and avoids her at all costs. Basya on the other hand, is much newer to the family, and had never seen Mincemeat in her prime. 

After bullying Lady Grey back and forth across the apartment, the slow, elderly calico finally caught Ms. Basya's eye. With a great deal of misplaced bravado, Basya squared herself up and gave Mincemeat her best hiss. To be fair, it was not a bad hiss, but Mincemeat didn't even blink. She hissed back. It wasn't her best hiss, but it still blew Basya's out of the water! If they were cartoons, Basya would have tumbled backwards into the hallway! Instead, she shrank away, now very aware that Lady Grey was never the Queen here.