the truth about Mitzi

with a hilarious bonus story at the end for paid subscribers only! 😉

A version of this story is expressed in my one-person show, “okay, bye!: a show about rejection”

I loved Mitzi since the moment Sydnee (my best friend) and I each found her profile on Petfinder and shouted to each other, "Look at this one!" without knowing we were looking at the same cat.

I adopted Mitzi on February 1, 2020. My last day of work at Noken was March 29, 2020. Somewhere between those two dates, Mitzi stopped using her litter box: she would pee and poop in dark, hidden corners of my newly renovated (and recently rearranged) Flatbush apartment. The first few times I noticed this, I was confused but wrote it off as an anomaly. After a week, I realized she had no interest in the litter box. Pretty annoying, but at least it was always on an easy-to-clean hardwood floor. Cats are not like dogs; they don't respond to discipline whatsoever. Each time it happened, I would gently place her in her litter box, clean up her pee or poop with a paper towel, clean the floor with a Swiffer, spray the spot with an enzymatic spray, let it dry and hope for the best.

Between -- and during -- Zoom classes during lockdown, I relentlessly Googled how to get her to stop. The Internet told me that cats going outside the litter box is actually very serious and can point to critical health issues; Mitzi needed veterinary care straight away.

Well, I brought her to my vet. They did a physical, a urinalysis, stool test, and... they said she was healthy, though she actually was not spayed. News to me! They told me that perhaps having her spayed could help. I'm happy that I brought her, but... I just lost my job. I was a student. And that was $200 gone.

I wrote an email to the animal rescue who I adopted her from; I was frustrated that they lied about her being litter box trained! I had the internet telling me that I should get a second vet's opinion, that I should buy Feliway plug-ins, toys, 8 kinds of litter, 4 kinds of litter boxes, buy multiple litter boxes, play with her more, buy special food, move the litter boxes, and.... with all due respect, I didn't sign up for that. I brought Mitzi home -- a healthy, young litter box-trained cat -- four weeks after my ex-boyfriend moved out. I was heartbroken. I was broke. I was prepared to pay the adoption fee and wellness vet bills. I did not have a budget for all of this.

So I demanded that the animal shelter get her spayed and help me solve her litter box issues. I may have been snappy in my emails, I don't know. But I felt tricked into dealing with all of this on my own. The shelter had her spayed, and they covered the cost of a cat behaviorist they know. THANK GOODNESS!

The behaviorist (cat psychologist) did say a lot of the same things as the Internet: as long as she is healthy, let's be patient and try one thing at a time with her.

I played with Mitzi.

I gave her a spot on the windowsill.

I bought her a snuggly cat-bed cave.

I bought her catnip.

I gave her a water fountain to drink from.

I bought a clicker and an extendable stick, and catnip treats, to train her to sit on a towel.

I put wee-wee pads down in the spots on the floor where she kept peeing.

I bought 6 temporary cat litter boxes, and filled them each with different kinds of litter: scented clay, unscented clay, pine pellets, shredded corn cob, newspaper pellets, sawdust.

I bought the Feliway plug-ins to emit calming pheromones.

I bought one regular covered litter box, one uncovered litter box, one that she would have to jump into from the top, and one that was shaped like an igloo.

I picked her poop up from the floor with a dog poop bag, and placed it in the litter box so she knew where it was supposed to go.

I kept every corner of the apartment lit because I thought she just preferred to go in dark corners.

And.... that still wasn't it.

So at the recommendation of the behaviorist, I brought Mitzi to a behavioral vet. Not just a cat doctor, and not just a cat psychologist. This doctor DID BOTH.

I brought Mitzi via Uber from Church Avenue, Flatbush to West 79th street. I paid $650 that I still didn't have, for a physical, urinalysis, stool sample, x-ray, blood tests -- everything. The behavioral vet said she was healthy except for some urinary crystals. I also mentioned that I suspected, after many hours of YouTube research, that Mitzi might have hyperesthesia, a condition that may be neurological.

Finally, some answers!

The solution? Prescription wet food, prescription dry food, and Prozac.

BILLS, BILLS, BILLS!

Okay. Okay. I love this cat. I really, really do. But at this point, even while making the most money per week that I ever have in my life on the Pandemic Unemployment... can I afford to keep this up? I already had to replace furniture my ex took. And pay my own bills while only working part-time. I had tuition bills of $500-$1,100 per month on top fo everything.

Do I need to surrender my cat?

I've put months of effort and patience and love into getting this cat back into her litter box. I think she is the most beautiful thing in the world. Watching her lay in the sun and respond to the mourning doves is, some days, the only thing that feels worth doing.

I was so broken. Clearly, she was too. She had already been surrendered as a kitten, then passed off to a foster home, then brought to me. She was not even two years old by the time she came home. It felt irresponsible to send her to another foster home, another owner, who might end up just yelling at her when she poops on the floor. Someone who has no interest in getting her back to a healthy mental state.

Keeping her, however, was devastating me financially. I had no cash left after the vet bills, the all the enrichment products, the anxiety medication and prescription food. I was to return to school in the fall, and I had no reason to believe I'd make any more money in the near future than I was at that moment.

But... holding on to Mitzi, loving her, giving her a secure, long-term home with me, where she can overcome whatever litter box fears she had, stay healthy, and learn to trust a caregiver...

It was exactly what I needed. Security. Patience. Home. Healing. And by this point, I'm also terrified of litter boxes.

I decided she had to stay with me, even if it meant putting her bills on my high-interest credit cards. We had to heal together. Committing to Mitzi was really the beginning of my commitment to myself.

Today, Mitzi is still on a prescription diet, but she switched to gabapentin instead of prozac. She sleeps on my bed next to me, ever closer as the weeks pass. When I come home after work, she runs to greet me at the door, purring. She lets me pick her up and scratch her tiny chin for up to 10 minutes sometimes!

And she shits in a litter box.

She is one of my greatest loves.

**BONUS STORY BELOW FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS!**