An Article About Mog
The other day, while writing an article about my new cat in Sea of Thieves, I realized that I’d never written an article about my oldest pet. I’ve written a couple of articles about Ringo, my second pet, but one of them was to announce his passing, back in 2022. It turns out, I never discussed Mog, my first and oldest pet.
Mog, also known as Captain Virgil Mogtastic, randomly turned up one sunny day when I was 20 years old, back when I lived in the middle of nowhere. He was a very small, very skinny cat with horrible marks around his neck. By our calculations, he couldn’t have been more than 6 months old, still growing out of kittenhood. The marks on his neck were caused by a collar that had been too tight and had at some point come off. Weirdly, there was a clip in his ear, and Mog had already been neutered. We asked around, seeing if anyone had lost a cat, but it was clear Mog had been wandering around for a while, and no one contacted us. So, much to the disagreement of our dad, we kinda adopted him.
The name Mog was always his name. We called him that because the parents warned us that this strange cat probably wouldn’t stick around, that it would leave or probably die or get run over. While we didn’t live on a busy road (it was literally a road of dirt), there was a busy road behind the hill, where he could have potentially wandered. We called him Mog, a rather generic name just meaning “cat”, but it stuck. Over the years, we created many other, silly names, including his full alias, Captain Virgil Mogtastic. Moggy was also a common name for him.
At first, Mog wasn’t really allowed inside. We fed him wet food and dry food, and he’d come to the window whenever he wanted to eat. He managed to snake his way inside one rainy day, wanting protection from the weather. After that, he kept on forcing his way in until we said “fuck it” and let him come and go as he pleased. He always came to the same door, a sliding patio door with a fly screen, so he was easy to spot. He eventually went from not being allowed on any furniture, to being allowed on the sofas, to being allowed anywhere except the kitchen worktops. And even then, he’d try and jump up if he could smell his favourite food (and very rare treat), raw chicken.
When we all moved out because the family home was being sold, Mog originally went to live with my sister. She lived in Peyia at first, and Mog became a completely indoor cat. He remained as much even when she moved up to Nicosia with her boyfriend and our mum. When she moved to the UK, Mog moved in with brother and I, and was reunited with Ringo, our other cat. The two of them actually got on quite well. Mog ended up taking over the place when Ringo passed away, and when we moved up to Mesogi, he really settled down properly, no longer caring that he wasn’t allowed outdoors any more.
During this time, I got to know Mog a bit better. He was always ‘everyone else’s cat’. He was mum’s cat, he was sister’s cat, he was brother’s cat. But in the last few months when we lived in Mesogi, Mog would settle down more in my room, he was more comfortable with me feeding him and he would regularly come to me for tickles. He was always rather aloof, but Mog could never resist tickles, especially around his neck and under his chin. Mog also loved my stripey hoodie and would regularly sleep on it. Even if I was wearing it.
Now, unfortunately, I don’t have Mog any more. When I was finally ready to move into my own, single apartment, the plan was that brother would take Mog to live with him and his girlfriend. My new place didn’t allow pets at all, so I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Either way, brother had been Mog’s main owner for years, plus Mog always seemed to like him more, so it made sense. Unfortunately, while we were moving out, brother suddenly started getting rashes. It turned out, he had picked up a cat allergy from somewhere. He could no longer take Mog with him. So we had to rehome Mog.
Thankfully, we did find someone who could take him in. Mog now lives with a nice lady and several other cats. He enjoys watching television and sleeping. He’s living the good life now. However, I do really miss him. He may have been a bit of a pain in the butt, but he really was wonderful.