Meet Mitzi: a sweet cat who just wanted to find a place to call home.
The eight-year-old stray cat first arrived at Woodside Animal Sanctuary in Plymouth, Devon in May 2017. At the time, she weighed about 17 pounds. Since she was a stray, the animal sanctuary isn’t positive how she got so big. Their best guess is that multiple people were feeding her.
“Like all cats it seems she was very successful at adopting people,” shelter manager Helen Lecointe told the BBC. “No-one owned her but everyone was feeding her.”
Soon after taking Mitzi in, the shelter posted a photo of her to their Facebook page. The caption on the photo said:
“Mitzi, the fattest cat we have ever had in? ……Probably!”
The photo went viral, and newspapers across England called Mitzi ‘Britain’s fattest stray cat.’ After that, the shelter received tons of applications for Mitzi.
People from around the world offered to adopt Mitzi, but Woodside Animal Sanctuary hoped to find someone local to adopt the cat. They worried that Mitzi would get stressed if she had to travel too far.
The shelter was able to find a local person to adopt Mitzi, and the cat went off to her new home.
Unfortunately, Mitzi’s new owner had a change of circumstances and couldn’t keep the cat. The cat went back to Woodside Animal Sanctuary, and she was soon adopted by another owner. But Mitzi’s second owner got sick, and they weren’t able to keep her either.
“It’s very unusual for a cat to be returned this many times but sadly she’s just been so unlucky,” Lecointe said.
Soon after this, Mitzi went to live with her third owner. Mitzi loved her new owner, and her owner helped her slim down. After a few months, the cat went from 17 pounds to 11 pounds.
Sadly, Mitzi’s owner passed away in August 2018. The heartbroken cat returned to the shelter to look for another forever home.
In February 2019, one of Mitzi’s former owner’s family members contacted the shelter and said they would take Mitzi in. They explained that they had wanted to adopt Mitzi when her owner passed away, but they couldn’t because they were in a rented house.
“We had offers from the US, Sweden and the Middle East, but we’re so pleased that we’ve found an owner who already knows her and loves her,” Lecointe said.
Mitzi will go to live with her new family in April 2019, when they move into their new house.
“She’s such a sweet cat,” Lecointe said. “We really hope she’s found her fairytale ending.”
Mitzi has had a tough few years, but hopefully, she has found a great forever home where she can spend the rest of her life. This sweet cat deserves to have a great life!
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