Interview: Mitzi
Pets, they’re your best friend and confidant. Big or small, fluffy or a bit scruffy, it doesn’t matter, we love them all. They’re there for you unconditionally and the feeling is mutual. Our interview series celebrates this special bond between animals and hoomans. Let the awws begin.
Hoomans: Edit and Tamas
Cat: Mitzi (3 years old), and all the craziest nicknames that come to our mind, mostly Hungarian random words like “Maci” (it means teddy)
Home: Neukölln, Berlin
We adopted Mitzi from a cat shelter called Samtpfoten Neukölln (Samtpfoten means velvet paws) in the spring of 2018. It was a long process until we found each other with her, but looking back now, this was the best thing that could ever happen to us. I remember the first time we went to the shelter, to just have a look around, and we met Mitzi (at that time she was called Lara) and her siblings, like 20 (!!) of them. They were running around in the different rooms, playing with each other, or just chilling in a cat tower…It was insanely cute, but also overwhelming.
The owner of Mitzi and her siblings’ parent cats was an old lady, whose husband suddenly passed away, and after the emotional shock she did not really notice that her 2 cats (a Persian and a British shorthair) started to make kittens… So this is how around 25 of these Persian-British shorthair mix cuties were born, and as the lady could not take care of the situation herself, she asked for help from the shelter.
We had a few unsuccessful visits in the shelter – I mean, of course we loved many cats there, but that special spark was not there for us –, our attention was on Mitzi again, because in the meantime she gave birth to TWO incredibly cute babies. Yes, she is a young mommy, quite a difficult background for such a young age… We were considering the 2 babies to adopt, but no surprise they were given away in no time. And then in this process, we actually noticed how cute and unique Mitzi is! Very quiet and introvert, and only paying attention to things that are important: her babies, food, and suddenly, us!
After so many weeks, finally we were at the finish of the adoption process. It was very thorough, the shelter really takes care of the cats and their final home, which we really appreciated. The people working there are truly dedicated and very helpful, we’d 100% recommend them. We fixed a protecting net on the balcony, bought lots of things and ordered the best quality food she can have (only wet food, as she does not drink water). And then on 4th of May 2018, she finally arrived at our home!
Mitzi was originally named Lara in the shelter, but somehow the name just did not click with us...And her nickname there was Bürokatze (translated as office cat), because she lived in the office room of the shelter, and she has a special affection towards office supplies. We settled on Mitzi, which came very randomly, it’s a bit similar to English “Kitty”, both in German and in Hungarian (our native language). We’d write Mitzi with a “c” if it was in Hungarian, but we thought let’s keep it German as we live here now.
Mitzi prefers to stay in the background and just observe things, and she is an Einzelkatze (basically a loner, who does not really like other cats’ company). She’s a true introvert, who philosophizes a lot (see last photo). Funny, playful, loving, careful and shy. She is not the typical cat who always comes purring to your lap, she rather stays cautious and watches the right moment to come for a little chin rub. Despite the fact that she’s an introvert, she actually loves people around her, whenever we have friends over at our place, she's chilled and really enjoys the extra attention. Oh and she’s a music fan, just like us! She is especially into ambient/experimental music.
Mitzi has developed the perfect sleeping habit: she wakes up with us around 8:30, 9 in the morning, or even if she comes earlier, she loves sleeping back and lying next to us in bed, until we wake up. Those morning moments when she comes to our bed, purring and kind of embracing us is really the cutest. After we all wake up together, we get our coffee, she gets her breakfast.
She is incredibly picky with food. She does not consume water, so she only gets the highest quality canned food, with above 80% meat content. So basically, fine food for cats. And still, so many times she just tosses it, trying to cover it with her paws as it was her poo… We started to heat up a bit of her food in the microwave, so the smell and temperature is more tempting. After eating, she usually poops in the morning, which can be very entertaining (except the smell), because after she did her business, she is running around like crazy, and meowing like she was ashamed or something.
So, after that little show, she either watches the birds on the balcony, or if it’s cold outside, staring them from the shelf inside the flat, and mentally preparing for her second round of breakfast. These actions are repeated (except poo) until her lunchtime, and after lunch comes her daytime nap, and not waking up until 6pm or so. In the evenings she is very playful (not recently, I think quarantine made her lazier), obviously with the most random things (and not with the dedicated pet toys). Her recent fav is a little bell fixed on a long rope, and also a random short rope.
She loves sitting with us at the table when we’re having dinner. Surprisingly, she is not interested in human food, except FISH, she goes particularly crazy about tuna. After dinner she is chilling and sleeping, sometimes watching movies with us.
One of the funniest moments with Mitzi was when we just came back from somewhere abroad, during her evening playtime, and there was a really big trolley bag standing still in the middle of the room, but already emptied. The rope or whatever thing we were playing with her was behind the trolley, and she suddenly jumped on top of it, but as the bag was empty it started to roll and slowly fell into her. In a very rapid second, she jumped away and was totally confused. We’ll never forget that funny face she made and that surfing movements on top of the trolley.
Since bringing Mitzi into our lives, it’s been a lot of responsibility of course, especially when we travel somewhere, but on the positive side, she brought us a lot of happiness and joy!
Follow Mitzi and her musical career on her Instagram at @mitzitempo.