Onset’s ‘Ice cream kitty’ is back at her fur-ever home
Moochi cuddles up with a cactus at Baum's home. Source: Naomi Arenberg
Moochi and her owners. Source: Jessica Bell
More Moochi. Source: Naomi Arenberg
Moochi cuddles up with a cactus at Baum's home. Source: Naomi Arenberg
Moochi and her owners. Source: Jessica Bell
More Moochi. Source: Naomi Arenberg
The Onset “Ice Cream Kitty” story might have had a purr-fect ending.
After reading the online edition of Wareham Week on the morning of Thursday, July 9, Onset resident Peter Baum saw a familiar face: his cat Moochi.
Moochi, previously identified as “Yarelis,” showed up sick and crying outside Nana’s Ice Cream a couple weeks ago. Employees brought her to Spikes Mission Cat Rescue, where she received an outpouring of community support and a GoFundMe page brought in over $1,000 to support her medical bills.
“I know that beautiful little face with the little black dot on her left nostril,” Baum said. “So I was sure it was her.”
Upon reading the story, Baum contacted Spikes Mission Cat Rescue operator Jessica Bell and reunited with Moochi Thursday afternoon.
Bell said when she got Baum’s message she “called them so fast.” She brought the cat to Baum’s house, where she said Moochi started rubbing against the crate when she saw her family and ran up the stairs to see Baum. Baum said he showed Bell several photos of Moochi to show she was his.
Moochi had been missing since June 26 and she was sick and “quite thin,” Baum said. She was scheduled for an ultrasound before she went missing. Eventually, Moochi’s family had given up on finding her. Baum said there were coyotes and red-tailed hawks in the area.
Moochi is an indoor-outdoor cat, Baum said, but may have looked unfamiliar to the neighbors. Baum’s home is mere steps away from Nana’s Ice Cream.
“The people in the area know those cats, except that Moochi was sick, so she looked like a stray,” he said.
Upon Moochi’s return, Baum offered to cover what Bell paid out of pocket for Moochi’s medical bills.
Baum said most of the facts in the Wareham Week story about “Yarelis” lined up with Moochi, except that Moochi wasn’t young like doctors previously said — she’s actually 16 years old. And she has a microchip that apparently did not register when scanned.
Nevertheless, Moochi is back in her fur-ever home. Bell said that doctors believe Moochi may have lymphoma, making her “so happy” that the cat could return to be with her family.
“I cried like a baby,” Bell said.
