Onset's 'Ice Cream Kitty' put down after illness worsened
Moochi cuddling up with a cactus in her family home. Photo source: Naomi Arenberg
Moochi cuddling up with a cactus in her family home. Photo source: Naomi Arenberg
The cat went by many names: Yarelis, Yuri, Moochi. But to Wareham, she was known as “Ice Cream Kitty.”
The stray tuxedo cat, whose real name was Moochi, ended up in front of Nana’s Ice Cream in Onset, and the shop’s staff, along with the rest of the town, banded together to get her home and get her medical treatment. Even though she returned home in early July, Moochi’s owners, Naomi Arenberg and Peter Baum, said her illness grew worse over the past month, and that they had to euthanize the cat on Aug. 7. She was 16 years old.
“We are grateful for the love she was given by her many friends,” Arenberg wrote in an email to Wareham Week.
Baum said that Moochi had gone missing on June 26 and that she was sick and “quite thin.” The family had given up on finding her, fearing that a coyote had gotten to her first. In reality, the cat had become a fixture outside of Nana’s, which only sits a few doors down from the family’s home.
The staff fed hot dogs to the cat, whom they dubbed Yarelis, and tried looking for her owner. They solicited the help of Jessica Bell, who runs Spikes MIssion Cat Rescue. Bell could immediately tell the cat was sick, as she vomited often and seemed sluggish. When Bell brought her to Marion Animal Hospital, the bill crossed $1,300.
But Wareham knew it takes a village to save a cat. Residents donated over $1,300 to cover the veterinary expenses through a GoFundMe page started by a Nana’s Ice Cream employee.
After Wareham Week wrote an article about Yarelis in early July, Baum realized that it was his Moochi in the story. He contacted Bell, and she brought the cat back home to Baum and Arenberg.
Moochi continued making the rounds along her street once she came home, Arenberg said. She ate well, dining on salmon baked by a neighbor. But she suffered from an “inoperable intestinal tumor” that eventually made her so ill she couldn’t walk or eat, according to Arenberg.
Arenberg thanked all the people who helped Moochi and her family while she was missing, including Bell, the Nana’s staff, and “all the people who phoned us with concern for a lost and hungry stray cat.”
“The love she gave and received brought our community together in a special way. She will be greatly missed by everyone who knew her,” Arenberg wrote.
