Meet Pierce County’s cutest cat: Fin, a 7-year-old ‘fluffy furball of love’ from Tacoma
The News Tribune’s cutest-cat competition received 77 submissions. The top 25 cats made it to the only round of voting.
We asked our readers to vote for the cat they thought was the cutest, and, after receiving thousands of votes, we have a winner: Fin, a 7-year-old long-haired tabby from Tacoma. Fin received 1,500 votes.
Baby, a 5 year-old America-Norwegian mix from Graham, was the runner-up with 859 of votes.
Meet Fin, the cutest cat in Pierce County
Melissa Borden adopted Fin and his sister Dany from the Auburn Valley Humane Society when they were 3 months old. Borden explained that she had only meant to adopt one kitten to keep her first cat company but couldn’t separate the sibling duo.
“After about three years of having Gil, he seemed like he was getting a little lazy, less playful, so I thought it would be really nice to get Gil a playmate,” Borden said. “I saw that the Humane Society had posted a picture of a younger cat who came to be Fin, so I went to go see Fin. He was with another younger cat that was his sister. Every time I picked up Fin, the younger sister would cry, so I put Fin down and I picked up the younger sister, and then Fin would cry, so I did the rational thing and came home with two cats when I meant to only come home with one.”
Borden said she originally wasn’t going to enter Fin into cutest-cat competition but did so on a whim and was delighted to see that he was among the top 25 cats. Still, she didn’t expect he would win.
“He is a really cute cat, but there were a lot of really adorable cats in that contest, so I was elated that he was among the top 25 when that came out, because I wasn’t really expecting anything, since there are obviously a lot of really cute cats out there,” Borden said.
Borden enters Fin into the AVHS Pet Photo Calendar Contest every other year. Although she didn’t enter him this year, she still wanted to give back to the Humane Society, so she and a couple other benefactors decided to donate $1 for every vote that Fin got in the cutest cat competition on behalf of the top three finishers.
“I know the [Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County] has really struggled in the past year since they’ve gotten hundreds of animal surrenders. They’ve had a really rough go, so I wanted to be able to do something nice for them,” Borden said.
Aside from being a very cute cat with bright orange eyes, Borden said Fin has a funny personality.
“Fin is a really, really funny animal. I would say he puts ... the ‘scaredy’ in ‘scaredy-cat’. He is terrified of anything and anyone except for me, unless I’m outside the house. If he sees me through the window, he’s also terrified of me, but he’s a pretty cute guy,” Borden said. “He’s very affectionate, just afraid of his own shadow, essentially, but yeah, he’s been a fun little animal to get to know. We joke that his meow sounds like a pterodactyl or like an elderly cat, a very funny meow for a 7-year-old cat.”
Although Fin is scared of most things, he isn’t scared of bossing his older and larger brother around, and Borden has pronounced Fin to be his bully and the “ruler of the roost.”
Borden added that Fin is different from most cats, including his siblings, because he is a “fluffy furball of love” and is not as independent as most cats. She said Fin makes her feel appreciated because he is the first to greet her when she gets home and follows her around everywhere she goes and is like her “little shadow.”
“[Fin is] just an overall amazing animal,” Borden said. “ I love him so much and he’s been great fun to have.”
This story was originally published October 26, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
