As if struggling with the trials of being homeless on a bustling, active campus wasn’t hard enough, black and grey cat Nugget Marshand — also known as Nug — struggles with addiction.
After living in Bear Hall for the most of a semester, Nug found himself abandoned near Laney-Manion Hall with nothing but his thirst for catnip.
“The addiction started soon after I met my human,” Nug said. “He took me to his tiny room and gave me a grassy substance that I couldn’t avoid. Its smell had me trapped.”
Nug struggled with catnip addiction for five years.
“I’ve done some f****d up stuff to get catnip before,” Nug said.
After being abandoned on campus, Nug joined the Litterboys gang in hopes of maintaining his addiction.
“It got out of hand real fast,” Nug said while licking the hairless scar on his right paw. “I was fighting cats in the street for just a taste of catnip. I had never been so out of control. I knew I had to get out.”
Nug relocated in order to escape the Litterboys and lived a life away from social interaction.
“I wandered around the fraternity houses,” Nug said. “The other cats couldn’t stand the stench of sexual regret and shitty liquor, so they stayed away. I had to eat out of the trash, but workers from the hospital close by sometimes gave me food.”
After a year of seclusion, Nug found other cats around the hospital and made friends.
“Most of them were also recovering addicts,” Nug said. “I felt at home. The hospital eventually started giving out food regularly, and I even denied the catnip offered to me…sometimes. I have friends now and I don’t need the intense high I get from catnip.”
