Inspiration for Marvin - Our Cat Spartacus

When deciding on the character for Marvin in the Marvin the Math Cat book series, we looked to our grey rescue cat, Spartacus, for inspiration. A couple of years ago, we found him hanging around behind one of our relative's houses in the woods. He would come by to beg for food and spend most of his time sleeping in an old tire, eating spiderwebs (he loves those!), and hunting mice. One weekend, when we were visiting, we couldn't bear to leave him anymore, and our relative could not care for him herself. We gave him a cardboard box for the night as we contemplated taking him to get checked at a vet and to see if he was chipped. As he huddled in the box on a cold December night, the coyotes howled, and the wind was fierce. The next day, we bribed him with food to coax him into a kennel and drove to the nearest veterinary clinic. He was not chipped. We then posted a few pictures of him online to see if anyone was missing him. After a month, we decided it was time to officially adopt him. We are so happy we saved him!

​

Spartacus is a very regal cat and thinks he is the king of his domain. He looks very sophisticated wearing a bow tie (when we can get him to wear one!) and is very intelligent. He can pretty much read your mind sometimes, especially if it has to do with taking him outside for supervised playtime. Spartacus also has two sisters named Keisha, a tabby cat originally from the Bahamas, and Josephine (Jojo), an orange and white rescue. We trained all our cats to use speech buttons to communicate more easily with us. All we do is input our voice saying words like "foodie," "out," and "play," and then they push the appropriate button when they want one of these things. Yes, they are pretty spoiled!

​

Our Marvin the Math Cat Instagram page also includes pictures and videos of Spartacus as well as our other two rescue cats, Keisha and Jojo. ​Hope you enjoy it!

​

Heather & Nick