Timber A Los Angeles cat owner has shared on social media the heartwarming story of how her “soulmate” cat found her when they both needed each other the most.
In a post shared last Friday on TikTok, the poster, under the username camrynfred, said that while on a walk around her neighborhood she found the newborn kitten abandoned in the street, and she knew right then that she had to bring him home with her.
“How do you know miracles exist?” the text on the clip says.
“Because I found you at the time when I needed you the most, and you needed me,” the caption says. “It’s almost like you knew I needed you, like you heard me telling everyone that I wanted a cat, and how I wanted to name him Cowboy.
“So when you showed up on that walk I went on almost three years ago, and you were a boy… and you were black and white like a cow… I knew that soulmates were real!” the caption says.
In a viral TikTok video, a woman says she rescued her cat on the street after he was abandoned shortly after birth.
camrynfred
The poster told Newsweek that she met Cowboy when she was a senior in college and was going through “a bit of a rough patch” in her life. And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
She said: “I had been telling everyone I knew how I wanted a cat, how I felt like a cat would help me with my mental health, etcetera.
“Two days before I found Cowboy, I even had a conversation with my mom where I told her I wanted a cat and I wanted to name him Cowboy. She laughed and told me to at least wait until I graduated college and figured out my life before taking on that responsibility,” she said.
But on May 31, 2021, she noticed a small animal in the middle of the sidewalk. She struggled to identify what sort of animal he was because of the state he was in. She then decided to take him home and help him.
“The truth is, I didn’t find Cowboy…Cowboy found me,” she said. “At first, I thought he was a mouse because he was so small. I quickly realized he was a cat and that he must have just been born because he was still attached to his placenta. He also couldn’t have been more than an hour old at most.”
So she took him home and bathed him. For the first few months of his life, she bottle-fed him and nursed him back to health. At the time he was found, the kitten weighed only about 3 ounces. Now, almost three years later, he’s happy and healthy and weighs 13 pounds.
“The best part? He was a boy and was black and white, just like a cow. He was the Cowboy I had manifested all along,” she said.
Cat moms often reject their babies when they feel they will not thrive, possibly because they’re born with an illness or anatomical defect. But healthy kittens may sometimes be abandoned too. This usually happens when the mom has a large litter, six or more kittens, or is suffering from an illness.
Each year, 6.3 million pets enter U.S. shelters, which comes to an average of 17,260 a day, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The number of dogs and cats taken in by pet shelters hit 46,807 during January 2023, an increase of 1,744 compared with January 2022, 24Petwatch’s Shelter Watch Report found.
Around 920,000 surrendered animals are euthanized every year. Shelters are striving to minimize euthanasia rates by promoting adoption campaigns, spaying and neutering programs and behavior rehabilitation.
The video quickly went viral and has so far received over 1.4 million views and 354,700 likes.
One user, Daedalus, commented: “Every newborn kitten that survives without a mother is a little miracle in an otherwise unforgiving world.”
Alexx said: “You raised him from birth, this is so beautiful.”
And Kally wrote: “When he’s curled up in the palm of your hand OMG HOW PRECIOUS.”
Mati said: “I wish you and cowboy the longest and happiest life together.”
Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.