A woman has been praised for giving a senior, one-eyed cat a second chance after adopting her from an animal-control shelter.
The woman, who posts to Reddit under the username u/sarabee213, has a love for older animals, already owning 10- and 13-year-old cats. She has now added Lily, a 14-year-old tabby, to her “senior cat crew.”
In a post to r/seniorkitties on September 17, the woman shared a photo of Lily, who avoided looking at the camera with her one eye, and was nestled among blankets and grass in a carrier.
The woman said: “This sweet older gal was an owner surrender at county animal control.
“She was half-asleep but immediately started purring when I walked up to her cage. The shelter is at max capacity and I knew I couldn’t leave her there.”
In a comment, she shared Lily’s desperate back story, saying she had been “passed around from home to home,” and the woman believes Lily was a “feral” cat at one point, as she is missing the tip of her ear.
An ear tip, where about one centimeter [0.4 inch] of the tip of an adult cat’s ear is removed, is a universally recognized, humane procedure done on feral or community cats. It indicates that the animal has been neutered or spayed and vaccinated before being returned to the wild, according to the Feral Cat Project.
It lets people know that the feline has already undergone these procedures, to prevent them being trapped for these purposes again. If you find a feral cat with an ear tip, you should leave it alone, unless it appears sick, injured, or in immediate danger.
The cat’s new owner decided to give her the name Lily to “symbolize rebirth and life changes, which is perfect for this sweet gal starting her new life,” she wrote in a comment.
Reddit users flocked to the post, awarding it close to 3,000 upvotes as animal lovers praised the woman for giving Lily a second chance. One wrote: “So happy she will live out her senior years in a loving home with a crew all of her own!”
“Thanks for giving this girl a loving home,” another posted, as a third said: “Congratulations on adopting a beautiful senior kitty! Now she has a beautiful place to live out her senior years! Thank you for adopting her.”
“Welcome home sweet girl,” one commenter said. “Seniors are the best.”
And another shared their own story of adopting “the sweetest” 10-year-old cat from the shelter, who lived for another eight years, calling it the “best decision I could make.”
In a comment, the adopter pointed out that “people forget how long cats can live, and that a healthy 8-10 year old cat has plenty of years left.”
She added that she has had her other cats since they were kittens, “but I’ll probably keep adopting seniors from now on. They’re just so sweet and precious.”
Senior animals are far less likely to be adopted than their younger counterparts: when it comes to dogs, puppies are adopted at a rate of 60 percent, compared to just 25 percent of older dogs, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
However, the ASPCA notes multiple benefits to adopting a senior animal, as they may settle into their new home faster, will require less supervision, and have already grown into their personality.
Newsweek has contacted u/sarabee213 via Reddit for comment on this story.
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.
Read the full article here
