An extremely fat feline was adopted by a Virginia retiree hours after his adoption ad went viral.
Kay Ford was watching the finale of Disney+ Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian, when her daughter sent her a photo of Patches, an extremely flabby gray and white spotted tabby.
Richmond Animal Care and Control had just gone viral for a hilarious Facebook post advertising for Patches’ forever home.
“Did you wake up today and say, ‘Let’s adopt the largest cat anyone has ever seen?’ If so, we have the cat for you,” RACC captioned a fabulously fat photo of the cat.
“Meet Patches; all 40.3 POUNDS of him! He’s been regulated to a very special diet, is on an exercise plan and is very sweet.”
The ad said that Patches was chipped and neutered, but any potential adopters would have to commit to a health and fitness plan.
“Until then, we will marvel at his gloriously gluttonous body,” the RACC hilariously concluded.
Ford said she saw the post and “knew immediately” that she needed to adopt Patches.
She may have known that the cat should come home with her, but was sure that she was up against some stiff competition.
Patches adoption profile already had 1200 likes and 2,000 commentators, many who made offers to adopt the surrendered pet.
Fortunately for Ford, she’s a Richmond local and didn’t have work to get in the way of her immediately driving to the shelter.
When the pair met for the first time, Ford got onto the floor and Patches was instantly besotted with her. The feeling was mutual for the retiree.
“I don’t know, I think with animals, you can just tell,” she said about their connection. “You just look at him and you go, ‘That’s my cat.’”
The shelter agreed and she was able to take Patches home.
“I knew that I was in a position to help him,” she explained. “I’m retired, I’m home a lot.”
Anisa Rani, a British veterinary nursing student, is uniquely qualified and highly motivated to care for special needs felines.
She has taken in 11 strays, and one of them, a three-legged cat named Clementine, has paid the care taking forward.
Clementine came into Rani’s life when she was hit by a car and dropped off at the clinic she works at last August.
A surgeon amputated the cat’s leg and Rani was compelled to take her home.
There she joined Juniper, a one-eared stray undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer and suffering the onset of dementia.
“It started by her doing laps around the room, staring at walls every now and again and forgetting when she last ate,” Rani said.
“We didn’t think she had long with us, she was given a life expectancy of four months.”
When she brought Clementine home, the pair quickly became best friends, despite Juniper’s distaste for every other cat in the house.
Juniper’s spatial awareness began degrading and she began to bump into Clementine frequently, which the other cat took in stride.
“When Juniper’s dementia declined, Clementine could definitely tell and became so much more patient with her,” Rani detailed.
“She was so patient and sweet. She stopped being upset and was so much kinder to Juniper.”
When Juniper’s lung cancer worsened, she was only given four months to live, but with Clementine by her side, she survived for nearly a year before passing.
