Kitten Takes His Favorite Stuffed Toy With Him To Keep Him Safe At The Vet’s Office

“He had the whole neighborhood working together to find and trap him. We have one cat already, so we weren’t really looking to add another, but it felt like Ponyo was meant for us!”

Damjan

• Published in Animal Stories
• July 16, 2020

Samantha Smart and her family were at their home in Florida when they heard a kitten meowing somewhere near. “It wasn’t just a meow, it was a sad little cry,” Samantha says.

“He had the whole neighborhood working together to find and trap him. We have one cat already, so we weren’t really looking to add another, but it felt like Ponyo was meant for us!”

The family took the kitten they named Ponyo in, determined to make his life as comfortable as possible. To make the transition period easier for their new kitten, Samantha’s daughter got him his own special stuffed dragon toy.

It's not super common for cats and kittens to bond to toys the way dogs do, but this little kitten doesn't play by the rules. Ponyo immediately fell in love with his new best friend.

Seeing how much this toy means to the kitty, Samantha even took it to the vet clinic to make her little kitten feel braver during a surgical procedure.

And it worked like a charm...

“My daughter Violet spent a while picking out the perfect friend for him to sleep with and settled on Dragon,” Samantha says. “He sleeps with Dragon every night and spends a lot of his time dragging him around the house!”

When Ponyo had to get neutered, his owners realized he might be a little anxious about going to the vet clinic and that it might be a good idea to send his dragon toy to make him more courageous. The adorable duo was taken to Operation Catnip, a spay-neuter association that works mostly with stray, free-roaming felines.

When the staff there saw them, they were absolutely delighted. They noticed that Ponyo’s toy made him feel securer while he was getting used to new surroundings and decided to allow them to stay together the whole time.

“Ponyo is a happy and healthy kitten,” Melissa Jenkins, the Operations Director for Operation Catnip, told the reporters. “Thanks to his mom, who found him and took him into her home, as well as our Kitten Shelter Diversion Program, Ponyo has had access to important vaccinations and spay-neuter surgery which helped to set him up for a healthy life ahead.”

Operation Catnip’s staff felt it would be good to send the stuffed toy through the same procedure as Ponyo. The fact that the cat was nervous isn’t surprising: this is a life-altering procedure. But his best friend did everything that was expected of him — it never left his side!

Jenkins stated that the Kitten Shelter Diversion Program is a cooperation between Operation Catnip and the public to keep defenseless kittens out of crammed shelters and enable them to start new lives in new homes.

“When members of the public find kittens outdoors, we encourage them to foster the kittens in their home rather than take them to shelters or rescues, which are already very full, especially at this time of year, and which don’t always have the capacity to help with the surge of kittens,” Jenkins clarified.

“Operation Catnip provides support by way of supplies and veterinary care for the kittens, and once they ‘graduate’ from the program (have their spay-neuter surgery), we ask that those caregivers then take on the responsibility of finding them homes!”

“In addition, we ask that the caregivers are very thorough about getting the whole family fixed — we want them to bring us the mother cat for sterilization too, as well as any other unaltered cats from the area where the kittens were found,” Jenkins explained.

“We can even loan out humane live traps to them to catch any cats that are too feral to pick up by hand. It’s critical to ending the cycle of reproduction for that group and making sure no more kittens are born to them next year!"

"Ponyo was found outdoors in the neighborhood, and his mom, Samantha, searched for a mother cat and siblings for several days, but never located any others. Ponyo ended up working his magic, and they decided to keep him themselves, using the Kitten Shelter Diversion Program to start his new life on the right foot!”

People loved Ponyo and his dragon:

Damjan