Many animals are just natural mothers, and have the instincts to take care of babies that aren’t even their own — or even the same species!
That was the case recently when a caring mama cat surprised everyone by taking care of two newly orphaned puppies.
This unlikely foster family formed at the Wilbarger Humane Society in Vernon, Texas. Employee Suzie Streit that it was a “special little story” in which a sad story took a heartwarming turn.
Two months ago, the shelter took in a pregnant female dog, who gave birth to two male puppies named Yin and Yang. The mama dog was given all the care she needed and was a good and loving mother to her newborn pups — but tragically, she suddenly died.
Suzie said they are “not 100% sure” what caused her sudden death, but the employees jumped into action to save the now-orphaned puppies, providing round-the-clock bottle feeding, but knew that having a surrogate would give them the best chance of survival.
Then, by chance, the shelter had a new arrival: a mother cat and her kitten, named Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt. While it seems unusual, the staff had the idea of putting the two puppies with the mama cat to see if she would care for them.
“Cats are really good about when you can put somebody else’s babies on them and they’ll take other cat babies all the time. But we thought we’d try with the dogs,” Suzie explained
Amazingly, the plan worked: Julie has been a doting mother to the two puppies, even though they’re different species. Suzie says that the cat doesn’t even “like dogs,” but apparently her maternal instincts just kicked in.
“She has done a really excellent job of adapting to what she needed to adapt to keep them going.”
The shelter had never put puppies with a cat before, but the novel approach paid off and gave Yin and Yang their best chance of survival.
“Some really good mommies will love their babies as their own, and we have a beautiful example of this, right now in our own backyard,” Suzie said on Facebook as the pups played with their unlikely surrogate.
The pups and cats are not currently up for adoption but Wilbarger Humane Society says they will share updates if they become available.
