This story has an elegant symmetry to it. A dilute calico feral kitten was born with a congenital defect. Her nose is deformed and using the conventional, human view of beauty, she is ugly. She turned up at the front door of a student foster home where, as I understand it, visually impaired and blind children live.
Lori, a 50-year-old woman, works with these visually impaired and blind children. She saw the little kitten on the doorstep and noticed that she had fleas, blood on her nose and eye infections. She took her home and then to the veterinarian the next morning. Although, she had planned to take the cat to a local shelter. She changed her mind because the veterinarian decided that it was a bad idea as she would probably be euthanised due to her ugly appearance.
Other than the health conditions mentioned she was in good condition so Lori decided to keep her. She named her Willow.
In a nice ironic twist Willow has become a social media star collecting 238,000 followers on Instagram and 253,000 followers on TikTok. An added benefit is that Willow gets on with Lori’s dog Ella. She says that they are as thick as thieves.
Lori is “blown away” by Willow’s popularity on social media. She wants Willow to spread happiness and kindness. It’s believed that Willow was abandoned by her feline mother because she was unable to feed due to her birth defect.
It turns the conventional cat abandonment story on its head. Normally it is people who abandon cats and sometimes they become feral and sometimes they end up in feral cat colonies.
In terms of aesthetics, on the positive side, Willow has a beautiful dilute tortoiseshell-and-white coat. It’s quite rare in my experience.
When I look at her, I wonder if she was abandoned by a feral cat mother. She might have been abandoned by a person. It would be nice to know how he ended up on the doorstep of this foster home. It seems that Willow did not behave like a feral kitten but feral kittens are pretty pliable.
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