Tiny Rescue Kitten Looks More Like A Plush Toy Than A Real Cat

Mr. Meeseeks, along with his mother and five siblings, were discovered abandoned in a box left outside in the rain last fall. Broward County Animal Care in Florida took in the entire family, and the entire shelter was stunned by what an unusual-looking litter of kittens Meeseeks and his siblings were.

It’s not often easy to locate foster homes for a mother cat and her kittens, and no one knew what would happen to them. Not shortly after they arrived, Amanda Kruczynski, a shelter employee and enthusiastic foster parent, heard about them and went to see them in their holding cage. She knew she couldn’t leave the kittens’ fate to chance the moment she saw them all curled up against their mother.

“I put them all in a carrier and carried them home over my lunch break,” Kruczynski said to The Dodo. “I knew they’d need time to recover from what they’d been through, and I wanted to be able to help. We never did find out how they came to be in that box that night or why they were abandoned.”

Meeseeks was distinct from his siblings from the start. He was too little to move around much when he initially came in his foster home and basically kept curled up in a little ball. He was so little and fluffy that he didn’t even appear real, and many people couldn’t believe he was real.

“No one thought his cat photos were real,” Kruczynski added. “He looked like a small felt doll, and his size added to the surreal.” Anyone who encountered him fell in love at first sight, and I had several adoption enquiries for his whole litter. “This is a one in a million cat.”

Because he was the runt of the litter, his foster mom kept a close check on him to ensure he was always doing well and growing at the same rate as his siblings. As she kept an eye on him, he began to keep an eye on her as well — and eventually became her little sidekick, constantly making sure he was never far from where she was.

“Meeseeks stuck out to me for a variety of reasons,” Kruczynski explained. “He would follow me wherever I went; if I closed a door, he’d be there when I opened it.” It was almost as though he was standing guard for me.”

Meeseeks and his siblings appeared to be doing well until the entire litter was diagnosed with feline distemper, a potentially fatal illness that consumes some kittens. All six kittens miraculously survived, and the entire cat family was finally given up for adoption. When it came time to say good-by, there was one cat Kruczynski couldn’t bear to leave with: tiny Meeseeks.

“I hesitated the day we went to the shelter to say our goodbyes,” Kruczynski recalled. “I’d never paused before. He glanced up from the swarm of fluffy siblings in his carrier and signed the adoption papers himself.”

While his brothers recovered properly from feline distemper, Meeseeks never appeared quite right in the weeks that followed. He began vomiting on a daily basis and finally had significant respiratory issues. It was evident that something was seriously wrong with him, but test after test yielded no results, leaving his new family in the dark. They were immediately smitten with the one-of-a-kind little cat, and they realized they had to do everything they could to help him survive.

Meeseeks was ultimately identified with feline gastrointestinal eosinophilic sclerosing fibroplasia after being misdiagnosed with cancer and given very little time to live. While the condition is new and nothing is known about it, Meeseeks is able to live with it thanks to the help of his vets and family, and for that everyone is glad.

Meeseeks has always been an outlier, from his appearance to his health, but he’s also a fighter, and at little over a year old, he’s thriving in his new life.

“Once he began his treatment, his personality really began to show through,” Kruczynski added. “He’s a ball of energy!” He adores playing with the laser pointer and would chase it around for hours if we let him! He knows where I sleep at night and will scratch on my pillow until I let him beneath the blankets. He has always been quite attached to me.”

People are still puzzled by Meeseeks’ strange looks, and they like looking at images of his distinctive, lovely face. He’s unlike any other cat his family has ever encountered, and despite his numerous problems, they couldn’t be happier that he came into their life.

“Even after everything we’ve been through, I would never, ever regret adopting him,” Kruczynski added. “There’s no way of knowing how long he’ll be here with us, but if he’s already battled through this much, there’s no reason to doubt that he’ll keep fighting.”

Link to Paws Daily

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