Abby Connolly
Have you been seeing that viral image of a small, adorable, yet disgruntled kitten wearing two brightly colored casts?
That would be none other than Tater Tot, the rescue kitten that stole the hearts of millions online.
Kitty CrusAIDe is a cat rescue and adoption organization based in Utah that rescues, rehabilitates, neuters and finds loving homes for cats all over the state. They’re very active on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok and recently went viral after documenting the journey of little Tater Tot.
Tater Tot was a tiny orange kitten who was found in the wild after being discovered by one of the organization’s volunteer dogs, Bebe, the Newfoundland mix. Bebe’s owner then took Tater Tot to his foster mom, Ash Houghton, one of the co-directors of Kitty CrusAIDe.
Immediately, Ash noticed that all four of Tater Tot’s legs were malformed, and he had a cleft palate, making it difficult to feed him milk.
No one at Kitty CrusAIDe had ever cared for a kitten with a cleft palate before, but after some trial and error, Ash discovered she could successfully feed Tater Tot using a small tube.
Then, she had to figure out what to do with his legs. When Tater Tot was taken to a veterinarian, they put teeny little braces that looked like casts on his front legs to straighten them out slowly. Ash cleverly calls the casts his ‘bonkers.’
That’s when Ash took the famous photo of Tater Tot looking grumpy with his tiny pink and blue casts, which went extremely viral and gained their organization a lot of followers who were desperate to get updates on his health.
Since the first photo of Tater Tot went viral, Ash and Kitty CrusAIDe continued posting awesome updates on his progress, even making action movie trailer-style videos portraying him as a superhero.
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