Pokey isn’t your every day feline. He was found alongside a deceased sibling back in 2012 and went to the Animal Rescue League of Boston. There, he was fostered by a wonderful human named Jen.
Jen noticed that Pokey was very needy. He was 3-weeks-old and weighed under 1 pound when he arrived at the rescue, but he needed more than weight. Pokey cried any time Jen left him alone and soon they became inseparable. It became apparent that Pokey wasn’t about to be adopted out to anyone, he’d already found his forever home.
When he was about 2-years-old, Jen decided to start fostering kittens again. As they brought home new fosters, they were surprised to see not just how friendly Pokey was towards them, but how paternal he was.
“He took to the kittens immediately. He groomed them, played with them, and intervened when they got too rough with each other,” Jen told Love Meow. “They climbed all over him, snuggled up with him, and chased him around the house.”
It’s almost as if Pokey knows and understands what they’re going through, having been an orphaned foster himself. Jen says that the younger and weaker the kittens are, the more Pokey’s instincts appear to kick in.
“He’s a fantastic ‘nanny-cat’ and has helped nurture more than 20 kittens (and has been a great foster-brother to lots of adult foster cats),” she says of Pokey.
All of the foster kittens come from the Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation in Virginia and are placed in a quarantined foster room for 7-10 days until they are medically cleared. This is so that any possible infectious diseases don’t spread to Pokey and the other cats and kittens in the house.
When they’re in the room, though, Pokey just waits by the door and tries to get in. He wants to see the foster babies. “He has figured out how to open all the doors in the house so we have had to get creative in order to prevent him from jailbreaking the kittens!” adds Jen.
It’s clear that Pokey loves his fosters and does everything he can to make them feel comfortable and loved. Jen is continuously amazed at how much Pokey enjoys seeing kittens for the first time and caring for them until they are adopted. He’s a special cat and reminds us what “paying it forward” is all about.