A calico cat owned by an elderly male Alzheimer’s sufferer was found covered in long fur dreadlocks that spread almost all of its entire body.
The 14-year-old overweight cat was left abandoned after its 82-year-old owner moved to a nursing home.
The cat was rescued by Paul Russell, a distant relative of the elderly man, who found the cat after he went to leave food for it.
‘When they put him in the nursing home, I thought, ‘Hey, he has a cat.’ The house was still open, so I went down and left some food for the cat until we figured out what we’re going to do’, Russell told The Dodo website.
‘So I started searching around, and suddenly this huge creature darts out from under the bed and runs down to the cellar, and I thought, ‘What was that?”
The huge creature turned out to be Hidey, the cat who had obviously been neglected for years as a result of its owner’s worsening illness.
Russell, who has become the cat’s new owner, took it to the Animal Rescue League and Wildlife Shelter in Pittsburgh, where its dreads were neatly trimmed.
The team of veterinarians was at first stunned as they’d never seen a case like that before, but quickly took to the sad feline and cared for it properly.
The cat had to be drugged to get its unusually long dreads – which the vets think could have been caused by its inability to groom itself as a result of its excessive weight – shaved off.
Hidey, who was named that because of its penchant for hiding under beds out of the sight of people, now lives with Russell and his family and it is slowly adjusting to its new life.
Photos: The Dodo
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