Popsicle the frostbitten kitten is stealing hearts on TikTok and getting a new home
A kitten showed up to a Wyoming animal shelter with frostbitten ears, toes, and tail on Valentine’s Day.
So staff at Park County Animal Shelter in Cody nicknamed her Popsicle, and it wasn’t long before the determined kitten started stealing hearts on TikTok.
“Even though this little girl has been through so much, she is a fighter!” shelter staff said in a Feb. 14 Facebook post, adding that she would need her toes on all four feet amputated along with both ears and part of her tail.
Shelter staff suspects she had been hit by a car and was unable to get out of the wintry elements, the post says. She must have managed to crawl to someone’s home for help, and the family brought her to the shelter in Cody.
Her bottom lip had also detached from her jaw, but the dogged little kitten was still “alert, eating, using the litter box, cleaning herself and is accepting all of the love,” staff said in the post.
“(The surgeries) may seem extensive but our little Popsicle deserves a chance!” shelter staff said in the post. “She WANTS to live, that much is clear to us and since she wants to keep fighting then we will help her in that fight!”
All that care paid off in the end. Shelter staff documented Popsicle’s journey to recovery on TikTok, and users quickly became obsessed with her story, asking for regular updates and whether she had a home yet.
“Strong and beautiful baby!” someone wrote on a Feb. 22 video that showed a post-surgery Popsicle hobbling around wearing pink veterinary wrap on her amputated toes.
“She’s had a rough go in life,” captions on the video say. The captions describe the pitiful condition she was in when she first showed up at the shelter.
“Even after all of that, it was clear to us that she was a fighter and wanted to live. So she underwent 2.5 hours of surgery for amputations of her ears, toes, tail, and reattaching her bottom lip to her jaw,” the video says. “We are thrilled to report that our little fighter is doing wonderfully post-surgery.”
Follow up videos show Popsicle getting her bandages off, her stitches out, and using her toeless paws to bat at a cat toy.
The most recent update shows her playing with a french fry the mischievous kitten stole from her foster mom’s plate on April 1. Jessy Farnworth, lead canine attendant at the shelter, had been fostering Popsicle through her recovery, KTVQ reported.
“Someone’s personality is starting to really show!” a caption on the video says.
Popsicle became something of a local celebrity as well, Farnworth told Cowboy State Daily. She would take little Popsicle with her into Walmart, where the cashiers would ask to see her.
Then a shelter worker told her aunt about Popsicle, and that was it. “She goes, ‘well that’s my cat. I want her’,” Farnworth told the outlet. “She’s going to be living at a lodge, and she’s got older animals and carpeted floors, and no kids. This cat basically is going to be her baby.”
This story was originally published April 4, 2023 at 11:26 AM with the headline "Popsicle the frostbitten kitten is stealing hearts on TikTok and getting a new home."
