happy ending

From being paralyzed to running, this is the story of Teddy Bear. 

He was rescued from a licensed breeder in Lancaster by Lakin Harmon. 7-9 years old, he was brought into Ludwigs Corner Veterinary Hospital in really bad condition - with both of his hind legs paralyzed and struggling to so much as urinate. But here we are today, after treatment, adoption, and weeks of companionship, and Teddy Bear is running again. 

This adorable seven-month-old puppy was abandoned on a park bench and though the start of his story is not the greatest, the ending is as positive as it gets with the puppy getting adopted and finding its new forever home!

PEOPLE reports that Marcela Goldberg, who runs local shelter Mascotas Coyoacá in Mexico, heard about the dog and his story and drove out to find the dog tied to a bench with a note next to it. The note said the following: "It hurts a lot to leave my dog here but I made the decision of leaving him because my family used to mistreat him and it would always hurt me to see him in that condition... If you're reading this and your heart wavers, please adopt him and take good care of him. If not, please leave this note in its place. That way others can read it and adopt him. Thank you."

Read the original note and more about the puppy named Boston below!

Taking a break from his rap tour and looking to stay busy, Sterling Davis, better known as "TrapKing", applied for a job at the Atlanta county shelter scooping kitty litter. His interview probably went about as well as any of ours would have. "I did horrible in the interview because they had cats in the room and I was playing with all the cats, kissing all the cats," Davis told TODAY. Luckily though, despite basically not answering any of the questions he got, he managed to get the job. 

"We're not seeing people like you with cats," Davis's interviewer told him. And so he started working at the shelter, helping employees there with trap-neuter-return cases, and had worked there for a few years. During that time, Davis ended up realizing something else. "At the county shelter, there were no men and no Black people that worked in the cat department," he explained to TODAY. "When I would go out and do TNR with all my friends, it would be all women — that's who trained me. I finally asked the difficult question: 'Where are all the guys and where are all the Black people?''

That's when David decided that the tour is going to have to wait, and that little kitty cats are his new priority. And today, he is running his own nonprofit cat rescue called TrapKing Humane Cat Solutions. 

Once a week, we will be featuring an extraordinary animal account on Instagram! Their story, the adorable pictures, and pawesome videos! This week's spotlight goes to Bubby, the 3-legged cat.

Bubby hasn't had the easiest life. According to a Facebook post by Exploits Valley SPCA Adoptables, the year was 2012 when Bubby first emerged in a stranger's kitchen. By then, he was already full-grown and already missing his arm and half of his tail. Bubby had begun to form a friendship with the man whose house he randomly showed up in. Bubby would come often to play with the man's cat, Seson, and when Seson passed, Bubby still came around to visit. 

The man loved Bubby and wanted to keep him but was unsure if Bubby already belonged to anyone, as Bubby was constantly trying to get outside. He determined that Bubby could not be contained. 

In 2017, the man sadly passed away and Bubbly entered the house once more after his death but never returned. The man's family knew just how much the man cared for Bubby and wished for him to be cared for after his passing, but without Bubby's return, they assumed he had passed on himself. 

From 2017-2019, life had been undoubtedly difficult for Bubby. In the summer of 2019, a man by the name Ray Pinsent, who knew the man and Bubby's close relationship, happened to spot Bubby once more. Ray knew Bubby wouldn't be able to survive long on his own, so he set to catch him. Ray went to the man's house, there were new people living there who were afraid of cats, and he pleaded with them to please open the door should she see Bubby and call him. 

The followed day, Ray's phone rang and he was told the cat was in the kitchen. Ray took Bubby's lifeless body to the shelter and the vet claimed that Bubby began to purr while laying on the exam table. As Bubby was recovering, his picture was posted online for any information and that is when the man's daughter came forward, emotional, and brought Bubby the dishes he used to eat out of when we would come for visits. She told the story of Bubby to a rescue volunteer at the shelter. Bubby was then adopted by that same rescue volunteer Sarah MacLeod

Bubby's new owner, fell in love with his sad human eyes and couldn't part with him so she took Bubby home writing, "Bubby purrs the minute he wakes up in the morning and as he goes to sleep every night. He's never asked to go outside once. He must know that he's home now, for good."

We're over the moon that Bubby has found the purrfect family that will love him forever. You can follow Bubby's journey on Instagram!

Read up on last week's star on Instagram, Eric And Ollie, the Persian cats!

Not one but Two! Two happy rescue kitten stories by the same volunteer rescue group, and we are twice as happy. An adorable black kitten, now named Kevin, has been rescued from inside of a car engine in Ballymena. And the other kitten, a calico kitten beauty named Cotton, was rescued after getting trapped in an industrial site under a raised oil tank. Twice the rescued kittens, twice the good news, and twice the gratitude. 

Or tiny little animal friends have a tendency of getting themselves into trouble all the time. Pet owners and pet lovers alike know that. And though normally, it's little things like your cat getting its nail stuck in the curtains or your dogs getting its nose stuck somewhere because puepper just had to try to get that fly, sometimes, things get a lot more dangerous than that, and we have situations where animals truly need us to come to their rescue. 

Every single month, we cover as many stories as we can about these heroes- the people who put everything aside to save the little animals who've gotten themselves a bit too deep into the mud. And every single month, happily, there are too many stories to cover, so we make this little list for everyone, so that we can all give the most deserved appreciation to these heroes. 

A match made in heaven! Earlier this year, a friendly 14-year-old gray cat, originally named LL Cool J, was brought into the Anne Arundel County Animal Care and Control in Maryland. The shelter arranged a foster home for this gentle cat so he could live comfortably until the right person came along. 

Little did anyone know, the person who would come along would be the absolute purrfect match and that they would both need each other. 

Story via LoveMeow

Found in below freezing temperatures last month, Xerxes the kitten has officially been adopted by the good man who saved her! She was only five-weeks-old then, hanging off the side of one of the truck tires, with her tail and paws completely frozen to the metal surface, trapping her. 9NEWS reports that to free the kitten without causing her additional pain, the man who found her splashed warm water on the areas of the tire to which her pas and tail were stuck, gently removing her paws and tail from the tire.

The man brought the kitten to the Denver Dumb Friends League (DDFL), wrapped up in tiny blankets to keep her warm, where she received the care she needed as well as the name Xerxes. On Monday, after recovering, she has officially been adopted into the forever home of the man who saved her. "Before her adoption, Xerxes spent time in a foster home where her frostbitten paws recovered, and her initially frightened exterior began to crumble," DDFL recounted. "Healed and healthy, Xerxes is settling in with her new family."

They add that, without the help of the man who saved her, the kitten would have most likely not survived through the night. So, we can only be thankful, encourage others to help the little creatures in need that they come across, and thank every savior we hear about for doing the right thing. 

A story truly fitting the Christmas cheer. A tiny little owl was found inside of a Christmas tree. Yup. Inside of the iconic Rockefeller Christmas tree, workers discovered the tiny owl "clinging for its life to the 75-foot-tall Norway spruce". After surviving a 200 mile journey from Oneonta to Manhattan, the owl was found as the crews that were about to erect the tree were unwrapping it. 

The New York Post reports that strangely, though the bird is tiny and looks like a baby owlet, since owls are born in the spring, it was immediately understood that this owl is not actually a baby. She is a northern saw-whet, a bird that only grows to about 5 inches tall and 2 to 3 ounces in weight. "I thought it was such a heartwarming Christmas story, that there was this secret in the Christmas tree," said Ellen Kalish, the director and founder of Ravensbeard Wildlife Center in New York. 

Workers at the Rockefeller Center, after the New York Post reached out for a comment, said: "We inspect each branch of the tree individually before it's wrapped, but birds sometimes can find their way into it on the journey." For three whole days, the owl didn't have any food or water, but once in the hands of Kalish, she got all the mice she wanted. 

Today, in an update to the story, we found out that the little birdy has been set free at last to its natural habitat to continue her migratory journey. And though her journey was harrowing and incredibly long, she's gotten herself a little Christmas miracle in not only being found and rescued but also in making a full recovery and getting to continue her life in the wild as she was meant to. 

Check out pictures of the owl and her release below. And for another story of an incredibly feisty owl with singed wings getting rescued from a fire, click right here. 

Richard Wilbanks, a 74-year-old man from Florida had his instinct take over when his 3-month-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Gunner, was grabbed from an alligator and dragged under the water. 

The scary moment took place in Wilbanks' backyard pond in Estero, and the moment Wilbanks jumped into the pond to rescue Gunner was recorded on a surveillance camera. The dramatic footage reveals Wildbanks waist-deep in the pond as he wrestles with the gator's jaws to free his dog Gunner from them. 

Wilbanks describes the terrifying moment to CNN, "We were just out walking by the pond and it came out of the water like a missile. I never thought an alligator could be that fast. It was so quick. I just automatically jumped into the water." He also added that opening up the gator's jaw was "extremely hard" and that his hands were left "chewed up" afterward. He also added that he went to the doctor afterwards for a tetanus shot. And Gunner was of course taken to the vet after the incident where he was treated for one puncture wound in his belly.

Thanks to Wilbanks courage and rescue without hesitation, his adorable pup Gunner is doing just fine. From now on, Wilbanks will be keeping Gunner on a leash and far away from the water's edge. 

"Our pets, they're just like family to us," Wilbanks concluded. 

Story via Insider

On Monday, Fysik, an 11-year-old retired jumping horse, sunk and got stuck up to his neck in a hole of freezing muddy water. "He was shivering and I just knew when I saw him that there was no way I was going to be able to get him out of that myself," his owner, the operator of Adorado Nino Horse Rescue and Sanctuary near Leduc, Alta, Tracy Benkendorf, told CBC news. 

Knowing that she couldn't do it alone, she called 911 and posted a picture of the horse on Facebook, asking if anyone knows what to do to help it. "I'm just absolutely beyond grateful for these people that came together in such an incredible, amazing way," she says about the firefighters, the RCMP, her neighbors, her veterinarian and some other people she didn't even know who arrived to help. 

Read more and see Fysik standing strong and covered in blankets below!

Earlier in the summer, a fluffy cat appeared in Lisianne's garden in Canada. It looked lonely and hungry, so Lisianne put out some water and food for it. That was the start of the most wholesome friendship. Becoming fond of the cat, Lisianne named her Usagi, and continued caring for Usagi every day when she showed up in her garden. After a while, the kitty started getting bigger, but not from food. It was because she was pregnant. 

As reported by Unilad, a Facebook post by a local rescue group, Chatons Orphelins Montréal, wrote: "This lady with a big heart for this cause was watching her, she put food and water in order to help her… a routine has settled between this kitty and her good fairy. With this routine, the lady gained her confidence and the kitty started getting closer."

Usagi, after giving birth outside, continued coming back to eat at Lisianne's, and soon, the gorgeous black cat brought her tiny kittens to Lisianne's porch, one by one, setting up a nest near the woman's house where she and her babies will be safe. Lisianne, being an absolute angel, decided to help the kittens further, getting them a room in with the local rescue group, and saving their lives. 

Lisianne decided to keep Usagi, a friend of hers adopted one of the babies, while the other five kittens stay at Chatons Orphelins Montréal and get treated, because it turns out that all five of the kittens had "breathing issues and conjunctivitis." They were treated for their issues are are now better, all thanks to the help of this one person who saved their lives.

For more amazing rescue stories, click here!

Only last year, this stunning chonker weighed a whopping 41 pounds! Today, after getting adopted and living happily in his forever home, Barsik has dropped 22 pounds and is officially getting the zoomies. Barsik was once an internet sensation for being possibly the largest chonkiest cat in the world, but he's now just as sensational for having lost the weight, and hearing that the little guy is softer, cuddlier and much, much zoomier is wonder news!

In New Jersey, when coronavirus cases were high and most of the state was sheltering at home, a little one-room NICU Kitten Nursery that has saved hundreds of little kittens had to close its doors. 

nj.com reports that, since "[t]he space was too small to safely social distance," a veterinary technician with St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center named Friedman who was also the manager of the nursery and a vet tech called Nick Eckert "took the animals into their own homes to care for them." Dozens of kittens, many of them badly injured and desperately in need of help. 

"It was very depressing that when we should have been celebrating our one-year anniversary, we were moving our nursery into our homes," said Friedman. "I was terrified that we would lose the program because of COVID-19. And I knew that because of COVID-19, it was critical to keep the program going." No one was popping in to help, and there was no team of volunteers coming in and out to help the kittens.

"I literally had kittens being dropped off at my house at midnight almost every night," Friedman tells nj.com "It was the hardest work I ever had to do because I was by myself."

Now, not only was their operation in their homes successful and they are able to keep helping the kittens, their nursery is expanding, so much so that they had to move the make-shift nursery out of their homes and into a bigger location - "three times the size - complete with 28 cages and multiple rooms to provide separate spaces for healthy, sick, and critical kittens."

The problem is that, even with more space, the nursery can't take in many more new kittens since they do not have the volunteer support that they need. "We can't run this program without volunteers," explained Friedman. So, now, they are looking for volunteers, and we hope that if you are in the area and are able to help, you would lend a helping hand to this wonderful operation and help them help these incredible kittens.

Read about some of the rescued kittens and their stories below! And if you're in need of more positive, happy-ending rescue stories, read about this feisty little owl that got its wings singed off in a fire.