While sitting on his porch last night, redditor ManofManyCats and his girlfriend were approached by a man walking his dog. The man had seen an unresponsive stray kitten and wondered if they could help.
ManofManyCats walked over to the cat, called the emergency veterinary hotline and fed it some maple syrup before rushing it to a local animal hospital.
Its blood sugar level was nearly undetectable (less than 20), heartbeat was 40 beats per minutes (a normal beat is 200), and body temperature was 90 degrees (usually 100), according to a comment from ManofManyCats, clearly a cat owner — and longtime Reddit lurker.
The vets were not sure it would make it through the night.
Then Thursday morning, ManofManyCats posted a photo of the kitten on Reddit. It was meowing and well on the way to recovery.
ManofManyCats’ photo and story were a huge hit on the social news site, where they collected more than 1,500 comments. Some were from people sharing their stray animal stories while others were from skeptics wondering why the vet cost ManofManyCats $1,000.
The Daily Dot has reached out to ManofManyCats for an interview and is waiting to hear back.
“What can a vet possibly do for a kitten that costs $1,000?” wrote crash331. “I mean all you can do is give it an IV with fluids, feed it and keep it warm. Why the hell was it $1,000?”
“It’s interesting that we feel compelled to spend so much money to help one dying cat that’s in front of us, but fail (maybe not all, but many of us) to donate the same amount to an organization that could use the money to save dozens, if not hundreds, of human children’s lives,” wrote NetNat.
True to Reddit’s culture, dozens of people came to ManofManyCats’ defense. One redditor, ChocoboWrangler, even claimed to be a technician at a veterinary hospital.
“Much much props to you for rescuing the kitten and spending the money to save it despite the odds,” ChocoboWrangler wrote. “You are a very rare person indeed.”
“You did a good thing that night. Even you had elected not to fork out $1,000—a decision most probably would (not) have made – it would have at least had a nice few last moments dying in the hands of the compassionate,” wrote goodolarchie. “I don’t think any living creature can ask for more.”
According to redditor jenhardarian, who identified herself as the girlfriend of ManofManyCats, the minimum cost of the veterinary visit was $998.75 and included many procedures and medications. The backlash her boyfriend received was unacceptable and the air had to be cleared, she wrote.
“Yeah he could have spent this money on a person, and would he have found a person in similar condition, he would have,” wrote jenhardarian. “He posted it (the photo) because it was an adorable picture of an adorable animal and what we thought was an inspiring story of something that went from corpse to active life in the span of 20 hours.”