A woman has gone viral for the kindness she showed a stray cat who showed up at her door—and the message she received from its previous owner.
Illustrator Emily Stepp, 34, lives in Spokane, Washington, with her partner, Aaron Freeman, 33, and their pets. One night she became the owner of a stray tabby, Ginger.
How did she know the name was Ginger? Well, it was written on her collar, along with a phone number.
But when Stepp’s partner messaged the number letting them know they had found their cat, they received a completely unexpected response: “Haha that’s funny.”
The person said they used to have a family cat named Ginger five years ago, but both they and their parents had since moved away. They told Stepp: “Do [with] that cat as you please, I’m very surprised that collar is still on.”
“It was a little nonchalant of a response for someone who had been missing their cat for five years potentially, mild amusement that her collar was still on,” Stepp told Newsweek. “After I read the text I was sad, a bit angry. I was disappointed.”
She had assumed the owner would be “wanting her back and saying to keep her safe while they come to retrieve this sweet kitty.”
“But no, we needed to save her and figure out what to do next.”
Ginger showed up to Stepp’s home and tried getting in the door. As they took her in, they contacted the number on her collar, to a devastating reply.
Twitter/X @Emily_Art
Stepp shared the situation to X, formerly known as Twitter, where it blew up, gaining 240,000 likes since being shared to her account @Emily_Art on September 16.
It detailed the couple deciding what they were going to do with Ginger, as while they already loved her, they already had two male cats, and had to keep them separate while they checked whether Ginger was spayed or had any diseases. She told Newsweek the boys were “understandably angry” at the scent of a new cat on their territory, as Ginger was kept in a spare bedroom.
But, determined to do right by the stray, they brought her to the vets, where she did “really well … beyond everyone’s expectations,” with the nurses calling her “the perfect patient.”
Then came the worrying wait to see if Ginger had Feline Immunodeficiency virus (FIV) or Feline leukemia virus (FeLV), some of the most common and infectious diseases of cats around the world.
But on Wednesday, Stepp and Freeman got “the best news.”
“She is completely healthy! The results were negative for FIV and FeLV so there’s no longer the big looming threat of my two boy cats being at risk. I’ve honestly been crying happy tears all morning,” Stepp told Newsweek.
“I was starting to accept last night that I might get bad news, and researched the effectiveness of FeLV vaccines and how hard it is to transfer FIV, but that’s no longer something we need to worry about.
“She’s going to get to be a happy and healthy indoor cat living with us now.”
Stepp’s male cats, Zuko and Mew, will take time to get used to the situation. But Stepp is determined to give Ginger a loving home with them all.
Twitter/X @Emily_Art
Stepp’s post went viral on X, with hundreds of thousands of people following along to see what happened with Ginger. She received heaps of support, including on a GoFundMe page set up to help with Ginger’s spaying and other medical bills.
One user called the original owner’s response “shameful,” adding: “Hopefully you or another family can take her in and show her what a real loving family means.”
Another wrote: “If one of my cats went missing and turned up 5 years later, there would be NOTHING that would stop be from driving there and getting them.”
“So happy she found her way to you,” another said. “Proof the cat distribution system is magic lol.”
Stepp said she never expected her post to go viral, and called it an “overwhelming experience”.
“Most people I think were furious about the previous owner’s response because the way it’s phrased can be interpreted as them leaving her behind on purpose when they moved, which I still don’t know if that’s the case,” she said.
While they may never know what Ginger went through over the past couple of years, they do know what the future holds for her.
She said: “There’s still a long way to go with her needing to be spayed and a slow introduction to get all the cats to accept one another, but I believe we can make it work no matter how long it takes.
“We already love Ginger and I look forward to when she can properly meet our boys Zuko and Mew.”
Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
