Couple Rescues Cats That Were on the Menu at a Restaurant

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In the late 1990s, I moved to China with my boyfriend (now husband) for work. I was cycling home one day past a restaurant that served “delicacies,” which, in China, meant that the customer picked out their meal from an array of live caged animals, from snake, to rabbit, to lobster, to… cat. Yep, one day there were two cats in a cage that were on the menu at the restaurant!

This didn’t sit well with me, as I have always had a soft spot for cats. I couldn’t stop thinking about them, and when I passed by that evening to go home, I stopped to see them and they came up to the cage’s edge meowing at me. I went home and told my boyfriend that I didn’t think I could ride past this restaurant each day knowing that one day one of them would be gone, and I would know exactly what happened to them.

So that night, we took a bag and went to the restaurant to get them. After a bit of confusion when we asked to take them home (which is exactly the same phrase as “takeout” in Chinese) and they finally understood that we wanted them as pets, we took them to our apartment in a duffel bag. They were terrified for a week or two, batting Christmas tree ornaments along the floor after we’d gone to bed. But the fat one came out one day and flopped on the floor and was forever our boy. His brother also gained confidence and we fell in love with him, too. They were just the most loving cats!

The two cats travelled to five countries and gained a few feline and human siblings along the way. The one with the black cap was the smartest cat I have ever met. He learned to the use the human toilet! He died two years ago from an injury. Our chubby boy with the stripes is almost 18-years-old and loves babies and kids more than anything in the world. They are the best “takeout” cats in the world!

Story submitted by an anonymous user from Summerville, South Carolina.

This story was originally shared on The Animal Rescue Site. Share your very own rescue story here!