Ashelter puppy and kitten, who were both born as the runts of their respective litters, have found love and acceptance in each other’s arms.
Statistically speaking, puppies and kittens have the best chance of being adopted. A study by the website Priceonomics crunched the numbers using data from the online animal adoption platform Petfinder: 95 percent of puppies listed there ended up being adopted.
Even dogs categorized as young were less likely to be rehomed, with the adoption rate falling to 80.4 percent among this age group and declining further among adult (75.5 percent) and senior dogs (68.2 percent).
It was a similar story when it came to kittens. The study found that 81.9 percent of kittens on Petfinder ended up being adopted, while 65.1 percent of young cats, 59.5 percent of adult felines and 53.9 percent of seniors ended up being rehomed.
However, the situation is a little more complicated for Possum the puppy and Kangaroo the kitten, their foster carer Emilie Rackovan, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, explained, as they are both the runts of their respective litters.
“Possum was from a litter of eight puppies,” Rackovan said. “The mom was brought to my local animal control while in active labor and gave birth to two puppies on the way, and the other six once she was at the shelter. Since the shelter isn’t a great place to raise babies, they asked if I could take her.”
Rackovan was able to set them up in a foster home but, when she went to pick them up, she discovered there was something different about Possum. “Possum was about a third of the size of the others and very skinny, so I took her in as a bottle baby,” she said. “The goal was to reunite her with the rest of the puppies, but she’s still so small. So we’ll see if I can reunite them once she grows a bit more.”
Kangaroo has a similar story. “Kangaroo is from a litter of seven kittens, I’m fostering the mom and babies,” Rackovan said. “Mom gave birth to them in a stray cat colony caretaker’s garage, which also isn’t a great place to raise babies! I trapped mom and took her and the kittens for foster.”
“All baby animals are highly vulnerable, but the runts often have especially weak immune systems and are the most likely to have a congenital defect,” she explained. “Because they are so fragile, they need extra close attention paid to them and, often, supportive care from their foster parent.”
Rackovan has been working in animal welfare for several years and is currently employed by Best Friends Animal Society, the largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the U.S. However, her work as a foster carer for kittens and puppies is something she does in her spare time with videos of her efforts regularly posted to TikTok under the handle emiliexfosters.
It was on one of those videos that Rackovan was able to capture a tender moment between Possum and Kangaroo explaining that, as runts, they had been “rejected by their moms” but had found warmth and affection by cuddling up to one another.
“Neither wanted to be alone and they would cry and cry, so I tried putting them together,” Rackovan said. “They immediately became inseparable.”
Now the only time either Kangaroo or Possum cries is when they want milk.
She said as soon as they were put in the incubator, “they snuggled right up to each other” though that’s not entirely uncommon for kittens and puppies this young.
“Even though their eyes are open, they still lack the ability to know what species the other animal is,” Rackovan said. “Baby animals seek comfort and warmth in each other, so it’s not uncommon for there to be interspecies friendships.”
Whatever the case, their shared affection has helped them go from strength to strength.
“They’ve been getting along great,” Rackovan said. “Both of their health have improved and they were able to be reunited with their moms and siblings.”
Though she hopes the story of Possum and Kangaroo ends with both of them being adopted and embarking on new and happy lives, Rackovan also hopes the video shows people watching on TikTok “how amazing animals are.”