Ohio Hiker Gets Second Chance to Rescue Stray Kitten Who Followed Her on Trail

The “cat distribution system” is the playful name given to the strange mechanism by which people seem to get chosen by stray cats who follow them home from the most unlikely of places. In truth, it’s a sign that there’s a real problem with the size of the stray cat population, but as long as it results in needy kittens finding a home, I can’t be too mad at it.

The woman in this video was out for a hike when she first noticed a gray tabby kitten watching her from the woods. Soon, he began following her along the trail, but he wouldn’t let her come near him or pick him up. Still, they crossed streams and even a large bridge together. She kept walking, hoping that he’d follow her all the way back to her car so she could take him home, but when night fell, the cat disappeared and she feared she lost him. Worse yet, she worried that because he’d followed her so far, he would be left alone in these woods with no protection.

“I cried myself to sleep that night,” she admits in the caption. And then, the next day, worried about the foxes and other predators in the area, the woman returned to the hiking trail where she last saw the stray kitten, armed with a can of food. Thankfully, he came out for the food, and this time, he seemed ready to let her wrap him in something warm and take him home with her.

Related: Starving Stray Cat Lets Rescuer Feed Kittens First Like the Best Little Mom

The Plight of Stray Kittens

“My intentions were to drop him off at a no-kill shelter,” she explains in a subsequent video, “but they were all full.” This is an extremely common refrain. The truth is, there are far more kittens than any shelter can handle, and a constant influx of more. The feral cat population in this country is large and also largely unmanaged. Some communities have attempted humane, “trap, neuter, release” programs with feral cat colonies, but it’s unfortunately a drop in the bucket. Too many people neglect to get their own pet cats fixed, and a breeding pair of cats can produce an average of six new kittens per year, all of whom will be ready to breed themselves the following year.

This Kitten’s Future

As for this woman and cat, she brought the kitten home to her mother, who instantly fell in love with it, and they decided to keep him. Dexter, as they named him, has proven to be a total love bug, who likes belly rubs, and is learning to bond with the other cats in the house, a fellow kitten named Nix and the adult cat Athena. He was taken to the vet for a health check up and all his shots and his new family declares that he’s “the gentlest kitten they’ve ever met.”

Poor Dexter was clearly not destined for a life in the wild, so it’s good that he found a comfortable home where he can be taken care of. But Dexter is one of thousands, and not all of them are as lucky as he is to find a person willing to go back and look for him, and take him on when there was no other option.

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