After suffering beneath a crippling pile of his own hair, a rescue cat is starting the New Year on a well-groomed foot ― and in a new home.
Sinbad, a Persian feline, underwent a remarkable transformation after his rescue last month from an elderly man’s Chicago basement, where his neglected fur had become a tangled, matted, five-pound mess of filth.
“A utilities worker recently contacted our humane investigation team and told them about a cat that was suffering from extreme neglect,” the city’s Anti-Cruelty Society reported on Facebook late last month. “His fur was horribly matted, unwashed, and covered in dirt and garbage. The basement he was living in was cold and filthy.”
Photos shared on the nonprofit’s Facebook page show the cat dragging along piles of filthy hair, easily doubling the animal’s size.
“He was an elderly man whose mental health was failing and he couldn’t care for the cat,” the shelter’s PR manager, Colette Bradley, told People magazine of Sinbad’s former owner. “Our humane investigators asked him if he would be willing to relinquish the cat into our care and he agreed.”
After two rounds of hair-cutting and a bath, vets were able to free Sinbad from his furry shackles. In a video posted to Facebook days later, the cat is seen playfully scampering around a cat tree.
“We were a little concerned about his rear legs because he was having a hard time even using them because of the [hair], but at this point he is showing that he’s very happy to be active and getting around,” a man named Elliot, who didn’t give his last name, said in the video.
“Being a Persian cat, the coat grows fairly quickly and needs maintenance,” added Elliot, who fostered Sinbad.
Adding to Sinbad’s whirlwind recovery, his foster parent, Elliot, announced just one week into the New Year that he was formally adopting the cat.
Today, fans can keep track of Sinbad’s recovery on his very own Instagram page, where he already has more than 4,000 followers.
Good luck, Sinbad! 🐾
