A Clear the Shelters flight Thursday took animals from multiple shelters along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana to Wisconsin to be matched with new homes.
If there’s a will, there’s a way.
After a tiny stray kitten named Gelato was brought to Ohio animal shelter Cincinnati Animal CARE in late June, staff discovered that he had a spinal injury that kept him from using his back legs. So the organization’s veterinary assistant lead, Mallory Smith, devised a plan to help him out.
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WATCH HEREFashioning a wheelchair out of rulers, some zip-ties and toy Hot Wheels cars, Smith got the kitten back in action.
Gelato’s adorable little photo and video was shared on social media in July and he, quite predictably, went viral. The little guy has since not only received almost 19,000 likes on Instagram alone — along with a whole lot of attention from local outlets — he’s also gotten a new set of 3D-printed wheels, courtesy of a friend of Smith’s.
“I didn’t expect him to go viral and cause such a story to talk about over his little wheelchair,” Smith tells TODAY.com of the outpouring of support. “I think it’s been really good to just highlight vet med and shelter medicine in general, and especially highlight special needs animals.”
Smith said that Gelato’s popularity has gotten “a lot of people talking about wanting to adopt animals that maybe have had trouble getting adopted in the past because of some kind of medical ailment.”
Not much is known about Gelato’s backstory, Smith said. The little guy, who’s now around 10 weeks old, arrived at the shelter after being found in a nearby park along with four other kittens, she explained. He had some obvious injuries.
“He was just kind of dragging his hind end. We can really only speculate that maybe he got hit by something or fell,” Smith said. “It was a pretty fresh injury, so it was still likely painful. He couldn’t urinate on his own, and so initially it was just about giving him cage rest, trying to not have him move so much to worsen the injury.”
After some time, Smith said, Gelato’s condition seemed to improve and he showed some interest in playing, running and more. There was, however, one issue, she said.
“He just didn’t really have the muscle mass for that anymore,” she says. “He’d kind of atrophied, so it’s just been about getting his legs, getting the muscles moved back in how their normal movements go.”
The shelter had some donated wheelchairs in their possession, but because of Gelato’s size, none of them fit.
“Gelato was just itty bitty. He was just way too small for anything that we had,” Smith said. “So that’s where I was just trying to create something from scratch, but based off of wheelchairs that we already had.”
So the Hot Wheels wheelchair was born!
Not long afterward, Gelato got his upgrade – something that Smith and her friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, had been designing even before the cat got his internet fame.
“Because Gelato is growing super super fast, he’s already outgrown the initial wheelchair that I built,” she said. “So having this 3D-printed one that’s adjustable and it has his name engraved on the back — it’s been awesome.”
These days, Gelato, who’s being fostered by Smith, is making leaps and bounds in his recovery. She said she’s been giving him some physical therapy each day to build up his strength. She expects him to be adoptable in about a month.
“With the progress he’s made, I have high hopes, especially with him being really young, and his attitude is really good,” Smith said. “I can’t say right now if he will for sure be perfectly normal in terms of being able to walk without assistance, but with the way that he has been showing his progress, the odds are good.”
We’re rooting for you, Gelato!
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
