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Last Updated on October 7, 2023
Animals bring us some of the greatest joys on earth. Whether wild or domesticated, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t have at least one animal that makes them go “Awwww!”
In the domesticated pet world, it’s primarily been a cats-and-dogs dichotomy for a long time. Both are adorable, but people have their preferences. When they’re puppies and kittens, they’re even cuter, but, even in different shapes and sizes, they grow up quickly.
Dogs are generally considered fully grown when they’re 18 to 24 months old. Cats are somewhere between 9 and 12 months. Both creatures — age notwithstanding — are not especially renowned for their reasoning skills around busy roadways, which makes human beings quick to jump in to rescue mode.
Tennessee woman Hope Hicks did exactly that when she espied a kitten crossing a dangerous, high-traffic roadway. She pulled to the side of the road, got out of her car, and was able to successfully rescue the kitten.
“So I pulled over and surprisingly it didn’t run from me. I put it in the car with me and it climbed all over me like a kitten would do, got in floorboard under my feet, and after stopping a couple of times to get it nestled into my lap, I finally got home with it,” she remarked in a post on Facebook.
An apparent Lord of the Rings fan, Hicks decided to name the little kitten Arwen. All was well until Hicks invited her friend over who seems to have a better eye for living creatures than Hicks. Arwen wasn’t a lost kitten. Arwen is a Bobcat. They took Arwen to For Fox Sake Wildlife Rescue where she was confirmed to be a young Bobcat. Where domestic kittens start receiving vaccines between six and eight weeks old, Bobcat kittens require wildly different maturation patterns. The wildlife rescue will keep Arwen until she’s old enough to survive in the wild on her own, likely sometime this coming Spring. In the meantime, wildlife rehabilitator Juniper Russo informed Hicks (and the general animal rescuing populace) that there are signs to determine the difference between a domestic cat and a Bobcat. Because Bobcats can be dangerous. Hicks had absolutely no regrets.
“Even though I thought she was a kitten, had I known she was a bobcat, that small and in that high-trafficked area, I still would have done the same thing,” she said.
Stay safe while being compassionate.
