Woman Catches National Attention After Adopting 29-Pound Cat Named Chubbs
As a kid learning to read, I devoured all sorts of books, but none caught my attention quite like collections of Garfield comic strips.
I know that Jim Davis’ lasagna-loving feline is basically considered a crass exercise in merchandising, but I loved his calorie-consuming antics.
Well, a real-life Garfield seems to have found his own Jon Arbuckle.
In June, a passerby discovered a Himalayan-mix cat wandering through Pasadena — a 29-pound cat.
The Good Samaritan carted the gargantuan kitty to the Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA. There, veterinarians discovered that he didn’t have a collar, identification, or a microchip.
The 10-year-old cat immediately earned the nickname Chubbs. Indeed, his bulk made it difficult to house him in the shelter.
“Chubbs has taken up residence in a staff office because he’s too large to fit comfortably in a kennel,” a post read on the organization’s blog. “He has a sweet disposition, but his heavy load makes it uncomfortable to move around freely.”
The dramatically bulky kitty soon became something of an online sensation, and scores of people started claiming him as their own.
“We have had people from Colorado, from Wales, internationally, sending best wishes and also hoping that it was their cat,” Pasadena Humane Society president and chief executive Julie Bank told KABC.
However, the organization eventually determined that none of the claims were actually legitimate and said that the first qualified adopter would be able to take Chubbs home.
That person turned out to be Yvette Viola.
You might wonder why Viola would want to claim a feline that (in the words of spokesman Jack Hagerman) was “the size of three cats” as her own. But she and her husband Ruben were used to caring for an oversized feline.
Their 23-pound cat Mushu had passed away back in March, and Viola had given up on owning pets. “I didn’t want to adopt a cat at all because I was letting myself grieve, but then this guy came on TV,” she explained to KTRK.
For his part, Chubbs seems to have taken to his new home like a proverbial fish to water. “He actually slept on the bed with me,” Viola said in an interview with KABC.
“I have a bed for him, but he was just like, ‘Nah, I just think I’ll sleep up here.’” Who knows? He may soon start tucking into the lasagna.
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