There is a joke among pet owners that when choosing a dog you carefully research breeders or shelters in your area, probably pay a sizeable fee and even have to pass a screening to ensure your home and family are suitable.
Yet cat adoption stories more often involve some stray wandering into your house and making itself at home.
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So the idea that someone would find a stray kitten and give it a home is perfectly normal — except when it isn’t.
That’s what happened when 18-year-old Florencia Lobo and her brother were fishing in Tucuman, Argentina, and came across a dead cat and two starving kittens.
They named the kittens Dani and Tito, taking them home to nurse them back to health.
Sadly, Dani didn’t survive, but Tito grew strong and playful.
He shadowed Florencia everywhere and even responded to her when she whistled. She said that he seemed “a bit too active” (which is saying something about a kitten), but figured it wasn’t a big deal.
One day, Tito injured his leg and Florencia took him to a vet.
Though they weren’t sure exactly what Tito was, the veterinarian immediately knew that the one thing he definitely wasn’t is a common house cat.
They called in some experts, who identified him as a three-month-old puma.
Which is definitely not meant to be kept as a pet, and Florencia surrendered the young cougar to the Argentine Animal Rescue Foundation for rehabilitation and release back into the wild.
She knows it’s for the best, but still misses her fuzzy companion.
“I miss him a lot, he was waiting for me when I arrived from school,” she said, according to El Tucumano via The Mirror .
But hopefully, he’ll remember her fondly as he lives in his natural habitat.
h/t: The Mirror
