A new video shows the resilience of a black and white cat named Oreo, who was rescued last year after a beating captured on Snapchat was reported to police.
Oreo was saved after a good Samaritan called PETA’s 24-hour emergency line to report the vicious attack on a cat. PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, called police and helped the officer remove the cat from the abusive home and get it to veterinary care.
Animal cruelty charges were laid against a young person.
Once Oreo was checked by vets, PETA staffers drove 16 hours roundtrip to bring him back to the group’s Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters.
Oreo went to a foster home with a PETA staffer, Thomas McNulty, who fell in love with the sweetheart of a cat.
“To see him in [the Snapchat] video is just really hard to see … you can just tell how absolutely terrified he is,” McNulty says in the new PETA video posted online. “I spent a lot of time with him, and slowly but surely, he was starting to come out of his shell more, and I think my other rescue cats helped with that.”
Oreo’s left ear is permanently disfigured and susceptible to infection.
And at first, Oreo tended to hide under the furniture at the slightest noise. The emotional scars were clear.
But eventually he learned to trust people.
PETA called him a “social climber who eagerly greets visitors from his perch atop his cat tree.
And now, he’s living his best life of chin scratches and content purring.
“One call to PETA’s emergency hotline saved this cat from what could have been a lifetime of abuse,” PETA Vice President Colleen O’Brien explained in a statement. “If you spot cruelty to animals online, download the video, take a screenshot, and report it—you just may save a victim’s life.”
Savagely Beaten Cat Learns to Trust Again from Official PETA on Vimeo.