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A woman reunited with her beloved cat she thought had died in catastrophic fire

After two months, Aggie was miraculously found among the rubble close to her former home.

Images courtesy of TikTok/@carolynkiefer1

Aggie is getting the treatment she needs.

Losing your home and belongings in a house fire is devastating enough, but losing a pet that you can't find before you're forced to evacuate is even worse. No one wants to say goodbye to a beloved pet even under normal circumstances, but to lose them in a fire is too tragic to think about.

So, imagine getting a call that your pet you thought had perished along with your home has been found alive.

Katherine Kiefer got that call from Westside Animal Shelter in Los Angeles two months after her home was destroyed in the Palisades fire. The 82-year-old had been at a radiation treatment appointment for lung cancer the morning of January 7, 2025, when the fire reached her neighborhood. Katherine's daughter Carolyn told Upworthy that Aggie had fled as the family gathered belongings and pets to evacuate while fending off the fire with hoses. They searched and searched, but finally they had no choice but to flee without her.

"Telling my mother that we had not found Aggie was devastating," Carolyn says. "We had failed. The next morning we were able to drive into the Palisades and saw we had lost our home. It felt like a warzone and it seemed impossible that Aggie would have been able to survive such a firestorm. The following two months have been very dark for my mother. Losing the home was painful but losing Aggie made it especially heartbreaking. My mother told me that when she was having a hard time with her cancer treatment and felt down she would remind herself, 'at least I have Aggie.' Now, she was gone."

But she wasn't. Aggie was miraculously found among the ash and rubble near their former home in early March and taken to Westside Animal Shelter, where workers scanned her microchip. Carolyn says the family thought the call from the shelter was a scam at first, but once they confirmed the chip number they knew Aggie really had survived. The shelter had sent Aggie to ChatOak Animal Hospital 40 minutes away for treatment, and Katherine got to reunite with her there.

"I have never seen my 82 yr old mother move so fast and be so impatient," says Carolyn.

Watch:

@carolynkiefer1

My mother is reunited with her beloved, Aggie. #palisadesfire #cat #reunited #rescueanimals THANK YOU @LA Animal Services 🙏

"Seeing them reunited was life changing," says Carolyn. "My mother has really struggled and Aggie's survival has brought her back to life. She is completely different since learning about Aggie. She is really a part of our family and we felt broken without her."

Carolyn's video of their reunion got over five million views on TikTok, but people wanted to see the original recording without the music added. In the unedited version, we get to hear the vet tech share how sweet Aggie had been, and we hear Katherine greet Aggie with, "Hi, sweetest girl!"

Sweetest girl indeed. Oof.

@carolynkiefer1

Replying to @Spasztic.bpd😏🙃🖤🩵🧡

Aggie was suffering from starvation, anemia, a fever, and minor burns when she was brought in. She had to have some matted fur removed and received the blood transfusion, and she will receive ongoing care until she is well enough to join her family again. A GoFundMe to help cover Aggie's veterinary bills has raised over $27,000 in just a couple of days, which is surely a relief for a family already dealing with so much loss.

@carolynkiefer1

Replying to @Yas Thank you for all the support for Aggie. Gofundme link in bio. 🙏 Thank you, Sarah Garrity, DVM, DACVIM (SAIM)! #palisadesfire #cat #aggie


How do you keep pets safe in a house fire?

Everyone wants to think they would just grab their pets and go if a fire threatened their home, but it's not always that simple. Animals have instincts to protect themselves and will often hide if they sense danger, so it can be hard to find them in a fire situation.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

The American Red Cross offers these tips for giving pets the best chance of survival in case of a fire:

- The best way to protect your pets from the effects of a fire is to include them in your family plan. This includes having their own disaster supplies kit as well as arranging in advance for a safe place for them to stay if you need to leave your home.

- When you practice your escape plan, practice taking your pets with you. Train them to come to you when you call.

- In the event of a disaster, if you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them, too. But remember: never delay escape or endanger yourself or family to rescue a family pet.

- Keep pets near entrances when away from home. Keep collars on pets and leashes at the ready in case firefighters need to rescue your pet. When leaving pets home alone, keep them in areas or rooms near entrances where firefighters can easily find them.

- Affix a pet alert window cling and write down the number of pets inside your house and attach the static cling to a front window. This critical information saves rescuers time when locating your pets. Make sure to keep the number of pets listed on them updated.

However, even the best laid plans don't always go the way we want them to, and sometimes there's nothing we can do but hold out hope that our pets' natural survival instincts will save them like Aggie's did. Her tragedy to triumph story is is a good reminder of how resilient animals can be, even in the most unlikely of circumstances. Here's to a speedy recovery so Aggie can be home with Katherine where she belongs as soon as possible.

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Joy

Video of cats punching above their weight gives us a new appreciation for our feline friends

Maybe they're actually as superior as they think they are.

Photo by 傅甬 华 on Unsplash

Cats are far more badass than we give them credit for.

Cats have a reputation for being aloof and standoffish, like they're better than everyone and simply can't be bothered. Those of us who have cats know they're not always like that … but yes, they're sometimes like that. They can be sweet and affectionate, but they want affection on their terms, they want to eat and play and sleep on their own clock, and we puny, inferior humans have little say in the matter.

There's a reason why we have obedience schools for dogs and not for cats. Maine coon or Bengal, Savannah or Siamese, ragdoll or sphynx, domestic cats of all breeds are largely untrainable little punks who lure us into loving them by blessing us with the honor of stroking their fur and hearing them purr.

But perhaps we assume too much when we think cats are full of themselves for no good reason. Maybe they are actually somewhat justified in their snootiness. Maybe they really, truly are superior to pretty much every other creature on Earth and that's why they act like it.

Cats, if they could talk, would be nodding and prodding us along at this point: "Yes, yes, you're so close. Just a little further now, keep going."

Think about it. They're beautiful and graceful, but also quick and powerful. They groom constantly so they're almost always clean and their fur even smells good. They can fall from ridiculous heights, land on their feet and walk away unscathed. They're wicked good ambush hunters. They can walk completely silently, like ninjas, then pull out the razor blades on their feet at will and do serious damage in an instant.

All of that makes them impressive specimens, but ironically it's their total hubris that makes them truly superior. When they feel like it (because cats only do things they feel like doing) they will take on anyone and anything. Big, small, dangerous, fierce—doesn't matter. That unbridled confidence—earned or not—combined with their physique and skill makes them the badasses of the animal world.

Want proof? Here ya go:

The snakes, man. I can't get over the snakes.

Cats really are better than us and every other living thing, basically. And even if they aren't, they believe they are, which counts just as much. They're either the ultimate creatures or the ultimate conmen. Either way, you just don't mess with them.


This article originally appeared on 08.17.22

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Joy

Should declawing cats be illegal? Maryland to join New York in banning the practice.

Photo by Dan Smedley on Unsplash

States are passing legislation making cat declawing illegal.

Anyone who has had cats knows they can do a number on your furniture. Even if you get a scratching post for them, they may prefer to claw your chair backs or sofa arms. Even if you make liberal use of a spray bottle to shoo them away from things you don't want them to scratch, they may throw a huge claw-sharpening party in your living room while you're asleep.

They are soft and gorgeous, but they have razors on their feet. That's just how cats are.

Some people try to circumvent this reality by having their pet cats declawed. By surgically removing a cat's claws, pet owners remove the problem of furniture clawing. But they also remove a major part of a cat's anatomy, which can cause lifelong problems for our feline friends.

In fact, the practice is so potentially detrimental that states are beginning to make laws banning it.

In 2019, New York became the first state to ban onychectomy—the technical term for cat declawing—in most instances. The only exceptions are if the amputation procedure is being done to treat a cat's medical condition, such as infection or injury. Veterinarians who declaw a cat for any other reason face a $1,000 fine.

Now Maryland has joined New York, with its own legislation prohibiting the practice passing in both the state house and senate. According to the Associated Press, the bill stipulates that vets who declaw cats for any reason other than "therapeutic purposes" would face a fine of up to $5,000 for a first offense and up to $10,000 for a second offense, as well as possibly having their license suspended or revoked.

"Declawing is a horrendously painful and disfiguring surgery," Senator Mary Washington (D-Baltimore City) said, according to WUSA 9 News. "It is positively inhuman and conducted solely for the benefit of the owner. It has no benefit for the cat, in fact, quite the opposite."

As the Humane Society of the United States points out, declawing a cat isn't the cat equivalent of a human manicure, like many people believe it is. It's the equivalent of cutting off our fingers at our last knuckle, removing our fingernails entirely. Imagine how much more uncomfortable and limiting our lives would be without our fingertips, not to mention the painful recovery from such a surgery. That's similar to how declawing impacts cats.

"Medical drawbacks to declawing include pain in the paw, infection, tissue necrosis (tissue death), lameness, and back pain," writes the Humane Society. "Removing claws changes the way a cat's foot meets the ground and can cause pain similar to wearing an uncomfortable pair of shoes. There can also be a regrowth of improperly removed claws, nerve damage, and bone spurs."

Declawing cats may also create challenges for them while using the litter box and may lead a cat to bite more than they normally would as well.

While the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) discourages the practice of cat declawing and animal rights activists have pushed for it to be banned, the New York State Veterinary Medical Society was a vocal critic of New York's ban. The organization, which is the largest veterinarian organization in New York, said that declawing should be allowed if an owner finds themselves with no alternative other than abandonment or euthanasia.

Animal rights activists, however, have celebrated the legislation as a victory for cats, who rely on their claws as essential body parts. When we know better, we do better, and knowing how declawing cats negatively impacts their quality of life makes it a practice that should only be done if it's medically necessary for the cat not for the convenience of the human charged with their care.

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83-year-old woman's cat alerted rescuers after she fell down a 70 foot ravine

Bodmin Police/Facebook

We often hear stories of dogs rescuing humans from precarious situations, but rarely do we hear such stories about cats. In fact, our feline friends have such a reputation for aloofness, people often joke that cats basically don't care whether we thrive or perish.

One woman's cat in Cornwall, England is defying that stereotype, however.

When an 83-year-old woman went missing last weekend, concerned neighbors alerted the police and a search was begun, according to BBC News. Thankfully, it didn't take too long for her to be found, thanks to her loyal cat, Piran. The sleek black kitty meowed incessantly at the spot where the woman had fallen down a ravine at the edge of her property, which led neighbors to look there.

"The cat is very attached to her, and he was going back and forth in the gateway and meowing, so I decided to go and search the maize field," neighbor Tamar Longmuir told Sky News.

"Without the cat waiting at the gate to that field, it could have been hours later that I or anyone else would have checked there."

The ravine was 70-feet deep, "with incredibly difficult access and uneven terrain" and a stream at the bottom, according to BBC News. Fire crews were able to scale the ravine to get to her and she was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where she was in stable condition.

"Piran the cat saved the day!" said Bodmin Police of the rescue.

Good job, Piran. Way to give cats everywhere a good name, and well done saving your beloved human.

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