“How did you get in here? What’s going on?” Alicia Dreyer, a devoted cat rescuer, maintains a loving routine with her three senior cats — Pumpkin, Cookie, and Sister. Their days are filled with regular meals, playtime in their catio, and occasional baths. However, their routine took an unexpected turn recently.
Upon opening her cats’ enclosure, Dreyer discovered a tiny baby nestled in a corner. Initially unsure of the newcomer’s identity, she soon realized it was a young opossum.
“This is beyond words right now,” Dreyer exclaimed in a TikTok video. “How did you get in here? What’s going on?” she asked the bewildered opossum.
The mystery of how the baby opossum infiltrated the secured enclosure puzzled Dreyer and her viewers. Elevated several feet off the ground and surrounded by fencing, the enclosure seemed impervious to such surprises.
Amidst humorous speculations in the TikTok comments, one user humorously suggested the opossum was the cat’s “emotional support baby.” Another proposed that the opossum may have hitched a ride on one of the cats during their catio time, a behavior observed in young opossums seeking safety.
Remarkably, Dreyer observed that her senior cats recognized the opossum as a young creature in need of protection, exhibiting calmness and restraint.
Despite the unexpected addition to her feline family, Dreyer took immediate action to ensure the opossum received proper care. Wildlife rehabilitators volunteered to care for the young opossum until she is ready to return to the wild.
“She’s very sweet,” Dreyer assured her audience in a follow-up video. “I cannot believe she was in there with three cats and they were just chilling with her.”
In the midst of her rescue efforts, Alicia Dreyer’s experience with the opossum underscored the compassion and adaptability of both her feline companions and herself in handling unexpected situations with care and humor.