Pippin, The Cat Doesn’t Let His Disability Get In The Way Of Living A Full Life

The Toronto-based cat is Instagram famous.

Kyle Byron’s mother is a veterinary assistant who had a cat available for adoption that no one wanted. Pippin was born with radial hypoplasia, a condition where the front limbs are underdeveloped, resulting in a set of shorter, curved legs. Cats don’t experience pain when they have this condition but they’re often left alienated by their mother and the rest of the litter when they can’t keep up. She called her son who ended up adopting him.

Byron started documenting Pip’s life on Instagram and now he’s got over 14,000 followers. He’s an advocate for adopting pets with disabilities, saying that it wasn’t that big of an adjustment to care for a cat with a disability.

“When I started posting videos, there were people who would pity him, commenting crying emojis and saying they feel sad because Pip’s suffering … on a video where he was enthusiastically playing with string,” says Byron. “I would like people to know it wasn’t a huge adjustment to care for a cat with radial hypoplasia. It’s been forever since I felt like I had to do much for Pip that is different from what any other cat owner does; it was really just a matter making a few small adjustments. And now I have Pip: the happiest cat ever.”