Lonely Pup Lies Inside Glass Enclosure at Pet Store, So Kitten Next Door Makes a Move

While it’s hard not to ooh and aah over the dozens of adorable animals you see in a pet store (and resist your kids’ insistent requests to buy all of them), have you ever wondered what goes on at night?

On the surface, pet stores seem like happy places. You get to see all kinds of lovable animals, almost all of which are little babies. But for the animals inside a pet store, life isn’t so great.

Often bred in inhumane conditions and torn apart from their families far earlier than they should be, these puppies and kittens are then kept by themselves and can suffer from the isolation. So while “cute” may be our first response, “lonely” is all too often the reality, as one heartbreaking video from a Taiwan pet shop showed.

It all started after hours at the JoLinn Pet House in New Taipei. Through the windows of the pet shop, a camera caught a tiny kitten and puppy side by side in high glass enclosures. The store doesn’t seem to provide them with any company despite the fact that both kittens and puppies not only love to play and cuddle with their brothers and sisters.

These two lonely souls seem to be separated for good until the clever cat gets a good idea. Meowing so that its neighbors can hear it, the kitten makes an acrobatic leap for freedom, managing to make it all the way up on top of the glass divider. But once this brave little guy is up there, he realizes that he’s stuck in the middle of the air.

Meanwhile, his next-door neighbor realizes what’s going on and starts barking excitedly. Having been rolling around on his back, the puppy finally sees the escape artist and starts standing up on his back legs, with his tail wagging excitedly.

The incredible cat somehow finds a way of shifting his weight over and around the metal frame holding the glass windows. He shimmies around and is now in reach of the thrilled puppy, who’s clearly been waiting for a friend to play with.

But while the kitten now has his front paws inside the puppy’s enclosure, his back legs can’t seem to get any traction to help pull him over the edge. You can see them slipping on the smooth glass trying to get something that they can grab onto.

Finally, the kitten pull himself up and gets a big wet kiss from the thrilled puppy. After balancing on the glass for a few seconds, the cat takes the plunge into the puppy’s enclosure. Overjoyed at the chance to play, the puppy wags his tail as fast as he can. While his new kitten friend is a bit overwhelmed at all the attention, they’re definitely better off now that they aren’t so alone.

While the video is definitely one of the cutest you could ever imagine, it’s also a sad reminder of the psychological toll that being bred in puppy and kitten mills and then living alone in pet stores can have.

These little guys clearly want to share their lives with other animals and people. This sad life for commercially bred animals is just another reason that animal welfare organizations like ASPCA (American Society for the Protection of Animals) encourage people to “adopt, not shop.”

Each year, 1.5 million shelter animals are euthanized because of overcrowding and not enough people adopting. Rather than paying to keep puppy mills in business, why don’t we all band together to rescue these lonely animals and give them a forever home?