Viral picture: unknown domestic cat wanders into recuperating man’s home and cuddles him

This is a bit of feline magic and it wandered through a front door left ajar. The picture and story has gone viral big time (seen 16 million times we are told). This looks like instinctive therapy cat behavior.

Andrew Falloon (a Member of Parliament in New Zealand) was recovering from an operation and having a snooze. His wife left the door slight ajar (presumed front of back door to the house).

“My parents do not have a cat…”

A cat not owned or known by Andrew or his partner wandered into the house and settled down on Andrew as you can see in the photo:

It seems extraordinary. They don’t know where the cat came from but are happy he/she arrived.

Andrew Jnr said:

“I’m just happy Dad’s on the mend…and if the photo made a few people smile that’s nice too.”

What is interesting too is that Mr Falloon is holding the cat’s paw. This is the sort of behavior that you might see between human and cat who are close to each other. Cats don’t really like having their paws held like that for a long time. The cat’s behavior reminds me of Tom (and Oskar), a hospice cat who comforted the sick patients. Perhaps this is what this cat instinctively doing.

This is the Twitter post which proved so successful: