The moment Sabii Hector met Mocha, a rescued dog with a devastating injury, in 2022, she knew the pup was special. In addition to her sweet demeanor, Mocha had a fighting spirit, and she quickly became the most resilient girl Hector had ever known.
“Mocha was rescued on the side of the road with a badly broken leg in mid-October 2022,” Hector told The Dodo. “Luckily, she didn’t need surgery because, at one point, we were considering amputation.”
Mocha powered through her recovery and eventually regained her strength as if nothing had happened. As if that wasn’t astounding enough for Hector, the sweet girl shocked her new mom when she naturally started caring for her foster brother, a tiny kitten named Grogu, soon after.
“Grogu was only four days old and very tiny,” Hector said. “At first, I kept him away from her because I wasn’t sure how she’d react, but that only lasted a day. She sniffed him first and then licked his face and was very concerned about him.”
Mocha instantly became Grogu’s surrogate mom, instinctively performing all the duties a new mother would, despite the fact that she’d never had babies of her own and Grogu was an entirely different species.
“Almost every feeding, she would watch intently, and she loved at the end when she got to clean up the milk around his mouth,” Hector said. “She also had the instinct to stimulate him to potty (which is what other mother cats and dogs do), but she was never a mom, so it was interesting to see her react that way.”
Thanks to Mocha’s love and care, Grogu soon became a big, playful cat. When he was finally cleared for adoption, Mocha kissed Grogu goodbye and sent him off on his journey from Jamaica to Pennsylvania, aided by Montego Bay Animal Haven.
Mocha’s lack of maternal experience didn’t stop her from caring for Grogu as if he were her own. And when more foster kittens arrived later on, she treated them in the exact same way. Strangely enough, she acted this way toward all her future feline siblings but never assumed responsibility for any puppies who arrived.
“Every now and then, we’d get a bottle baby puppy, and she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in them,” Hector said. “But baby kittens, she’s always excited to see and is actually very protective of them. She’s helped me foster and raise 20 [to] 30 kittens just since last year.”
While Mocha eventually likes to play with her puppy siblings once they’re older, she spends most of her days caring for her cat babies.
“Typically, she wakes up at around 6:30 a.m., and that’s when we’ll do the first feeding and clean up,” Hector said. “Depending on how old the kittens are, they’re fed every couple hours, and for most of the feedings, she’s awake and helping out. Usually, around 2 a.m. is the last feeding, then we go to bed and do it all again in 5 hours.”
When she’s not helping feed the kittens, Mocha’s usually on alert to correct their behavior. She doesn’t like when any of them get hurt.
“If the kittens are even playing and she thinks it’s too rough, she’ll go separate them, or if an older kitten is being mean to one of the younger ones, she’ll go try to remove them from the situation,” Hector said.
Hector is continually surprised to see just how attentive Mocha is to her foster kittens. It’s hard to know exactly why Mocha reacts specifically to kittens in such a nurturing way, but Hector believes it’s had a healing effect on the once-traumatized pup.
“I think raising kittens helped Mocha give that love and attention that she didn’t necessarily have in her first few weeks, and she grew into being a naturally protective dog,” Hector said. “She doesn’t like to see anyone be mean to or hurt her babies.”