An adventurous rescue cat has become an overnight social media star for what he did when visiting the beach for the first time.
Chelsea Zockoll, 29, lives in Utah and is the proud owner of rescue cat Selleck, named for the adorable moustache-like pattern under his nose.
“I saw he had a mustache and rushed to the shelter,” Zockoll told Newsweek. “I wasn’t looking for another cat, but I knew he was special and had to have him.”
Now internet users have seen just how special Selleck is, as a video shared to Zockoll’s TikTok account, @mr.selleck, has gone massively viral—viewed more than 45 million times.
Depicting “Selleck’s first time to the beach,” it shows the black-and-white cat on a leash on the sand, as his owner steps into the warm water.
And, incredibly, Selleck joins her. He steps gingerly into the lapping water, putting each paw out carefully—but he clearly likes it, and goes out deeper and deeper.
“Oh my gosh,” his owner says as he gets more comfortable in the water. “This is hilarious.”
Before long, Selleck is swimming through the water as if he had been doing it all his life, with Zockoll bursting out laughing as he swims into deeper water—though still safely on the cat leash.
“Safe to say he loves the water,” Zockoll wrote in the caption.
She explained to Newsweek that she had taken Selleck with her to Florida to visit her parents, and as he had “never seen the ocean,” she “decided to take him to the beach to feel the sand and see if he liked the water.”
“He got right in, and followed me in,” Zockoll said. “I was so shocked!”
“He is only 8 months old so he’s still a kitten, and really adventurous,” she added.
TikTok users were instantly obsessed, liking the video over 8.1 million times since it was posted just four days ago on April 10.
“I love how animals just have swimming preloaded,” one user wrote, as another loved “the sound of his paws hitting the water.”
“I’ve never seen a cat swim on purpose before,” one commenter admitted, while another posted: “Never in my 29 years of life have I seen a cat WILLINGLY get into the water.”
Others poked fun at Selleck’s markings, including his white paws and black body making him appear as if he is dressed in finery, with one joking, “Take his socks off,” and another asking: “Who dresses formal to the beach?”
A vet-reviewed report from PetMD, with feline behavior consultant Ingrid Johnson, said cats can like swimming, but it is rare, and they prefer to attempt the experience on their own rather than being pushed into it by an owner.
Felines are more likely to like water if they were introduced to being bathed as a kitten, or had other positive experiences with water, but Johnson added that around 90 percent of cats would still dislike water.
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