Samantha Smart and her family decided they had to rеscuе a little cat who had been meowing around their Florida neighborhood for days.

Smart told The Dodo, “It wasn’t just a meow, it was a sad little weep.” “He enlisted the help of the entire community in locating and apprehending him. We already have one cat, so we weren’t seeking for another, but Ponyo seemed to be made for us!”

Ponyo’s family realized straight immediately that he wasn’t going anywhere, so they adơрted him. They moved fast to assist him in settling into his new home, and Smart’s daughter thought he needed his own unique stuffed animal to make him relax.

“My daughter Violet spent a long time looking for the appropriate person for him to sleep with,” Smart added. “Every night, he sleeps with Dragon and spends most of his day pulling him around the house!”

Ponyo’s family anticipated that he might be apprehensive about going to the vet for neutering, so they decided to send his dragon along with him.

Ponyo was neutered at Operation Catnip, a spay-neuter group that primarily serves unowned, free-roaming neighborhood cats. Everyone around fell in love with the small cat cowering behind his favorite plush dragon for comfort as soon as he arrived.

“Ponyo was really scared when he came at the clinic,” Melissa Jenkins of Operation Catnip told The Dodo. “When we saw his adorable dragon companion in the carrier with him, we decided to place the dragon in the kennel with him.” Ponyo first sought refuge behind the dragon, and it was evident that he found solace in it.”

Everyone could see that Ponyo’s stuffed dragon made him feel a little safer while he was in a new place — so they decided to make sure his toy stayed by his side the entire time.

“We thought it would be really great to send the dragon on the same journey through the clinic as Ponyo, so we had fun giving the dragon the identical services,” Jenkins said.

Ponyo’s dragon was with him every step of the way, and as soon as he awoke from surgery, his beloved dragon was the first thing that made him feel better.

“As Ponyo was waking up from anesthesia, he meowed and was understandably confused, so we made sure his dragon was close by to offer him some comfort,” Jenkins said.