Forget what you heard about cats not being ‘people animals’, because one fluffy cat absolutely adores her owner and she proves it by bringing him a nice new leaf every day.

Baloo the cat first came into owner Ben’s life while he was with an ex-girlfriend.

His ex had surprised him with Baloo but he wasn’t ready for a commitment, and so she was sent back to her original owners.

The pair realised they’d made a massive mistake straight away and so they picked her up that same day and took her back home with them.


Ben and his then-girlfriend broke up a short while later.



His ex took Baloo to live with her, but then considered putting her up for adoption as she would be moving back in with her parents. Ben was having none of that, and so took Baloo to live with him and a bunch of his flatmates.

Baloo lives in a student house with six guys and their four girlfriends. Ben says there’s ‘constant noise and partying’ – but Baloo doesn’t seem to mind.

‘It’s not the best situation for even a human to live in,’ Ben tells Metro.co.uk.

‘But she absolutely loved all the socialising and fast-food scraps. She’d wander around parties that were in full swing looking for attention. She was very popular.

‘She’s a very loving cat, all the people in my current apartment block know her by name because she seems to hang out in the other flats quite a lot.’

Baloo is so popular that even her neighbours adore her and are often feeding her up, turning her into a chubby little fluff ball.

But one person has a special place in Baloo’s heart, and that’s Ben.

Baloo first started showing her affections by bringing in little mice and on a couple of occasions, little birds, as treats for her owner.

She would hop through the bedroom window straight onto Ben’s chest every morning to offer him her gifts.

Of course, she thought this was lovely but Ben did not, especially as the gifts were alive.

‘I’d wake up to her on my chest, with something in her mouth which she would then drop on my face/chest and meow,’ Ben says.

‘I don’t know if she expected me to think it was breakfast or that it was simply a gift.’

While he would never shout at Baloo, he did have to make it very clear that the presents weren’t making him very happy.

‘I was getting woken up by a small rodent being dropped on my face and that solicits a certain reaction in the morning as you can probably imagine,’ he says.

‘I’d shoot out of bed to try and catch the thing and make a big fuss about it.



‘Once caught, I would look at her and say “STOP BRINGING ME THESE THINGS!” then throw it out the window in front of her.

‘She always looked so confused and sad which made me feel pretty bad. I can’t be mad at her for being a cat, and besides I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s doing good.

‘She was out catching me these presents all night. It felt to me like she thought that was part of her purpose. While we’re making a mess all night and sleeping all morning, she was doing her part by going out and bringing home the bacon so to speak.

‘Seeing the lifestyle I was living she probably thought I could do with a nice “healthy” breakfast. Who knows?’

Overall, Ben says Baloo has bought him over two dozen small rodents and two small birds over the course of two months.

They were all released back outside ‘mildy traumatised’ but otherwise okay. ‘There was never a drop of blood and the birds always flew away just fine,’ he said.

It took a couple of months of rejecting her gifts for Baloo to start bringing Ben a gift he could appreciate: leaves.

Ben said: ‘Sometimes it was a small branch, sometimes it was a giant leaf. They were always big, nice looking leaves. It was such a relief from the live mice every morning that I would show my gratitude by taking the leaf and playing with it while she sat on my chest.


‘The image of opening my eyes to see my little kitty staring at me with a giant leaf in her mouth is so cute. My reaction would have been pretty clear to anyone that I was happy.

‘Rather than jumping out of bed, pushing her to one side and tearing around my room in a bother. I would lay there smiling, thanking her for the gift and stroking her for all those sweet sweet morning purrs.

‘She knew she was doing something right now. Which makes me think maybe those mice weren’t necessarily for food, but were purely a gift, and she was just figuring out what I liked!’

Ben says it warms his heart just thinking about little Baloo on her leaf mission each morning. Though he wonders what her ‘criteria’ is for a good gift.

‘How many did she go through to find the right one?,’ he joked.

‘I just picture her wandering around thinking “ooh that’s a nice leaf, he’ll love this one!”… “no this one’s far too similar to the one he’s already got”. What an adventure she’d have every time I slept. It’s too cute.’

Ben says that he keeps the leaves Baloo brings him so that they can play with them together during the day. However, Baloo always ends up destroying them in the end.

But that doesn’t matter – because she always manages to find a new, even better leaf the next day.

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