KAWKAWLIN, MI

— Soon after giving birth to a litter of five kittens just before Mother’s Day 2012, a tabby cat named Oreo

.

Her owner's grandson found Bushytail, a baby squirrel, and added it to her litter.

Oreo seemed to know the newcomer was not one of her kittens, but she nursed him anyway, said Stephanie Box of Kawkawlin.

The story of the cat who adopted the squirrel became an Internet sensation, making the rounds on MSNBC, lifewithcats.tv and more, when the Mlive headline May 11, 2012, was "Mothers Day: Cat adopts and nurses orphan baby squirrel."



Now the squirrel has grown up and moved out of the cats’ outdoor house, but the squirrel still comes back for the occasional visit, Box said.

“He lived with the cats for probably two and a half or three months,” she said. “Then he would come back at night to sleep with them and go off during the day.”

Box said Bushytail returned in the mornings and evenings when she fed the cats, playing with his adopted brothers and sisters.

“He would play with them like he was a cat,” she said. “One time he jumped on a cat’s back, and the cat just started walking, dragging his little feet behind it. It was almost like he was going for a ride.”

Bushytail no longer returns for playtime with the cats, but sometimes Box thinks she sees him around her wooded property, stealing cat food from his foster mother's dish.