(Missourinet) – A nine-year-old cat that lived his entire life at an animal shelter in Iowa has been adopted by a family here in Missouri.
Barney was adopted after becoming a social media sensation last month. Emmet County, Iowa Animal Shelter Director Kristy Henning said Barney was featured in the shelter’s “Sunday Spotlight” on Facebook.
“We do that sort of thing all the time,” Henning said, “but he just became really popular for some reason and then someone on Reddit who’s name is Josh, he saw it and shared it over to a forum on Reddit — and it just went gangbusters from there.”
The post drew attention nationwide and in Canada and prompted an article in People magazine once he was adopted. Henning said there was a slight delay in getting Barney to his new home in the Show-Me State.
“They actually had to come up twice,” Henning said. “One was halfway because Barney ended up having a fever from one of his boosters we gave him, which isn’t uncommon, but because we didn’t want to send him on in not tip-top shape, we said that we wanted to hang onto him for a little while and monitor him and then as soon as he was feeling better, the family was super excited to make the trip again.”
Barney and his new family live in Lee’s Summit, just east of Kansas City, and they are keeping the Emmet County Animal Shelter updated on Barney’s progress.
“We are friends with them on Facebook now, so we get to see all the Barney posts…and then they text us updates letting us know he’s coming around and he’s exploring,” Henning said. “The last notification I got was he had walked across their piano keys, scared himself, made a ruckus, and woke everyone up in the house. They thought they had a burglar, but they all laughed about it.”
There is no carpeting at the shelter, and Barney’s new family says he loves rolling around on the carpet at his new home.
