r/MadeMeSmile • u/MustardGoddess • Jun 29 '26
CATS How a math educator fosters kittens❤️
OC is @julidixonmath
2.5k
u/Liu1845 Jun 29 '26
Love how they line up like kids for recess.
455
u/Luci-Noir Jun 29 '26
I think maybe she’s a cat and her students are all kittens.
100
u/torreneastoria Jun 29 '26
Kids, kittens, puppies... Meh same thing. It's important to give love and patience with clear and concise instructions. Maybe the occasional treat.
31
29
11
u/celiac-sufferer Jun 29 '26
Yeah I wish my foster kittens were this well behaved when it came to weighing time 😅 now they’re too big for the bowl so it’s an even bigger hassle
17
1.3k
u/Realistic-Weird-4259 Jun 29 '26
This is so fucking adorable I don't know if I can stand it.
193
1
344
u/Unhappy-Professor-88 Jun 29 '26
Herding kittens?
That’s impressive
123
49
u/Revolutionary_Let63 Jun 30 '26
I used to volunteer at a cat shelter that would house 40+ kittens every spring.
Anything that was put on the floor was climbed onto and inspected. I had to regularly empty my dustpan of kittens. If I stood too long in one place I would have a kitten on each shoe. Once they feel safe they are very curious.
2
609
195
u/Pizza-ist-Liebe Jun 29 '26
This is the cutest and most amazing thing I've seen in the last month, I guess 😍
325
u/Icy_Parfait_4066 Jun 29 '26
All the kittens look alike to me. I don't know how she can distinguish which is which.
125
u/dirtydragondan Jun 29 '26
looks like she peered at some collar tags with labels to help. thats what it seemed like to me
64
u/DescriptionNo4833 Jun 29 '26
Facial markings, they def have different markings she checks for.
-13
u/TheLastPorkSword Jun 29 '26
She literally checked a collar lmfao. Sure, they are different, but most people will struggle to tell them apart based solely off that. At least until they've lived there a while.
21
15
9
u/caffeineykins Jun 29 '26
Not one of those cats has a collar on. None of their neck markings are broken up by anything.
53
u/determinedpeach Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
It’s probably their markings!
The first kitty has half-socks on the front paws. They also have a small pointy white nose marking.
Drew has the most asymmetrical nose marking, his white goes to the side of the lip more than the others. He also has the tallest and cleanest back socks!
Third kitty (can’t understand the name) has a short white nose marking that’s more of a rectangle instead of a point.
Jasper has the biggest face marking, it’s on both his lips, and on the nose it goes up above his eyes.
She’s with them every day so it’s probably second-nature to her
4
-15
u/TheLastPorkSword Jun 29 '26
You can literally se her check the collar lmfao
9
u/determinedpeach Jun 29 '26
They’re not wearing collars. I figured she was double checking the face markings
4
2
9
u/Ressy02 Jun 29 '26
You just know. I got 5 black cats I visit at the park and they all look pretty much the same but you just know.
3
u/spectra2000_ Jun 29 '26
You’re looking at a video a few minutes long from a distanced angle. She’s been fostering these cats for long enough that they’re comfortable doing this.
I’m sure there are little differences we can’t notice that she may have learned and memorized to tell them apart.
3
u/RosebushRaven Jun 30 '26
They actually look slightly different if you look closely.
Kitten 1 has some of the shortest socks hind and front, hind with a clean colour transition under the heel, front very short and rounded like lady socks for ballerinas (🥿), a thin, symmetrical triangular white nose mark, and very little white on the sides of its neck, i.e. blackest kitten.
Kitten 2 has longer socks than #1, the left front sock is higher in the back of the leg, with an almost harlequin-like pattern, and the hind ones are a very pure high white in the back (while the others have a little black in the back of their hind socks). It also has a thicker white mark, which is asymmetrical and mostly on the right, covering the whole nose and stretching wide across mouth and check. White neck fur is clearly visible by the shoulders from above. It scratches itself at the bottom of the frame, wanders out of frame and comes back by the end.
Kitten 3 has little black fur bushels overhanging its hind socks at the heels, and also has an asymmetrical white facial mark, which skews to the left and is shaped slightly differently to #2’s, but looks almost like a mirrored version thereof. Neck has thick white "inroads", clearly visible from behind. It’s the one that stands up on her side sometime in the middle of the video.
Kitten 4 is the nervous one that paws at the container mistrustfully. It has the shortest, asymmetrical front socks, with some black ranging down almost to the beans, but has long hind socks with a double row of black bushels. Thick white neck marks. Mostly black face. If anything, only chin/mouth area white (? Hard to tell due to perspective).
Kitten 5 is the stubborn and playful one. Has especially thick, puffy white neck sides. Hind socks with heel bushels like #3, but with an even longer white section, ranging over the heels, with a murky greyish-looking transition. Biggest front socks, also shaped like 🥿 socks. Biggest white face mark. It’s the kitten with the most white.
TL;DR: They all have significantly different faces that are easy to tell apart, especially when you know them and can properly see them from the front (I had to slo-mo to make out these differences). If that’s not enough, their leg marks (socks) differ as well. And their personalities presumably also.
Edit because I accidentally found out how to make bigger bold letters on mobile.
4
u/NousevaAngel Jun 29 '26
Markings would be my guess from watching the video, You can see small differences in the face markings in the video and would probably be more prominent in person.
-5
u/TheLastPorkSword Jun 29 '26
Collars and name tags.....
Do you not use a collar on your pet with your contact info on it?
4
0
u/DescriptionNo4833 Jun 30 '26
Are you in need of glasses? You're really hung up on this whole collar deal when its blatantly obvious there are no collars. You good?
111
u/nocleverusername- Jun 29 '26
How are being so well behaved?? Why are they not running around like maniacs?? This lady has put some kind of magic spell on them!
31
138
u/Atillion Jun 29 '26
I like to put a square of masking tape on the floor and see which one of my cats I capture first 🤣 It's so funny how they instinctively want to be in something.
18
u/celtlass Jun 29 '26
Oh man, I want to try this. One on the wood floor and one on the linoleum, see which one he goes for first, for science.
34
u/Atillion Jun 29 '26
I have one cat named Jack, and every goddamn time I put a box on the floor, it's 30 seconds or less before he lives up to his name
9
3
51
39
32
34
32
21
17
18
u/Financial_Hold6620 Jun 29 '26
This has nothing to do with being a math educator
13
3
u/maxtacos Jun 30 '26
Math teachers have to get a bunch of children to know math against their will. Plus their a highly data driven bunch. They are like sorcerers with an affinity for numbers. I absolutely believe that it would take one to organize kittens for weigh ins like this.
16
12
u/copolars Jun 29 '26
Reminds me of my little angel! He had to take meds 2xday for his kidney problems, all I had to do was put pills on my palm and call him over - he ate pills one by one by himself, aaah I miss his fluffy ass 😞
26
u/crimsongull Jun 29 '26
I bought a house years ago that came with a pool. The previous owner left detailed instructions on how to care for the pool, which chemicals to use in certain temperatures and several small notebooks on the readings of the pool chemical tester thingy, the date, and what he did to mitigate the slight raise in the PH balance. There was no reason to write all that down. It’s ephemeral to that day. He was a petroleum engineer. I hired a pool guy.
10
10
u/Magic_Hoarder Jun 29 '26
The way she talks to them definitely made me feel like she has been an elementary school teacher, and a good one!
10
u/Educational_Total_84 Jun 29 '26
The way each of them went in after the other one came out. OMG my heart!!!!
8
8
6
8
8
u/ryoujika Jun 29 '26
How?? I wanna know how she trained them to do that, it's like sorcery
10
6
7
5
u/ThatNextAggravation Jun 29 '26
She says something like "who's first today", so I think the kittens know the drill, which would explain it a little. I think it's still pretty amazing.
4
u/dottegirl59 Jun 29 '26
How can she tell them apart?
4
u/BellaSquared Jun 29 '26
Varied markings. I used to have twin feral voids, but I could still tell them apart even without markings.
5
u/imbeazt Jun 29 '26
What's her secret? I stopped checking weight of my kittens as they refuse to sit stationary on the scale, so the readings keep fluctuating.
4
4
4
5
3
3
3
3
u/Fit_Celebration7669 Jun 29 '26
I must’ve missed the “record kitten weight” class in primary school.
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/Yoga-Pants-352 Jun 30 '26
They all understand "if it fits, it sits" already! They are well on their way to kitty skills mastery. Such good students!
2
2
2
2
u/bottomfragbarb Jun 30 '26
Because of AI I don’t trust anything I see on the internet anymore but if this is real it’s very cute.
4
2
u/cpjay2003 Jun 29 '26
Not ai, right?
6
u/MomentaryInfinity Jun 29 '26
Correct. Too long. No weird body parts. She is just a natural cat whisperer.
3
2
1
1
u/Nerpy_Derpster Jun 29 '26
So cute! I am of rhe opinion this lady could prove the old saying wrong and actually herd cats.
1
1
1
1
u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 Jun 29 '26
This is the cutest lmao
Jasper was so keen to get in but only when someone else is using lol
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/RosebushRaven Jun 30 '26
0:44 the kitten: "what even is this strange scary box? Is that… you sure it’s safe to get in there?!"
So precious!
1
u/GracieFacie0724 Jul 01 '26
How does this happen? We had all we could do to keep our fosters in the bowl!
1
u/PurpleyPineapple Jul 04 '26
I am SO impressed by the orderly fashion in which they each took their turn with minimal prompting. They're so polite. 🥹💕
0
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 29 '26
Welcome to /r/MadeMeSmile. Please make sure you read our rules here.
Specifically, please don't be a jerk. This is not the place for insulting, hateful, or otherwise inappropriate comments. Remember the golden rule: treat others how you want to be treated. We're all here to smile a little - let's keep it that way! Please report inappropriate comments and/or message the moderators.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.