This dog has mommied 150 cats
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00:00 Kittens often think that he's related to them.
00:02 They treat him like a big cat.
00:04 I see.
00:04 Maybe there's a little bit of cat in there somewhere.
00:06 I'm Laura and this is Braylon's story for GeoBeats.
00:09 He was at a shelter.
00:10 We don't know where he came from, but he was going to be euthanized
00:13 because he didn't have space up there.
00:14 The rescue reached out to me and he's been with me ever since.
00:17 He settled in pretty quickly.
00:18 Within a day, he was very playful, doesn't get stressed out.
00:22 Very, very adaptable.
00:23 Thank you.
00:24 So I started fostering.
00:27 Kittens are too little to be in the shelter.
00:29 They need to be socialized.
00:30 They have health issues.
00:31 They need to be fed every four hours.
00:33 You can't do that in a shelter.
00:34 Right away, Braylon loved them.
00:38 He wanted to take care of them and play with them and be with them.
00:43 I don't know if he'd ever been around cats before, but he really, really loved them.
00:46 He started carrying them around like what a mother dog or cat would do with their babies.
00:58 He is very gentle with them.
01:02 He's never hurt a kitten.
01:04 Good boy.
01:06 He listens to them really, really well.
01:07 He's learned that if a cat won't come over to him,
01:10 if he picks up a cat toy and plays with it, they'll come over to get the toy.
01:14 Sometimes he'll dangle it off the bed or the couch to get them to come over.
01:17 I've found that a lot of cats at first are even a bit scared of people.
01:21 They won't be scared of him.
01:22 Awful small bed you've got there.
01:25 They'll come out of their shell more quickly because he's sort of like a big mother cat to them.
01:30 And of course, he cleans them and does all these things that
01:33 means there's less work for me to do for these foster kittens.
01:37 Braylon will get protective of his kittens with other dogs.
01:44 So people he's okay with, but we've had dogs over who Braylon felt were too
01:49 interested or maybe weren't giving off the right vibes.
01:52 So he immediately will get between the kittens and the other dog and he'll growl at them
01:57 and not let them near his kittens if he doesn't feel comfortable.
01:59 He definitely teaches them how to be hardy like that.
02:02 Just not to be scared of the world.
02:04 A lot of tiny little kittens, it can be really scary out there
02:08 and having a big dog around to teach you the ways is really helpful.
02:11 He has rules that all the kittens have to follow.
02:16 Kittens are not allowed to scratch the couch.
02:20 And so if any kitten scratches the couch, he runs over and tries to stop them.
02:25 Braylon can definitely understand some of their meows for sure.
02:28 If they yelp with another cat, he'll come over to break up the fight.
02:31 He knows definitely signs of, "Oh, I don't like this."
02:39 Braylon's a very smart dog.
02:43 He also needs a lot of mental stimulation and he always needs things to do.
02:48 He's not the kind of dog to just sit on the couch all day and do nothing.
02:52 When the kittens leave, after a couple weeks, he starts to get antsy.
03:00 He starts to be bored and act like he's missing having kittens.
03:05 And so then we get more kittens.
03:06 Pet the cat?
03:07 When I adopted Braylon, he was almost two and now he's 13, almost 13 and a half.
03:13 We've fostered somewhere around 150 kittens in the past 10 years.
03:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:21 (upbeat music)
03:24 you