Dog and cat rescuers on TikTok build an online culture with a cause, and with paws | Canada Voices

When Rachael Rae Robertson saw Garbanzo for the first time in four years, she barely recognized the long-haired orange cat. It was massively overweight, matted and terrified, hissing and scratching whenever anyone came close.

Ms. Robertson had been contacted by a local shelter because she regularly fosters unwanted animals in Los Angeles. She had cared for Garbanzo as a three-day-old abandoned kitten and was devastated to see the cat so traumatized years later. (She found out that although Garbanzo’s adoptive home had been a good one at first, the owner had gotten a new partner who enjoyed tormenting the cat.)

“She had been a cat you could pick up and cuddle. And 1775210569, she was not handleable to the point where the staff were like, ‘Do you want to come look at her? Cause we can’t even get her out to show you.’ She came home with me that day,” says Ms. Robertson, who had fostered the cat for the first three months of its life.

Fighting back tears, Ms. Robertson recorded a video of Garbanzo’s story and posted it on TikTok and Instagram (@rachaelraerobertson). It blew up immediately. (As of March, the post has had 5.4 million views on TikTok and 548,000 likes on Instagram.) For the next few months, Ms. Robertson rehabilitated Garbanzo, chronicling the cat’s progress on social media. Her riveted audience followed along every step of the way, dropping hundreds of thousands of likes and comments.

Ms. Robertson, who is a dog walker and pet carer specializing in animals with special needs, had been posting about her experiences since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But she says the massive response to Garbanzo caught her off guard. “I’ve gone viral a few times, but never like that,” she says. But she does understand it. “I think there’s something to be said about a comeback story. We can all identify with that to some degree.”

‘Moral elevation’ in a fraught world

Ms. Robertson is part of an uplifting corner of TikTok where challenging journeys and happy endings are par for the course. Content creators document the process of fostering and rehabilitating dogs and cats – often neglected, abused or medically complex animals that seem unadoptable.

Anne Wilson, professor of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., says that while research has found that social-media posts often go viral because they are negative, extreme or “othering,” posts can also go viral when they are high in moral, emotional content. Posts about rescuing and fostering abused or abandoned animals “evoke a strong sense of a particular emotion called ‘moral elevation,’” she says.

The term, coined by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, is both an emotional and psychological feeling of uplift when we observe moral or helping behaviours, Prof. Wilson says.

“There’s some research that shows it even gives us a boost in oxytocin”– a hormone that can induce feelings of safety and contentment.

Prof. Wilson notes that these fostering stories also contain a “redemption narrative,” a storyline that people are generally very attracted to. Animal narratives are particularly attractive because “you can enjoy all of the positive aspects of a redemption narrative without any of the tension that sometimes occurs with human redemption narratives,” she adds.

Blossoming against the odds

Aubrie D’Angelo knows the draw of this corner of TikTok very well. “Anytime anybody’s posting about dogs, I’m locked in,” says Ms. D’Angelo, who lives an hour outside of Boston with her husband.

She was following the posts of one of her favourite creators, Isabel Klee (@simonsits) – a giant in the space with more than a million followers – when she saw Tiki, a tiny Chihuahua mix that was totally withdrawn and terrified of everything. Like scores of other social-media users, (one post of Tiki getting his first pets from Ms. Klee garnered 13 million views), Ms. D’Angelo watched Tiki’s progress obsessively. The dog went from being unable to move, eat or interact with humans to slowly learning to trust and explore. “The first few videos, I was in love,” she says.

Even though she and her husband already had two dogs, they decided they wanted to adopt Tiki when the dog became available. Ms. D’Angelo applied to be an approved adopter through Muddy Paws Rescue in New York and waited patiently for Tiki to go up for adoption. When that day came, “two days later, they e-mailed me back and wanted to do an interview with me.”

After the adoption, Ms. Klee suggested that Ms. D’Angelo document the dog’s life on TikTok because people were so invested. Ms. D’Angelo posted a couple of videos of Tiki in their home (@tikiplustwo), and almost immediately, the account swelled to 400,000 followers. “It’s so funny to be out in public now and get recognized, to meet people who are like, ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re Tiki’s mom,’” says Ms. D’Angelo, who has a “full-time corporate day job” in customer marketing.

From her perspective as both a consumer of rescue dog content and a content creator, the power of these stories lies in the unifying fact that “we all care about what happens to a dog or a cat.”

“I think it’s just such a beautiful place on the internet,” she says. “It’s watching an animal overcome the odds and all these obstacles and completely blossom. I think all of us want that for ourselves too.”

Challenges and criticism

Fostering animals is not without its challenges, though. The process of rehabilitation is slow, unique to each animal and not always a straight line, says Ms. Robertson.

Animals who have been neglected or abused may exhibit aggressive or unpleasant behaviours, while sick or disabled ones may require constant care.

While she says her personality as a “go-with-the-flow type of person” enables her to adjust her schedule to accommodate her foster animals’ needs, Ms. Robertson’s commitment to fostering also means her personal life can sometimes takes a hit. She recalls being contacted by a shelter when she was already fostering four tiny kittens.

“I got an e-mail about another four who were around the same age, and I thought ‘I could take on eight.’ I had named them in my head and everything. And then I thought, ‘I can’t take on eight.’ That moment where you kind of stop and think about the logistics is really important.”

The social-media landscape can be tricky too. There are bad actors who steal online footage and set up fake GoFundMe scams. Also, followers can have a lot of opinions.

While most comments are overwhelmingly positive and Ms. Robertson says she’s been thrilled to be part of such a supportive community, a scan of her posts reveals that there are criticisms there too. For example, when she started interviewing potential adoptive parents for Garbanzo, some followers posted comments begging her to keep the cat herself.

Ms. Robertson says she doesn’t blame people for wanting her to keep Garbanzo, but that it was “definitely hard at first to have people telling me that I’m going traumatize her again if I adopt her out. But for me, it felt like a really great opportunity to show people that they should trust the process.”

At the time, Ms. Robertson already had three cats and two dogs, one of which was a senior dog with health problems (who has since passed away), so her home wasn’t the right place for Garbanzo.

“I could have kept her for selfish reasons, but I don’t think she would have been very happy,” she says. “Garbanzo wanted someone to love on her, only her, and to not share that with anybody.” (Garbanzo’s adoptive mom is not a public person, but she does send videos for Ms. Robertson to post from time to time.)

Ms. D’Angelo has encountered some followers – she calls them the “TikTok police” – who have vocal opinions about how she is caring for Tiki. For example, she found that a retractable leash worked for Tiki in the early days, a strategy some fans had a big problem with.

Prof. Wilson says she’s not surprised creators receive judgment and criticism from their followers, who may develop a “strong parasocial bond” with creators and feel an ownership of the situation.

“I suspect that people can almost feel like they’re helping to rescue these animals themselves,” she says. “They’re getting a little bit of moral cred for it, even though they haven’t actually done anything aside from follow along.”

Platforms for good

Despite any criticism, both Ms. D’Angelo and Ms. Robertson have found their newfound social-media fame to be a net positive. Both have leveraged their popularity to pursue charitable endeavours.

Ms. Robertson, who has 440,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 200,000 on Instagram, has been able to raise money for food donations and neonatal kits that have been distributed to animal shelters in California.

“That’s been so exciting for me,” she says. “Our community has shown up every single time that we’ve talked about some rescue [animal] in need or some idea that we want to do.”

She says that when it comes to partnerships with brands, she’s very focused on being ethical. “I’m not going to just say ‘I love that product’ because they paid me money to do it. I’d rather be poor,” she says.

Ms. D’Angelo and her husband have also been able to do good with their platform, including raising awareness about dogs in need of adoption. One dog, Fran, was with a rescue organization for more than 1,000 days and was adopted after a TikTok on Ms. D’Angelo’s account.

“With our TikTok and sharing our life, it’s giving us the ability to inspire people to adopt, foster and rescue. I feel like we’re just getting started with the good that we have been able to do.”

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