Carri-Anne Jane had no clue how far she would go to come home with some very crucial additional baggage when she moved to Dubai for an internship in the fall of 2017.
Jane observed a little cat loitering outside the door to her apartment building in October, immediately after she moved in. She bent down to feed the cat, assuming the frequent visitor was searching for a meal, and received an unexpected response.
The white cat with brown markings rejected the food and preferred to interact with people.
“I sat down to try and show [the food] to him and he hopped up on my lap, snuggled into a ball and contently started purring,” Jane told The Dodo. “That was a definite, ‘Houston, we have a problem’ moment. No other street cats I’d encountered had ever done that.”
Jane and the cat immediately formed a bond and settled into a new routine — the little cat would run up to greet her with a friendly meow whenever Jane returned from work.
Jane started calling the cat Eleven, a reference to the character from the Netflix show “Stranger Things,” but the name never seemed to fit the cat’s affectionate personality.
The small cat had a heart-shaped marking on his side, which Jane’s roommate noticed one day. When the cat snuggled up to cuddle Jane, the heart became even more obvious. The cat’s exterior completely mirrored his inside, which astonished Jane, prompting her to swiftly alter his name.
He had the largest heart a kitty could have, added Jane, adding that he was really loving and friendly. “He became brave” (because of how much he was prepared to put his faith in me) and “heart” (his mark and capacity for love).
By December, Jane had come to terms with the fact that she would have to bring Braveheart back to South Africa and had taken him to the veterinarian to confirm his good health. Despite being slightly underweight, Braveheart was given the all-clear to take to the skies.
I understood that I wouldn’t be able to leave this spirit behind and that I would be left thinking about that stray cat in Dubai for the rest of my life, Jane said.
But Jane had no idea how tough it would be to get the ex-street cat to her house in Cape Town.
“My first quotation was R 44,000 [$3,095] from a South African firm,” Jane said. “I did slyly ask, ‘Is he traveling back in first class?’ in response to that. But that second solidified to me what he meant. I was horrified since leaving him behind would have meant spending R 44,000.
Jane began to research what it would take to export Braveheart from the United Arab Emirates to South Africa without a professional animal transport agency.
Though doing the legwork herself would shave down the price of Braveheart’s flight and export costs, Jane still needed to find a way to raise the money for all the fees, so she took to social media — starting an Instagram page and crowdfunding campaign for Braveheart.
Midway through January, as the time for Braveheart’s immunizations drew near, Ray Leathern, Jane’s husband, sold his mountain bike to assist with meeting their minimal goal. By the time we stopped the campaign for Braveheart on February 28, 2018, we had raised slightly under R 20,000, according to Jane. “On March 1st, he boarded his journey home.” Braveheart arrived at home after 16 hours of hard work.
After seven months in South Africa, Braveheart has finally started to adjust, surprising his parents with his bubbly, playful personality. “He has boundless energy, talks up a storm, loves love and is slightly obsessive when he sets his mind to task,” Jane said. “He is a sucker for any heat source (he has no undercoat to deal with the heat in Dubai). He loves to steal food off your plate with a sneaky side-paw action.”
And despite all the changes, the little cat still wears his heart on his sleeve — or, rather, his fur.
