This story is so adorable one might think it a delightful fairytale, but rest assured Ponyo and his Dragon are fur real!

Once upon a time, little Ponyo was a kitten all alone in the world. He would cry and cry in the backyards of a neighborhood, but he was hard to catch.

Ponyo’s mom, Samantha Smart, recalls hearing the kitten, telling The Dodo, “It wasn’t just a meow, it was a sad little cry.”

And while Samantha and family hadn’t set out to adopt Ponyo, one look at the cute kitten and everyone knew they were meant to be family.

@Adventures of Ponyo and Dragon/Facebook

A Magical Friend Keeps Ponyo Brave

Samantha’s daughter wanted to get her new kitten brother a special stuffed animal to snuggle with, but she wanted it be just purrfect. “My daughter Violet spent a while picking out the perfect friend for him to sleep with and settled on Dragon.”

Violet made a magical choice. “He sleeps with Dragon every night and spends a lot of his time dragging him around the house!”

And when the time came for Ponyo to make an important but scary journey, Dragon went along to help his kitten friend be brave as he faced neutering. Ponyo adventured to Operation Catnip, where staff fell for him and his stuffed buddy.

@OperationCatnip/Facebook

“When Ponyo arrived at the clinic, he was very nervous,” said Melissa Jenkins of Operation Catnip. Since Ponyo obviously felt safe with his dragon, staff “thought it would be really great to send the dragon on the same journey through the clinic as Ponyo, so we had fun giving the dragon the identical services.”

They shared Ponyo and Dragon’s journey on Facebook. “Ponyo watches as Dragon gets anesthetized! ‘Take good care of my Dragon’ he says!”