Published Jul 29, 2025
Cats Protection / Youtube.com
Attention, Cats readers: You can help this extraordinary Scottish cat named Kiki, a beloved elementary school mascot in Scotland, win a National Cat Award this week!
Kiki, a white female cat with gray patches, gets up every morning and walks with her family’s 10-year-old boy, Sonny, and his friends to Kelvindale Primary School in Glasgow. She waits in the playground during the day, and then walks back home with her tribe after school dismissal.
“When I saw Kiki in the playground, I felt a bit shocked, a bit excited,” Sonny said in this video. “I thought, ‘Maybe I could be popular from this.’”
Indeed, Kiki has worked wonders for Sonny’s friendships with his peers, many of whom he has gotten to know through their encounters with Kiki. Kiki’s family made some merchandise, like Kiki bags and cat keychains, and sold them in the community to raise money for charity.
The almost century-old Cats Protection, the UK cat welfare charity that has helped more than 1.5 million felines find homes since 1927, runs the National Cat Awards every year to recognize extraordinary cats in the UK.
You can vote for Kiki here.
Cats Protection / Youtube.com
Cats win the awards in four categories: Connected Cats, Incredible Cats, Senior Cats, and Family Cats. You can watch a video on each cat and vote for one of three in each category. Please note that the deadline for voting is July 31, so act quickly!
Kiki shares the Connected Cats category, which honors cats that have brought great joy to a community, with two other finalists: Fizz, an orange tabby who visits many businesses and has charmed the community of Llandrindod in Wales; and Callie, a calico who has charmed thousands of social media followers with cute, positive and caring posts.
I admit that I am struggling with promoting one cat over the other, because these wonderful, amazing cats are all so deserving. Of course we are rooting for Kiki as the subject of this story – but, darn it, can’t we root for all three? Be sure to check out the cats in all four categories, and then do the hard part: picking just one each for the vote.
No matter what the results of the votes turn out to be, we give kudos and cat love to all of these fabulous felines.
As for Kiki, before she started following Sonny to school, she joined the family in a love-at-first-meow meeting.
Cats Protection / Youtube.com
Kiki has been Sonny’s special girl from the beginning. In the Cats Protection video, the boy describes the feeling he got when he met his future cat.
“When I first saw Kiki and saw her playing with her brothers, I fell in love with her immediately,” Sonny said.
Sonny’s mom, Michelle Scott, added: “From the minute we brought her home, she seemed to love being around Sonny. She likes to know what Sunny is doing and where he is.”
According to Scott, Kiki started following Sonny to school out of the blue, probably because she is so attached to Sonny and doesn’t want to be apart from him all day.
Over time, this four-legged escort has become beloved at the school, where a head teacher jokingly recognized Kiki for her 100 percent attendance record.
“She’s brought a lot of joy to the children, staff, and school community,” Scott, 51, told reporters. “She’s given the teachers an opportunity to teach children how to treat cats and respect them.”
Cats Protection / Youtube.com
Sonny agrees. In the video, he describes Kiki’s role at the school this way: “I think she’s brought a nice, fun essence to the school that makes every day more exciting. She’s a strange cat – definitely one of a kind – but I love Kiki.”
Scott praises her special cat’s sparkling purrsonality and uniqueness.
“I’ve always had cats, but Kiki is like no cat I’ve known,” she told the media. “She’s really sociable. Whenever Sonny had friends around, she would sit with them as if she was one of them.”
Isn’t it wonderful to hear about cats who touch and change the lives of either an individual, a larger community, or even the world?