Tara, the California cat that became a 'hero' and a YouTube sensation after being caught on camera saving a boy from a dog attack, has been invited to throw the first pitch at a baseball game.
A video showing a dog attacking and dragging four-year-old Jeremy from his tricycle in a driveway in Bakersfield went viral this week.
In the video, Tara, the family's cat is seen running to rescue the boy. The feline pounces on the dog and chases it away before returning to the boy to protect him.
"Thankfully, it wasn't worse," the child's father, Roger Triantafilo, wrote in a post that appeared with the video. "My son is fine."
Tara, who has been hailed across the world by various names such as 'hero', 'savior' and 'angel' will now appear in a local minor league baseball team called Bakersfield Blaze, its representatives have said. Tara would throw the first pitch at a May 20 game.
"We will be attempting to have her throw out the first pitch. Now, how that goes off, we'll see, but the idea is to have her pitch the ball," Philip Guiry, assistant general manager for the Blaze told Reuters. Jeremy, the boy, will also pitch a ball.
"It sounds crazy, but we've got a trick up our sleeve," team member Dan Besbris told BBC.
Jeremy – who needed stitches after the attack – has praised the cat. "She's a hero," he told the news channel.
The dog, described as an 8-month-old Labrador-Chow mix, is scheduled to be put down four days after the game, according to Bakersfield police.
The widely distributed and published YouTube video where the cat chases the dog away has now been viewed more than 1.7million times.
Watch the video below.
