A few years ago, Nicole Rienzie was driving when she almost hit a black kitten. While she didn’t really hit it, she quickly chased after the tiny creature as she noticed that it was in really bad shape.
“He was very, very thin, malnourished, covered in bugs and his eyes were so infected he couldn’t even see out of them. We swooped him up and took him home, cleaned him up, fed him and that’s pretty much where it all began,” Rienzie said.
She named him Sergio but because the kitten was so mischievous, she renamed him as Monkey which later got shortened to Monk.
Photo credit: NICOLE RIENZIE / IG @monkandbean
Rienzie was later surprised, however, when Monk grew ‘vampire’ teeth after shedding his kitten teeth! While other cats normally have fangs that are 1cm long, his was close to 2cm!
She was soon worried that something was wrong with her rescued cat and that its long fangs might interfere with eating; thankfully, critical care specialist at DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital Dr. Ladan Mohammad-Zadeh assured her that nothing was wrong with Monk. He just has very long fangs but it does not interfere with eating and other activities.
Of course, this did not mean that people didn’t do a double take each time they see Monk. In photos she posts on social media, people always tell her she was lying and that she had edited the photos. Of course, she’s telling the truth but not a lot of people believed her, anyway.
Some of her friends who saw actually Monk encouraged her to open an Instagram account for the cool cat – and she did! She opened Monk & Bean to post photos of Monk with his ‘brother’ Bean, another cat rescued a year after he was saved by Rienzie on that fateful day.
Is Monk a vampire cat?
While Monk does look like a vampire, he isn’t really one. Rienzie can attest to that because Monk has accidentally bitten her a number of times but she’s remained human. LOL.