A Colorado cat named Tofu has become an internet sensation after receiving a gold tooth to replace a broken fang. The incident, captured in a now-viral TikTok video by her owner Clarrisse Bosman, has amassed over 10.9 million views and more than 1.8 million likes.
Bosman, 22, shared that the mishap occurred in December 2024 while she was out of state. Her fiancé, who was watching the cat at the time, noticed that Tofu had cracked a front tooth in half. The cause was later traced to a balsa wood music box the cat had been chewing.
This wasn’t Tofu’s first chewing-related injury. She had previously visited the vet for biting a musical reed. After the latest incident, a veterinary dental specialist gave Bosman two options: extraction or a root canal with a hypoallergenic gold-alloy crown.
Bosman opted for the crown, given Tofu’s young age and active lifestyle. “We wanted to maintain her ability to eat properly and stay safe during her supervised outdoor walks,” she said. The decision led to her cat getting a gold tooth treatment typically reserved for humans.
Most of the $5,000 cost did not come from the gold itself, but from associated veterinary procedures including X-rays, anesthesia, a root canal, cleaning, and medications. The crown is made from an alloy of gold, silver, palladium, and other metals designed to prevent allergic reactions.
Tofu was adopted from Foothills Animal Shelter in Golden, Colorado, nearly two years ago. She had been a stray before catching the couple’s attention during a shelter visit.
The story of how a cat got a gold tooth has drawn both admiration and amusement on social media. One user commented, “Was it necessary? No. Was it a nice thing to do for the comfort of her cat? Absolutely.”
Veterinarians and pet behavior experts recommend discouraging chewing on unsafe objects by providing appropriate toys and using deterrent sprays on household items.
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