This boy’s best friend is a cat!
Home security video shows how a Bakersfield, Calif., boy was rescued from a vicious dog by the family’s brave feline on Tuesday.
Jeremy Triantafilo, 4, was pedaling his bike when, out of nowhere, a dog sneaked up from behind, bit him and pulled the little guy off his wheels, according to video aired on KBAK-TV.
As the labrador-chow mix began to drag Jeremy, Tara the cat raced into the picture and threw her little body into the dog, forcing the pooch off the boy.
Tara then chased the dog – an 8-month-old named Scrappy – away as mom Erica Triantafilo came to the boy’s side.
“A mean dog hurt me. He tried to bite me,” little Jeremy told the Bakersfield Californian. “The cat saved me. My kitty’s a hero.”
Mom Erica Triantafilo said Tara’s inner-lion jumped into action when she saw her human cub in danger.
“My cat, I have no idea where she was prior, honestly through the heat of it, I have no idea where she went after. Full lion safari moment,” the mom said of her prized gray tabby and former stray.
Tara’s not just brave, but she’s amazingly patient and forgiving – having to share her home with Jeremy and 2-year-old twin boys, Carson and Connor.
“My kids are absolutely awful to her,” Erica Triantafilo said. “They tug on her tail, they pull on her ears, they try to lift her up and carry her around — which obviously doesn’t work for a 2-year-old quite as well.”
She added: “I think they’ve sat on her, they’ve jumped on her and she just looks at them with that annoyed cat look that all cats have and … takes it. She really is the most amazing cat.”
Jeremy needed 10 stitches but he’ll be OK.
Scrappy belongs to a neighbor, and he was “voluntarily surrendered” to the city pound, police said.
After a 10-day quarantine to determine if he’s rabid, the pooch will be put down.
“It’s un-adoptable,” Bakersfield police Sgt. Joe Grubbs told The Post. “We’re [the city] in a liability issue here. If we adopt it out and it bites someone again, then that’s on us.”
The remarkable sequence of events was captured by several of the house’s eight security cameras, which were installed after a rash of neighborhood auto thefts and backyard trespassing incidents.