The story of how Hercules the cat became a model for Target seems pulled from a Hollywood story, but it’s all true. And it started in the least glamorous way.
Hercules, now 10 years old, was living in an SUV in the summer of 2022 with nearly 50 other cats when his beleaguered human owner agreed to give them all up. The man’s life had come apart and he could no longer care for himself, much less his animals.
But when the Animal Humane Society was called in to help rescue the cats, Hercules slipped away. When he was finally found weeks later, emaciated and with wounds on his body festering with maggots, he was nearly too sick to be saved, said Jill LeBrun, a St. Paul pediatric nurse who eventually adopted him.
“They decided to give him a chance even though it seemed precarious,” LeBrun said of the foster and adoption nonprofit Tuff Start Rescue and the St. Francis Veterinary Clinic, both in Isanti, Minn.
The veterinarian who saved Hercules, Dr. Nicole Perreault, has said in media reports that when she first saw Hercules his jaw was broken and his tongue so damaged that it hung out, giving him a curious look. She had called Hercules’ original owner, who had raised him since he was a kitten, to confirm the cat’s identity.
But Hercules responded well to treatment and eventually was put up for fostering by Tuff Start. LeBrun, who already had two cats, saw the posting and thought she would foster Hercules while waiting for someone else to adopt him. That changed when she got to know his “amazing personality,” she said.
“He’s super laid back; he just finds a way to get along with everyone,” she said. When people stop by her house, Hercules goes to the door to greet them “like a dog,” said LeBrun, laughing. “Everybody loves him.”
One of her two cats died unexpectedly soon after Hercules came into her life, LeBrun said, which cemented her decision to adopt him. Today he runs the house along with her other cat, Kay, and a newish dog, Juni.
