Tiny monkey Yuji won’t let go of his toy dog after his mum rejected him

Meet Yuji, the baby monkey that has already stolen your heart.

The six-week old patas monkey wakes up every day clinging to a stuffed dog after his own mother rejected him in Guadalajara Zoo, in Mexico.

The bond with his new best friend, who also acts as a surrogate mum, has captured the globe’s attention after drawing parallels to Punch , the Japanese macaque that was being bullied by his clan and sought refuge with a stuffed orangutan.

Yuji, weighing just 1.4 pounds, is too small to be introduced to other monkeys so lives inside a monkey crate where he is under round-the-clock care of 12 vets.

No date has been set for Yuji’s transfer to a habitat shared by 12 other adult patas monkeys and three other infants.

That will depend on when he is weaned from a milk-only diet and starts an adult diet complete with fruits and vegetables, said veterinarian Iván Reynoso Ruiz, head of the primate section at the Guadalajara Zoo.

That could happen when Yuji is around 6 months old, he said.

Yuji rejected

Just hours after giving birth on March 3 Yuji’s mother Kamaria began exhibiting irregular behavior. She struggled to hold her firstborn correctly, leaving the infant unable to secure a grip on its mother.

After noticing a problem, keepers separated the mother from her newborn, who weighed just 443 grams (less than a pound) and required immediate placement in an incubator at CIMBA to stabilize his temperature and safeguard his health, Reynoso Ruiz said.

This was the start of the infant’s assisted rearing, a process often used by zoos to protect the health and development of at-risk offspring. A caregiver named him Yuji after a popular Japanese manga character.

During his first few weeks, Yuji was under round-the-clock supervision and was bottle-fed fortified milk.

From the start, Yuji was given a stuffed animal for comfort. Reynoso Ruiz explained that the toy fulfills the role of a mother by serving as his primary source of security. To maintain hygiene, staff rotate the original stuffed dog with two other toys — a bear and a monkey — to ensure he always has a clean companion.

To stimulate his development, caregivers outfitted Yuji’s crate with a small hammock and ropes. As he began gaining weight and sleeping for longer intervals, his team adjusted his feeding schedule. Yuji now receives the first of his four daily bottles at 7:00 a.m.

While the stories of Punch and Yuji have been popular on social media, some animal rights advocates oppose the practice of assisted rearing.

Diana Valencia, an animal rights activist, argues that there is no substitute for a natural habitat, and that animals ‘have the right to be born, grow, develop, and die where they belong.’