WATCH: Lost Baby Goat Reunited With His Mother (Full Video)

A child knows its mother and baby goats are no exception! A video of an adorable kid reuniting with his family in the Philippines after one day apart is making viewers across the globe tear up. The family that rescued the animal named him Shawarma.

Ken Dominic Arceo shared the heartwarming clip, which shows the baby goat crying out and sprinting toward its mother after recognizing her, to Reddit on September 10. The video quickly gained more than 120,000 “up-votes” of approval and spread across social media. Retired professional basketball player Rex Chapman was among those who helped boost the video’s popularity by sharing it on Twitter with his nearly one million followers.

Arceo explained the backstory in a follow-up YouTube video. The video is embedded below and can also be seen here.

Here’s what you need to know:

Arceo & His Family Rescued the Baby Goat From a Pit

Shawarma D. Goat short storyThe short backstory of the video I’ve posted on http://www.reddit.com/r/aww as requested by some. This video is a series of short portrait clips I took with my phone and photo snaps with captions. Meet Shawarma, a lost kid we found trapped in a pit and reunited with his herd after 24 hours. Wasn’t as planned as the first video I’ll upload on my channel after years but I really wanted to share this with everyone hoping that it will inspire people to help the helpless unconditionally.2020-09-10T18:21:51Z

Arceo explained that his younger sister found the baby goat by accident. His sister was shouting and thought that another child was calling back to her as a type of game. But when she searched for the source of the screaming, she realized the sound wasn’t coming from a human. Arceo wrote in the YouTube description that they found the baby goat in a pit. The animal had fallen in and gotten stuck.

Arceo and his sister brought Shawarma back home for the night. In the video, another adult is heard laughing and asking why they had a goat in the house. Arceo’s mother suggests that he post about the baby goat on a village group chat in order to determine whether the animal belongs to anyone.

The baby goat wanders around the home and occasionally bleats. Arceo explains in the captions that he tried to feed Shawarma lettuce, but the goat didn’t care for it. He then tries to soothe the goat to sleep by petting it like a dog or a cat. Arceo said his next solution to reduce the animal’s stress was to cover Shawarma’s face with a light cloth.

Arceo Cuddled With the Baby Goat & Bottle-Fed Him to Stop the Animal From Crying

The baby goat was lonely throughout the night and needed constant attention, Arceo explained in comments on Reddit. He wrote on the thread, “I’ve googled that they are sensitive to cold, best I could give was body heat. I’ve also learned that they are social creatures so sleeping right beside him on the sofa solved the intense crying.”

Arceo further explained on the YouTube video that Shawarma kept nibbling on his shirt. Arceo wrote that he shifted the baby goat’s head in order to bottle-feed him. On the Reddit page, Arceo explained, “It’s sad that every time he cuddles me to sleep last night he tries to suck on my shirt so I have this dropper with milk to think he was actually breastfeeding.”

FacebookKen Dominic Arceo

Shawarma eventually went back to sleep but, as Arceo detailed on Facebook, goats are light sleepers. He said the baby goat woke up every couple of hours and if Arceo tried to move away at any moment, Shawarma would “cry very loudly.”

Viewers praised Arceo on Reddit for rescuing the baby goat and called him a hero. Arceo responded, “No no no, let’s call this act simple as being humans! We have the capacity to protect and care so we should, always!”

Arceo Said They Found the Wild Herd of Goats by Accident

We found a kid goat trapped in a pit yesterday. Took care of it overnight and decided to find the owner but to no avail. Instead, we found a group of goats with the same white fur on top of their heads so we tried to put him on the ground. Ninja chopping onions moment from aww

Arceo and his family assumed that Shawarma likely belonged to one of their neighbors. Arceo wrote in the captions on the YouTube video that the plan had been to search for the owner first thing in the morning. But their search was stalled until late in the afternoon due to stormy weather.

After more than an hour of searching, Arceo said he and his family “stumbled” across a herd of wild goats in the “empty part of the village” located about 10 minutes from home. He called the encounter “pure luck” in the Reddit comments and explained, “I think this herd wildly roams around since our village is like a quarter of the whole mountain. Wildlife is pretty abundant here.”

Arceo said he noticed the wild goats had white fur on the top of their heads, just like Shawarma, and instantly wondered whether this was the baby goat’s family. Arceo wrote on the YouTube video that he put Shawarma down and gave him a little push toward the herd. As the clip shows, the baby goat hesitated for a few moments and bleated a few times.

But once the goat recognized his mother, he took off toward her in a dead sprint, crying out the whole way. The mother goat excitedly stepped forward to greet her baby, leaning her head down to nuzzle his face. But Shawarma had more urgent concerns. The baby was clearly hungry because he quickly latched on to his mother and started feeding. Arceo wrote on Reddit that this moment “literally made me cry.”

The Arceo Family Often Takes in Animals

Ken Arceo listed Manila, the capital of the Philippines, as his hometown on Facebook. He graduated from San Beda University, a Catholic college, in 2018. Arceo wrote on his profile that he has been working at the business consulting firm PwC since October 2019.

Arceo’s family is accustomed to caring for animals. After rescuing the baby goat, Arceo shared photos of all of the animals he said were in the house at that time. The animal houseguests included an iguana, a local python, a gecko, a black-naped oriole bird and a number of bugs. The family also includes a small dog.