"If it's always once upon a time in New York City, why does nightfall find you feeling so alone?"
A character will be walking along the street when, suddenly, they see a cardboard box on the side of the road. Inside said box is inevitably an abandoned Cute Kitten or Precious Puppy, left by an irresponsible pet owner, just begging to be taken home. For some reason, they never seem to leave the box even if the cats, especially, could jump out easily.
A kind passerby will fawn over or otherwise react with sympathy for the abandoned animals and may even adopt them; more callous characters will ignore them or mistreat them outright. The animals themselves may or may not get adopted; luckier ones find their forever homes on the sidewalk while less fortunate puppies and kittens may often have to go through further hardships before finding their happy endings.
In Real Life, if you have a pet that you can't take care of, or your situation has changed and you can no longer take care of your pet, don't just leave it in a box; surrender it to a shelter. They'll help the pet find a good, loving home, and care for it in the meantime. If you got your pet from a licensed, ethical breeder, then they will most likely have a take-back policy in which they'll take in and care for the animal while finding it a new home. (Also, unless you're a licensed breeder, spay and neuter your pets, so you won't have an entire litter of puppies or kittens you need to decide what to do with.)
A popular method of introducing a Loyal Animal Companion, or A Pet into the Wild if the poor animal doesn't get adopted right away. Sister trope to From Stray to Pet and Doorstop Baby.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- In The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You, this is how 25th girlfriend Tama Nekonari is introduced. Being a former Office Lady who couldn't handle the stresses of Japanese work culture and wished for the easygoing life of a housecat, she dressed up as a Cat Girl and sat in a box on the sidewalk, waiting for somebody to 'adopt' her.
- Blend-S: This is how Maika finds Owner, the Team Pet of Cafe Stile. Of course, she fears this was due to his scary expression, leading to her fearing the same thing happened to her (no, it didn’t).
- In the first volume of Crayon Shin-chan, this is how Shin-chan meet his pet puppy, Shiro, abandoned in a box. A later volume published several years after would reveal that Shiro was one of a litter of several puppies, abandoned by it's owner due to the ex-owner's father suddenly developing a fatal allergy to dogs. There's a rather bittersweet moment showing Shiro's ex-owner watching Shin-chan adopt Shiro from behind a lamp post and silently bidding Shiro a farewell.
- In Doctor Slump, the "Who's the Strongest in the World?" tournament arc uses this to enforce Arale's involvement in said tournament. Early on in the arc, Arale finds two kittens along the roadside and wants to take them in, but Senbei, who absolutely hates cats, refuses to allow them in the house, so she takes them to Obotchaman for him to care for them. Upon Obotchaman telling Arale that he doesn't yet have the spare money to buy cat food for them, Arale, remembering the tournament that's seeking participants at the time and that the first-place winner would be granted $4,000, decides to enter it to allow them to buy the cat food for the kittens. She eventually does manage to win the tournament, albeit with Obotchaman's help without anyone else knowing or finding out, and so the kittens are fully adopted into Obotchaman's household for the remainder of the series' run, Demoted to Extra though they are.
- In one episode of Doraemon, Doraemon helps Nobita secretly care for a box of puppies/kittens. After some time travel and thought process acceleration, the two returned to find that the dogs and cats became humanoid, gained the ability to talk, and built a sophisticated civilization with advanced technology. Apparently, the now-humanoid dogs and cats have decided to leave the Earth to another planet because they've predicted that the Earth will be facing a world-wide disaster. This short later gains an Adaptation Expansion into a full-length movie, Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey.
- Played for Laughs in Food Wars! after Erina runs away from home with the help of Alice, Ryou and Hisako. While they're busy arguing as to where she's supposed to go, at one point Hisako protests that Erina isn't a stray cat, making Erina have an Imagine Spot of herself as a cat (still with her long hair) inside a box.
- The Gods Lie: Natsuru finds a kitten in a box by a river. He's unable to keep it at his home because of his mother's allergies, which are so bad that she has a sneezing fit just from the cat hair on his clothes. When his mom makes him brush himself off outside, he sees his enigmatic classmate Rio Suzumura walking with her brother. Natsuru offers to give the cat to them, kicking off the main plot.
- In the very first episode of Inuyashiki, Ichiro finds a Shiba Inu dog in a cardboard by the road and decides to take her in, despite the reluctance of his family, naming her Hanako. And later that same episode, Hanako will find herself to be the only witness to Ichiro and Shishigami's fatal accident with the UFO and their reconstruction as robots. This only happens in the anime, while in the manga he takes Hanako in after buying her from a doghouse.
- In episode 12a of Jewelpet: Magical Change, Airi tells Labra she understands her feelings about wanting a pet all too well and brings up how she and her friends once found a cat left alone in a box. Labra misunderstands this as "pets can be found in all cardboard boxes" and goes to find a box, leading to her adopting a banana as a pet.
- In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, Kenichi and Miu come across Kisara, who is standing in front of a box with a kitten in it. When she kicks the box into the alley, Miu decides to kill her, only to be surprised that Kisara actually was feeding the kitten, and lamenting that she couldn't take it home with her. This leads to the two becoming friends over their shared love for cats.
- In one chapter of Kimi ni Todoke, Sawako and Kazehaya find an abandoned puppy by a river.
- In Magical Girl Site, Aya befriends a stray kitten who was abandoned in a box. She gives it a collar and food, but she's unable to take it home. Her bullies find out about the cat and kill it just to spite her.
- Massugu ni Ikou: In episode 4, Mametarou and Hanako come across a puppy in a box. They end up acting as Parental Substitutes until it is taken home by a girl.
- Played for Laughs in the first episode of the Animated Adaptation of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!. During the meeting inside Catarina's mind after Keith is introduced, one of the Catarina personas briefly suggests Catarina should subject Keith to this so that he would have nothing to do with the Claes. Eventually, however, they decided that, owing to his backstory, her doom flags with Keith can simply be averted by her being nice to him.
- My Roommate is a Cat: Haru and her four brothers were originally left in a cardboard box, and had to fend for themselves out on the streets.
- Sakamoto from Nichijou. Nano has no choice but to leave him behind when she first finds the cat in a box, only to find him again at home courtesy of the professor.
- Kicks off the plot of Nukoduke. In the first chapter, Yuuya found Kei and Sasame abandoned in a box on the street, and decided to adopt them.
- In Episode 7 of Oh, Suddenly Egyptian God, the god Medjed finds an abandoned kitten in a box on the corner of the street while he's doing his daily walk. He ends up taking the kitten home with him.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- In the "Go West Young Meowth" episode, it's shown that Meowth was abandoned as a kitten in a nest. He grew up on the streets with no parents, gang, or trainer.
- Plus, a Bulbasaur was abandoned by its trainer, and left in a box in the river.
- At the end of the second story arc of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Sakuta & Mai find a kitten abandoned in a box while walking home. Sakuta ends up taking it back to his apartment, as he and his sister Kaede already own a cat.
- Shuji sees a box of kittens on a sidewalk in Saikano, which aren't there anymore when he returns in the hope of getting help. Unfortunately, since this is Saikano, they had died.
Comic Books
- This is the backstory for a Dex-Starr/Dexter, a cat that joins the Red Lanterns in Green Lantern. Dexter & his siblings are shown in a box labelled "FREE" on the day of Dexter's adoption. When his adopted owner is killed in a home invasion, Dexter is thrown into the street and nearly drowned by two thugs who throw him into the river - at which point he is recruited into the Red Lanterns and becomes Dex-Starr.
Fan Works
- In In Sickness
Harry finds a kitten in a soggy cardboard box in an alley.
- In My Huntsman Academia, Izuku finds a puppy stuck in a box alone while hanging out in Vale. He takes it to the pet store and the vet, upon which he learns that it's a girl. He then takes her home to his dorm, upon which Team MNVW instantly falls in love with her. He ends up surrendering the puppy, now christened "Lulu-Bell, Lord of Thunder", to the shelter because he isn't sure if they'll have time to take care of her, but later returns to formally adopt her.
- My Little Dashie: A man finds a filly Rainbow Dash and takes her home.
- This trope is what kicks off the plot in the Homestuck fanfiction Unwanted Free Ugly Troll: in an AU where trolls are kept as pets, Dave finds Karkat abandoned in a cardboard box and ends up adopting him.
Films — Animated
- In Balto II: Wolf Quest, Balto and Jenna's puppies are given away in a box. One of them (Aleu) however doesn't get adopted because her looks betray her wolf-dog heritage.
- Subverted in Kung Fu Panda 2 where Po is found in an empty radish box, but only because he's eaten everything in it. Of course he's not a pet in this case.
- Inverted in Mr. Peabody & Sherman; the canine Peabody found the human Sherman as a baby inside a cardboard box in an alley.
- Oliver & Company opens with a box full of kittens being sold on a Manhattan sidewalk. All the kittens are sold except for one - our hero, Oliver - who is callously left in the box on the rain.
- In Rio, Blu the macaw was discovered by Linda in a box on the side of the road.
- In The Secret Life of Pets, this is how the protagonist is found by his owner.
Films — Live-Action
- Hellboy (2004): During the subway fight, there is a box of kittens that Hellboy takes time to protect from his demon opponent.
- This is Riley's backstory in Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco. The boy he was bought as a present for didn't want him, so the parents left Riley in the gutter. Unlike many examples, Riley is not adopted by a kind passerby; he becomes a street dog with a deep distrust of humans.
- In Racing Stripes, Stripes is accidentally left behind by the circus in a box.
Literature
- In the first book of the All American Pups series, New Pup on the Block, the others meet Rosie when her box is tossed out of a moving car.
- Sphynx the cat from A Certain Magical Index was left in a box◊ and adopted by Index.
- Played for Laughs in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU. A little kitty is left in a box to get Saki Kawasaki's attention, but failed. Instead, Yukino Yukinoshita drops her coldness to stay in front of the box meowing with the kitty.
Music
- In the video for BIGMAMA's "Crystal Clear," the main character finds her cat this way; she and the cat eventually grow so close that she researches new methods of space travel to break into another plane of existence to meet with the cat in the afterlife.
Video Games
- The children's mobile game Little Kitten - My Favourite Cat is about a kitten that was found abandoned in a box. The gameplay revolves around petting and playing with the kitty (called Crumbs) in an interactive house.
- In Raid on Taihoku, Kiyoko first found her pet puppy, Kuro, in an open cardboard box left in the rain, which she then decides to adopt.
Webcomics
- In Milk And Mocha, Matcha made his debut this way, abandoned by his owner for reasons unknown while they cycled off. Fortunately, the title bears found his box and - after a slight hiccup in which he bit Milk, causing the duo to leave temporarily - eventually adopted him, where he's happily remained their pet.
- In a Penny Arcade strip, Tycho confesses the heinous act of flipping off a box of kittens.
Western Animation
- In We Bare Bears, when the bears are still cubs, they try to find a family by sitting in a cardboard box with "Free Bears" written on it.
- In the spin-off series We Baby Bears, the bears live in that same cardboard box. In the first episode that box gains magical powers and becomes able to travel to far off worlds.
