This is the moment a cute sable called Buddy plays ‘furry boomerang’ with his giggling young woman owner.

Russian animal lover Natalia Khorosheva, 39, told Newsflash: “Buddy was bought from a fur farm at the age of two months.

“We were supposed to send him for a reintroduction programme so he would be able to live in the forest freely, but Buddy didn’t pass the zoo psych test to be accepted for the programme due to his addiction and love for humans, so he stayed living with us.

“After one year living with Buddy, we decided to open Buddy’s channels on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram to spread the positive mood he brings to all our family.”

Buddy now boasts 1.3 million followers on TikTok and a total of 21.1 million likes as well as 108,000 fans on Instagram.

Sables (Martes zibellina) are a species of marten, a small omnivorous mammal primarily living in Russian forests as well as northern Mongolia, eastern Kazakhstan, China, North Korea and Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido.

Natalia said: “Buddy loves to play with the snow but he is scared to play outside in the park. He doesn’t feel safe there, so sometimes we even bring snow to our house for him to play with.

“He is very intelligent and is learning new things very fast. He knows how to do various tricks like a ‘handshake’, ‘roll over’, ‘show a big bear’, and even ‘give me five’ but he only does tricks when he wants to.

“His favourite game is ‘furry boomerang’ when he is leaping into our hands again and again, and the videos of him playing that game gathered over 20 million views.”

Natalia told Newsflash: “His diet is quite a complex seasonal diet, he eats up to 60 to 70 percent meat products (deer meat, chicken, turkey and rabbit) and 30 to 40 percent vegetables / berries / eggs / pine nuts from Siberia and cotton cheese.

“Now we use dry holistic dog food and have been adding blueberries cranberries, pine nuts, cotton cheese, eggs, etc.

“He has veterinary screening every three months to see if his diet is okay, and to make seasonal corrections for his diet.”

But she admitted it’s not an animal that she would recommend as a pet for most families.

She said: “He is a complicated animal to keep as they can be quite destructive, and sables can turn very aggressive as well if the owner does something wrong.

“They do not accept any physical punishment either, and they need to feel comfortable, which means having their own territory.”