The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "A woman entered the Fire because of a cat she had tied up. She neither fed it nor released it to eat from the creatures of the earth, until it died of starvation."Zuhri commented, "This was mentioned so that no one becomes complacent, nor despairs."
عن رسول الله ﷺ قال: دخلت امرأة النار في هرة ربطتها فلا هي أطعمتها، ولا هي أرسلتها تأكل من خشاش الأرض حتى ماتت هزلا. قال الزهري: ذلك لئلا يتكل رجل، ولا ييأس رجل.
Muslim narrated it in the Book of Repentance (2619) through several routes from Abdul-Razzaq, who said, Mamar told us, saying, Zuhri said to me, "Shall I not tell you two remarkable hadiths?" He said, Humayd bin Abdul-Rahman told me, from Abu Hurairah, from the Prophet ﷺ, and he mentioned it.I say, what is mentioned here is the second story. As for the first, it is about a man who had transgressed excessively against himself and instructed his family to burn him and cast him into the sea, out of fear of Allah's punishment, and Allah forgave him.