This has been chronicled in the Happy Thread (well, it started in the Vent Thread) in Random Chatter, but it was suggested I make a thread here to document the cute, so here I am!
My neighbors got a cat last year - a kitten - and she quickly became an outdoor cat when mom realized she was allergic (I'm still not completely sure I believe her). I heard her meowing long before I ever saw her, and when she did wander into my yard, she had a collar and microchip tag, so I assumed (apparently wrongly) that they'd done all the necessary vetting (i.e. spaying). I was wrong. Almost two months ago, she strolled across my driveway looking like she swallowed a cantaloupe. I went into damage control mode - had a chat with the neighbors, who agreed she needed to be spayed (turns out this is her second litter at only about 14 months old
), loaned them a big crate with specific instructions to keep mama (and kittens when they arrived) locked in at all times for their safety, and got some towels for them from the greyhound adoption group where I volunteer. I got them a couple cans of cat food because mama was super skinny. I told them to check back with me if they had any questions or needed help with
anything.
Then I went home and emailed my friend - we met while volunteering at the shelter and when she retired, she moved to the country and opened a rescue. She's the kindest, nicest person I know. I asked her for advice on how to deal with a pregnant mama and the future kittens, and she offered to fund the spays/neuters and vetting and adopt them out once they were old enough - we only had to keep them confined in the crate till then.
The kittens arrived on September 26 - 4 of them!
I went over for a visit, made sure everyone looked good, and said I'd check back as time went on. I went over a couple days later when the neighbors weren't home (sneaky!
) and tried to examine all the kids. The crate door was open (contrary to my instructions, but I just figured maybe they forgot that morning, or thought they'd closed it and mama had pushed her way out) and mama was wandering around the yard. I picked up a kitten (who mewled at me) and tried to take a couple pictures, but mama very gently took the baby back to the crate.
A week later, the neighbor's son rang my doorbell at 10pm and asked if I'd seen his cat and her kittens - they’d been leaving the crate door open all the time and mama had moved the babies. I resisted the urge to yell at him and said I'd help him look for everyone in the morning.
I went out the next day when no one was home. I looked under their shed, under their deck, peered under their house - nothing. I didn't hear meows and mama sat in the middle of their yard, watching me. I every day and but had no luck. A week later, the neighbor rang the doorbell and said he heard the meowing under their house. I told him to let me know when he was going to go under and fish them out - I'd help. Another week passed without anything. In the meantime, I started feeding mama some good wet food - she was skin and bones and if she had any hope of keeping her kids alive, she needed food. Soon she was spending all her time at my house, rubbing up against me, purring like a machine...
Last Friday, I saw the neighbor and asked if he'd gotten the kittens out from under the house yet. He said that his parents decided the mama moved them there for a reason and they should just leave them be. I couldn’t press the issue at the time, but it’s all I thought about for a couple days.
On Sunday morning (October 26 - exactly one month after they were born) I woke up with one thought: "I have to get them out from under the house
today." I ate breakfast, cleaned up our sunroom, made room for the crate, and went over to talk to the neighbors. I suggested that the kid crawl under the house to retrieve the kittens, and he said "Okay, sure." I crouched next to a vent and listened for him, ready to grab a kitten if he had one. The mother came out of the house and looked at me funny so I told her what we were doing. She said "Oh, okay" and left to go shopping. The son said he found one and told me to meet him at the door. I sat outside their crawlspace entrance and waited, watching the light from the flashlight get dimmer as he got deeper in. I waited and waited. Finally the light started to get brighter and brighter until the neighbor rounded the corner with a fuzzy grey kitten clutched in his hand. He handed her to me and went back to see if he could get another.
I took one look at the little one in my hands and my heart broke.
I tucked her into my jacket to keep her warm and emailed my friend. I told her that the kitten would definitely need vet care. The neighbor crawled out empty handed a few minutes later - he almost had one but it slipped under a vent, and he didn't see any others. I asked him to keep trying throughout the day (he didn't) and called my dad to help us move the crate from their house to ours.
We got kitten and mama all settled in and I cleaned the baby's face with a warm washcloth. Mama and baby roamed around the sunroom for a while before I let mama out to go take care of her other kitten.
I rushed out, bought some kitten milk replacer, and picked up a free cardboard box from Total Wine. The kitten (who I guessed to be a girl based on my limited knowledge of the back end of a cat) and I spent the rest of the day side by side. When she was hungry, I mixed up some milk and fed her. When she was sleepy, I cocooned her in a fleece blanket and kept her on my lap. Since mama was busy with the other kitten, the baby spent the night in her box in my room and she didn't make a peep all night.
Come Monday morning, my friend set up a vet visit for us at 11. I dubbed her Carter (after Samantha Carter of Stargate) and she came to work with me until her appointment. The vet checked her out and said she was definitely a girl, had a URI, ulcers on both eyes, and kitty herpes. The vet insisted on a more feminine name, so we went with Sam. We were loaded up with meds and a trap for the remaining kitten and we headed out. I went home to settle Sam into the crate with mama and see if I could get the other baby out of the neighbor's crawlspace. I suited up and went in, but couldn't find anyone. After inhaling too much dust, tangling myself up in a cable, banging into their vents, and bruising my knees, I gave up, set the trap, and hoped for the best. Mama stayed in the sunroom with me and Sam and didn't seem at all interested in going back out.
I forced her out later, hoping she'd lead me to the other kitten. She didn't. She showed no interest at all in going back over to the neighbor's house, instead only trying to get back in my sunroom. I checked the trap one last time for the night and (after many hours agonizing over my options) made the difficult decision to keep mom in with Sam and hope the other kitty got hungry enough to check out the stinky wet food in the trap.
Tuesday morning, I fed mama and gave Sam her meds before checking the trap. I wasn't hopeful. It's getting chilly here at night and I didn't see how a little kitten could survive without a mom for that long. I walked around the neighbor's house as quickly as I could and prepared myself for an empty trap. Ten feet away from the entrance to the crawlspace, I heard a pathetic little mew. I stopped and listened. I heard it again. I ripped the door away from the wall (it wasn't attached, just leaning! I'm not the Hulk) and there he was - a fluffy little kitten with clear eyes and no mud anywhere on him. We rushed back over to my house, I gave him a quick once-over to be sure there wasn't anything wrong, and put him in with mama. He started nursing immediately. Sam snuggled right up to her brother (who I named Mitchell after Cameron Mitchell from Stargate but then renamed Dean because Mitchell was too much of a mouthful).
I reset the trap just in case anyone else was under there, but came up empty. Out of the four, only two made it, which breaks my heart, but at least we got these two and they're getting healthy and loved. I have a ton of pictures, but here are just a few for now:
At the vet, sulking after the thermometer:
Dean! He always looks a bit surprised and/or worried:
And he has
such neat fur coloring.
Snuggling in my lap on Tuesday - I think she was happy to have her brother:
I love Sam (she stayed like this for half an hour):
Happy Halloween!
