And Then There Were Nine...

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." - Emma Lazarus, Statue of Liberty, Mittens the Cat

So my last post about the Orange Kitten was just the beginning of what becomes a story of strife, rejection, consternation, and adoption.  Read on. 

It was last Monday night and a teacher-friend’s daughter had just returned to her car from night classes at the local junior college.  What should she find, but a box of four kittens on the hood of her car!   Kittens that were too young to not have a mother.  Kittens that were about a week or so old.  Kittens who were dumped by doofuses who should be sterilized and never allowed to reproduce. 

Teacher-friend’s daughter has a good heart and takes the kittens home, even though she could have just set the box on the next car’s hood.  Teacher-friend has another teacher-friend who has had success in hand-raising kittens, so they pawn…  I mean, leave the kittens… in her care.  Teacher-friend’s teacher-friend feeds the four kittens for three days with a bottle until I catch wind of the story. 

“I have a lactating cat!” I announce.

And so it was arranged that the other teacher-friend would deliver the kittens to me, just moments before an impending field trip to the zoo with my oldest son, so that I could pawn…  I mean, leave the kittens… in the care of Mittens, our new mother cat. 

“This is her first set of kittens,” I told them.  “She doesn’t know that four more don’t usually show up a week later.”

I had the kids pet the kittens profusely on the way from the school to my house.  That way they would at least smell like us.  Their eyes were matted and their fur a bit unkempt, but maybe Mittens wouldn’t suspect they were dumped. 

We plopped the four new kittens in the box with the five existing kittens and left for the zoo.

Hours later we returned to find Mittens happily snuggling with all NINE baby kittens.  Apparently she has a heart for adoption.  She’d considerably cleaned up the kittens as well and everyone appeared happy and satisfied about the situation as evidenced by a pile of sleeping kittens.

And the story would end there with “and they all lived happily ever after”, except for this one kitten.  He’s bigger than all the others.  I’ve named him Bubba due to head size and have been fascinated with his behavior.  He swats and plays and gets the other kittens in headlocks.  His ears stand up.  He’s getting teeth and he administers the bunny-kick to all his unsuspecting siblings.  Everyone else lays there like a slug.  No teeth.  Folded ears.  Thinking “WHYYYYYY?????” when he grabs the in a choke hold. 

  

So, not only did the doofuses dump the kittens, they didn’t even keep the litter together.  Here’s three from one litter and a bonus kitten!  Two mama cats without babies now, somewhere out there.

Thankfully, through the magic of Facebook and a few mushy photographs, most of the kittens are already spoken for.  I still have a couple that I may end up giving away as parting gifts at Bunco, or perhaps as an end-of-season prize for soccer, but if there is anything to be learned from this, it is this:

1. God gives animals a heart for the innocent, wayward, and helpless, so surely that is a part of himself he has instilled in us as well. 
2. We would all do well to heed the advice of Bob Barker and “have your pets spayed or neutered”.

And maybe our doofuses too!