Three Little Kittens

Last October my neighbour and I, as part of our intentions to help set up a feral TNR colony, visited a couple of elderly ladies in the community, who we were aware fed feral cats.

One of the ladies was slightly annoyed with our presence and claimed she didn’t have that many cats. Contrary to her statement, we saw numerous cats gathering as she was on her way out to feed them, but one sight in particular broke our hearts.

Three very tiny kittens were sitting in the middle of the pan of food, struggling amongst all the larger cats to fight for the few crumbs that were left. Moving closer to the kittens we noticed that all of them had infections in their eyes which were completely crusted shut so they were maneuvering around by feel and smell and were literally starving to death. I knew these kittens were much too young to be eating solid food had there been a mother present and we saw no cat we could determine as the mother, so we asked if we could help them and the lady agreed.

We took the 3 kittens back to my neighbour’s where we bathed their eyes with warm sterile water and fed them. They were ravenous and greedily ate all the food we put down. These kittens were not more than 3 weeks old and we still have no idea what happened to the mother, although we suspect she may have been taken. Two of the kittens we named Blondie and Pipsy were small and weak, the third was slightly larger and healthier looking, however we were convinced it was blind in its right eye.

The next couple of weeks were a constant struggle with feeding, keeping their eyes cleaned, problems with diarrhea, and I could tell my neighbour was burning out, so we brought the 2 sickest ones to my place to give her a break. They were small and weak, and we knew the odds were not good. I purchased powdered formula for kittens and began a feeding schedule with an eye dropper. They continued to eat the solid food as well, but very little of it and the blond kitten suffered constant diarrhea at this point.

A couple of days into my caring for them early in the morning, Pipsy the striped kitten began to stagger and fall, rapidly becoming weaker. He went into massive seizuring and died fairly quickly as a result.

A couple of days later Blondie too succumbed to her weakness and most likely a respiratory infection, and she died some time in the night. I slept on the couch with her curled up beside me that night to keep her company as I knew she was going downhill fast. Some time during the night she crawled to the end of the couch under the covers and passed away.

It’s still hard for me to think about these poor little creatures that never had a chance and my only consolation is that they did not die cold and starving in a damp dark crawl space with no one caring for them.

The happy part of this story is that Patch, the kitten left at my neighbour’s, is doing very well in spite of her blind eye and has been accepted by all the other cats and particularly their dog Angel, who runs to care for her every little cough or sneeze.

Feral cats are the product of human neglect. This situation is not unique and kittens and cats suffer all over North America and the world as a result of this neglect. It’s up to us to fix it.

Until Next Sunday,

Love your pets, they’re the best friends you’ll ever have!

Gloria