Irene's Weblog

Yesterday, on the way to work Paul and I found a little kitten sitting outside the Freshman Academy.  At first, we thought it was just chilling out by the front door to get out of the vicious winds.  It was also quite cold.  Once Paul got out of the car, the kitten started meowing and tried to get up and walk towards Paul.  I realized that it wasn’t a normal meow.  It was a, “I’m in severe pain” kind of mewing.

The kitten walked towards Paul, favoring one leg, and limping.  When he picked up the kitten, we noticed that all four paws were bloody, he was shaking and shivering, and was malnourished.  The kitten didn’t have any tags on it, so we thought the best thing to do would be to take it to the police department.  There is no ASPCA here, only the Humane Society, which isn’t open at 7am.  Unfortunately, the police department wasn’t open either.  Yeah, that’s what happens when you move to the boondocks.  Everything closes.

So, I took the kitten to work and gave it a pint of milk from the kitchen, which he feverously lapped up.  Since I have breakfast duty every morning at school, I took the kitten to my classroom and used the teacher’s mesh/wired bookcase and a little cage to keep the kitten from running away.  He really couldn’t run too far anyway, on account of his bloody paws.

After breakfast, I took him to the police department and they made a report and then took the cat to the Humane Society.  After work, Paul and I headed out to check on the kitten’s status.  We were mostly concerned that they might put the poor thing out of its misery, in which case, we decided we would take it.

The lady at the Humane Society informed us that, by law, they had to keep the kitten for three business days before they could make any decisions.  We also found out the kitten is about four months old, a male, and that he was in isolation.  They gave him a little bit of food and some water, however, the kitten wouldn’t let anyone touch his feet, so they just put him in isolation to recover a bit.  They also gave him some antibiotics and will attempt to start repairing his paws on Monday.

Because the people at the Humane Society couldn’t get near his paws, they are unsure of his pads were burned completely off or torn off.  They also aren’t sure if he’ll need surgery or antibiotics to repair the pads.  They just wanted to get the little guy comfortable for now before they started poking around on his feet.

So, the kitten is resting comfortably, for now, with the Humane Society.  We might just be getting a kitten at the end of next week.  It’s unlikely that anyone will claim him.  He didn’t have a collar and wasn’t treated very well, so we suspect no one is missing him.  For such a docile little kitty, I don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt it.

We’ll know more, next week, when the Humane Society let’s us know how the little guy’s getting along.