a tiny rescue

Tuesday we headed to Ocala to go to lunch. At an intersection we saw a woman holding a cardboard sign, asking for money. She was very dazed-looking, not quite all there, and wearing jeans and a sports bra. But in her bra she had tucked a tiny kitten. It's head and front paws were wedged above the bra and its body and hind legs were dangling below. Its head was lolling sideways and we weren't sure it was still alive. It was at least 95 out in the sun, where the kitten was, and he was squashed against her.  The light changed as we came up so we couldn't stop but we just could not stand it - we found a place to turn around and go back. I got out and offered to buy the kitten, which I was glad to see could still move it's head a bit. She wanted to check with her guy, who was sitting in the shade under the overpass. He would let me have the kitten for $20. Sold. 

It was a beautiful little kitty, probably about 5 weeks old. Once he was in the air conditioning, he lay down and went to sleep so hard that I kept checking to see if he was still breathing. This was the sleep of pure exhaustion. 

We didn't have any paraphernalia for cats so we drove to Walmart and Randy went in to get kitten food, litter, and a box. Dear Randy, he had to make a run through a really hard driving rain, but I think he'd do anything for this baby.

The first thing we did when we got home was get that baby some food! Randy had bought some wet kitten food to start with. Kitty was very, very happy with that!

Aterwards we let him rest a bit, then decided to give hime a bath. He smelled bad, mostly of that woman's sweat. He put up with it pretty well. 

After he was clean we introduced him to Shorty. Shorty was interested to take a sniff, but then he did his "I'm not going to pay attention to this" trick of simply turning his head away and not looking at it. Oh well, that's better than being upset!

He is such a beautiful kitten! Obviously he's part Siamese; I hope he keeps those amazing blue eyes. And the pads of his feet are coal black!

We set him between us to watch TV, and he seemed to enjoy that.

After a bit he got restless and walked onto my lap, where he took a long, long pee! We were able to keep it from getting on the couch so no problem. He had not used the litter box before, but this seemed to fix that because afterwards he would use the litter box for both jobs; I think he was just too dehydrated before. 

We thought and prayed and wished and eventually knew we could not keep him. Shorty's medical issues mean we have to keep him away from other pets, and it wasn't fair to keep kitty behind the bathroom door. He deserved better. Our friends at the Animal Shelter assured us that with his good looks he will be scooped up in no time, and they want to send him to a foster home to get socialized while looking for his forever home.  Bye bye, sweetie - may you have a long and wonderful life!