The Winchester Sun: Winchester, KY

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A kitten’s life worth saving
By Jean Brody
March 9, 2010

I am sure you all remember when my daughter Katy called me and said, “Help, I need you,” and when I reached her house, there she stood, holding a tiny, dying, two-week-old black and white kitten in her hands. Someone rescued him, gave him to Katy and now, we would try desperately to save his life.

In hindsight, I now question whether we even should try to step in and alter fate like this because, as I took the tiny, skin and bones body into my hands, he was only minutes away from simply struggling for his last breath.

Is this playing God to step in this way? Maybe it is. But, at that moment, nothing seemed as important to me than doing everything possible to save him.

He was obviously starving so it semed like we needed to force liquids into his mouth. We did this with a syringe filled with warm, diluted milk. Katy held him and I shoved the syringe into the side of his mouth, ejecting its contents, little by little, into him. We did this every half hour and pretty soon he seemed to be a mite stronger so I added a bit of soft baby food to the mix. He couldn’t even hold his little head up, so we did that as well.

We were amazed at his tolerance for the milk and food and I believe his own determination spurred us on to help him. But he needed much more than food and drink. I began to go back to my experience with animals — wild and domestic — and I recalled something Joy Adamson (who raised and wrote about Elsa the Lioness) told me about imprinting. She once was my houseguest and while she was there, our Siamese mama cat had babies. All but one did well. There was one, far smaller and weaker than the others and the mama sort of pushed her aside. Joy realized this and decided to step in.

She always wore a smock which had big pockets in it. She scooped that fragile little Siamese baby and put her in one of the pockets. There she stayed except when Joy took her out to feed her with a tiny bottle and then made her eliminate afterward. Then back she went, deep into the soft, warm folds of the pocket. Joy explained to me that the rocking motion of her body as she went through her days and nights would sustain this baby she had named Little Elsa.

As she grew a bit, Joy would wrap the tiny body around her neck, placing her little head right in the neck next to her ear. “And this, Jean, is life-saving imprinting.”

Little Elsa transferred from Joy’s body to mine after her two week visit with us and I continued this routine until she was strong enough to join the rest of the litter. We had Little Elsa with us for 10 years and she, more than any of our cats over the years, was more closely attached to me and remained a very special but fragile member of our family.

And THIS is what I recalled as we fought to save the life of this oddly-shaped kitten with abnormally long hind legs and feet, six toes on each paw, only six teeth to his name, a way too fat nose and no chin beneath it. When he gets excited he has a sneezing fit and after he eats his extra soft food, he climbs into your lap and just openly stares at you as if to say, “Thank you.”

He has been at Katy’s house all these months because Gene and I have had a very rough winter, physically speaking. But now, after he is neutered on Thursday and recovers, he will finally come home to live with us on the hill. I will also bring another rescue kitten here because she is Pierre’s best buddy. Her name is Bella. He still wraps his long, lanky body around my neck and purrs himself to sleep, exactly as we had done since the beginning of his life.

So, did we play God last summer? Perhaps we did but, you know, I deeply believe in the sacredness of all life. We all are children of God, are we not? Any time you want to stop by the house on the hill and meet Pierre and Bella, you will be welcome. Pierre just might wrap his warm body around your neck to make you feel loved and appreciated.

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