Mike was planning on adopting a kitten after they learned from a friend that a litter of kittens were looking for homes. The cat mother was not tending to her kittens to the point that they were mostly fed by bottle. "It was a little worrying but I guess we just had to trust the guys to look after them. Once we had seen them we knew very quickly we wanted two and Rufus (grey tabby with white in) and Martha (gold tabby) stood out as a pair and apparently had been spending most of their time together. Rufus stood out as the strongest of the litter and Martha was lagging behind her siblings being much smaller."

"A week later I had planned to take a blanket round so that when we moved them there would be something familiar but then we got a phone call to say two kittens had passed away." The people that were caring for the kittens were worried for the others. "They suggested we could take them now, totally unprepared being three weeks earlier than planned, we dashed round to the pet store before it closed and went to pick them up. It was very emotional and the chap who was rearing them was balling his eyes out seeing them leave."

"Rufus was onto the food and water straight away but we struggled to find the right food and milk for Martha and it took two trips to the vet for dehydration, antibiotic and worming treatments before going back to rearing with a syringe and Cimicat several times a day. Luckily I could make it home on my lunch break for a feed so they were never going more than a few hours without. They are nine weeks tomorrow and have more than trippled in weight and we can hardly keep up with them running around the whole house now! They are so full of life and seem happy here, the heartache has turned to joy."

"Rufus and Martha will be spayed and neutered! We have sought our local vets advice on the matter and Rufus is growing faster so they've asked us to take him in again when he's 4 months as he may be ready as soon as that."

Photos courtesy of ©Mike Plunkett (Mike's flickr, Mike's Photography site).