Written by Amelia Blakeman.
My roommate Whitney works at a state park and she recently had a surprise in one of the maintenance sheds. While putting away the tools for the day, she heard a small crying sound and began looking around the shed, to her surprise she found a tiny little kitten sucking on a slice of moldy pizza. With no other signs of kittens or cat activity she scooped up the kitten and took it to the ranger station. Unfortunately, the next morning the kitten was still there and no one had a plan for its care. Whitney brought the tiny kitten home with her: lethargic, barely old enough to wean, and totally covered in fleas.
Because the kitten was too young to administer a store bought flea treatment, we bathed him in a lukewarm bath and carefully removed the fleas one by one with tweezers. It took a long time and the kitten was a real trooper through the whole process. Afterwards we dried him off, carefully fed him a liquid food blend off our finger tips and tucked him into bed. After a few feedings the kitten seemed to be making a dramatic recovery – wide eyed, playful, and so very curious!
We were falling in love with the little charmer but due to allergies and multiple dogs in our home already we were unable to keep the kitten. Luckily we were able to find some lovely new owners with previous kitten experience to adopt him. They seemed to bond right away and the little guy immediately snuggled up to his new family!
We were so smitten with our little visitor that it was hard to see him go, but in the end we know it was better for him and were happy to have been a part of making his life a little better.
Photos courtesy of ©Amelia Blakeman (flickr: Hello Amelia).