Doing the right thing
I was cycling to my mother yesterday, taking a road through a small park next to the highway around Antwerp when I see a small black furry thing bouncing towards me. I look more closely and it turns out to be a kitten, running alone. Surprised, I stop. Some old people are cycling along the path in the same direction as the kitten and I wonder briefly whether they are the owners, but they pass me and the kitten can't keep up with them. Clearly they are not together.
I get off my bike and crouch down, the kitten turns and walks towards me a few steps. Carefully I close in until I get in petting range and after it has sniffed me a bit, I pick it up. It wriggles a bit, but seems otherwise content to be held.
At this point I notice a jogger so I approach her and ask if it's her kitten. She says no, and both of us think that, given the time (first week of school holidays) the location (small park next to highway) and the shape of the kitten (slightly malnourished), this kitten was abandoned there.
Considering all this, I decided to take the kitten home with me as it didn't look like it could have survived much longer on its own there. The jogging lady was most helpful, taking my bike so I could handle the kitten (who was now getting quite wriggly). A bit further on I managed to stuff the kitten into my camera bag, its head and paws sticking out so it could look around.
Of course, Alien and I already have two cats and our apartment is really not big enough for three (even tho they can leave any time they want) so I brought the kitten to my mother (who has wanted a cat for about a year now) so she and my niece could take care of it. Once there we fed it some milk that it hungrily devoured (it seems too young still for more solid food). It's a very curious and playful kitten and other than being very thin seems to be in good health (it's playing, exploring and washing itself, all good signs for kittens). Nonetheless, my mother is taking him to a vet today, just to be sure (and to get a better age estimate. We think he's between 1 and 2 months now).
Meanwhile, I've done a tour of the neighborhood where I found it, looking for posters about missing kittens. I'll post pictures of it in vets offices seeing if anybody lost it (after all, maybe it wasn't abandoned after all). Secretly I'm hoping nobody will turn up, so my mother and niece don't have to lose this darling kitten, but if you're doing the right thing, you have to do it the right way.
Oh, and here's a picture:
Comments
The kitten looks exactly like my boyfriend's cat, Zealous.
IT'S MY CAT MINERVA IN DISGUISE!
o.O