We want our twins to love the outdoors as much as we do so we take them on a walk every day with their older brother and sister (Lily and Murphy). We were out at a local BLM area on Monday when we came upon a big surprise. Celeste was taking Lily down to the creek for a drink of water when she exclaimed "oh no, what's that?". In the brush by the creek was an animal crate. Looking closer we saw a few kitten heads poking out of the cage. When I got closer, I saw it was full of kittens. The door was open and there was a blanket and some "moist and meaty" dog food left for them. The grass under the carrier was still green so I knew it must have been left within a day or so. Then when I looked inside I saw three newborn kittens, probably just having opened their eyes, inside.
Only one of the newborns was moving and I was sure the others were dead. It was obvious that we needed to take action to help these kittens, especially the newborns or else they would die. I never saw a mother cat so it either ran away or was never dumped to begin with. As I began to wrangle the little kittens back into the cage the newborns began to stir (I could now see four of them). The older kittens were so cute and very trusting, I don't know why someone would dump them in the wild like this. Murphy and Lily did a great job being good; they stayed away and never barked or growled. The Twinkies also were real troopers, despite being way overdue for a nap and meal. We were able to get all the cats into the carrier and bring it out to the road to pick up with our car.
We took the cats to the Shasta County animal shelter in Redding and after arguing with a dumb clerk who complained that they were "closed for lunch" at 10 minutes before noon, Celste was able to use her powers of persuasion to attract the attention of an actual Peace Officer who came to our aid. She agreed to take the cats and even told us she would take the newborns home with her to bottle feed them (since she had others already at home getting the same TLC). As a government employee, it makes me cringe when someone has a bad attitude with the public (Got to remember who signs the checks!). So in the end everything seems to have worked out for the best. Some kittens got a chance at a better life and the Twinkies got exposed to the Deem way of life.
Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 9:08PM 
