The Lost Kitten

Our good friend Steph was visiting us on Friday night, with the expectation that her husband, Greg would be over soon. When Greg arrived, he noticed a tiny black kitten trying to climb into the wheel well of a work truck. The driver of said truck kept kicking the kitten out, afraid that he would forget the kitten was there and drive off, injuring the kitten. A woman walked by and the kitten began following her until he lost interest, at which point he wandered into the road. Moments after wandering into the road, a truck came speeding by, nearly ending the kitten's life.

Greg scooped up the kitten and brought him to the door to safety. Andrea saw the tiny thing and made many exclamations about his cuteness. As she took the kitten from Greg, she noticed that Greg's hands were black with grease and the kitten had streaks of white fur. Andrea decided the kitten desperately needed a bath and had Steph get the cat wash/flea shampoo out. After his bath, the kitten was a little more scared, but still crawling with fleas. After Andrea saw how truly tiny he was, she decided not to use the flea shampoo again as it is not safe for kittens under 8 weeks.

After his second bath, this time with baby shampoo, everyone noticed that the kitten was not black as previously thought, but instead gray and white, pretty equally. The kitten was quite scared by this point, having only been inside for a half hour and having already received not one, but two baths. After drying him off, Andrea found the dry kitten formula mix she had bought for Qsmat and mixed some up for the new kitten. He stuck his nose in, but did not lap, so Steph and Andrea assumed he hadn't been weaned and set out in pursuit of a kitten bottle.

It was nearly 10 o'clock at night by this point, so Petsmart was long closed and Target was closing. Steph and Andrea managed to find some preemie bottles at Target and bought them in the hopes they would work. After getting the bottles home, the kitten decided he didn't like the bottles and would instead like to lap formula from a bowl! Cute kitten.

We managed to get the kitten into the vet on Sunday, but found out he was too small to receive most treatments. He was able to get some roundworm dewormer, but too small for Capstar and other parasite killers. The vet told us that he is anemic, most likely from the number of fleas he had on him. We are to give him a multi-vitamin twice a day until his nose and gums are completely pink and feed him whatever we can get him to eat.

Since we started perking him up with multi-vitamins yesterday, he has been eating KMR and wet food voraciously about every 6 hours. He's still sleeping a little more than average, but he's playing more when he is awake. He doesn't have a name yet, but we're sure he's a boy, he's 4 weeks old, he weighs 1.25 pounds and is as cute as pie!

We'll try to get a picture up in a a bit. If none appear, you can leave a comment asking for one to be e-mailed to you.