by Janice Willard DVM, from the September 2006 Newsletter

It was the cry in the dark that caught my attention. I had stopped by my bank machine downtown, when I heard the distraught cry of a lost kitten. I meowed back with my best “mama-cat” meow.

The kitten’s call turned to a frantic yowl . A small gray body ran towards me. I stepped from behind the car and the kitten froze. I realized my mistake—this was not a socialized kitten that would come to a person for rescue. The kitten turned and vanished.

But I couldn’t leave it there, lost and near a busy road. My kids and I started kitten searching.

There weren’t a lot of places to hide, but we had no luck. Finally I meowed and a tentative meow came from under a car. But when we looked, no kitten—it had climbed up into the car. That was dire because the owner could come back and drive the car away with the kitten still on its deadly perch.

After both my son and I crawled under the car (hoping that the owner or a cop wouldn’t come along), we found the kitten squeezed up on top of the muffler. I saw a little gray tabby face looking wide-eyed at me. “I think I can reach it,” said Ethan. “No, let me do it,” I said. His arms were longer and thinner, but I am vaccinated against rabies, so I was a better choice to stick my hands in range of a frightened feral kitten. Rabies is not something we think about much on the Palouse, but should always be a consideration.

The terrified kitten bit my thumb as I pulled it out, before getting a safe and secure hold on it. We put it in a cloth grocery bag. At home, we put the kitten (still hiding in the grocery bag), food, water and a litter pan in a big dog crate and went to bed.

In the morning, there was no kitten in the dog crate. A corner of the gate was pushed out. There are a gazillion places a kitten could hide in my house. Would a feral kitten hide until it starved, I wondered? How can I get it to come out? Of course, we hold our pets in our hearts, but in our walls too? And, my worse fear, I hope I haven’t done it worse injury by trying to help it.

My other concern was my bitten thumb. Cat bites and scratches can carry some nasty bacteria deep into the puncture wound. I had learned in vet school not to be a “tough guy” about cat bites. I called my doctor and got some antibiotics.

Days stretched to a week, still no sign of the vanished kitten. Every night, I locked my dogs and cats out of the main part of my house and put out food and water. Every morning, they were untouched and I more concerned. We left on a scheduled camping trip, taking the dogs with us, and I hoped that now the kitten would come out into the quiet house. Still no sign. I put traps out in storage room and crawlspace under it. Caught my own cats, but no wild kitten.

One of my veterinary behaviorist friends said she thought a feral kitten would try to leave the house. Maybe through my crawlspace? But how could a motherless kitten survive outside? The coyotes were howling outside, and I despaired. The next day, combines came through. On a slim hope that it was outside, I made sure the barn cats had food and put cinderblocks in my watering toughs, so if it fell in trying to drink, it wouldn’t drown.

Another week went by. I wondered it if had all been my imagination, but my thumb told me otherwise.

I was ecstatic when I saw in the barn at dusk, looking like a tiger in the jungle, a kitten sitting on the cinderblock in the goat watering trough, lapping up water. Seeing me, it disappeared into a crack in the wall. I looked in and a familiar, grey-striped, wild, little face looked back.

The recaptured kitten is now accepting food, water, and most importantly, pets from us—and we are getting purrs in return …

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