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Chimnie 6 month female tabby and white Maine Coon mix kitten
regular adoption fee: see below
Cat rescue is a world of stories. Every single rescue is a story. Here is Chimnie's story:
As I was leaving the Fremont shelter where I went for two red tabby Maine Coon kittens, (and was walking out with 4 kittens), I said, "Ok then, I guess that's it. Bye." and pushed open the door when someone said, "Did you to see the hissy little long haired kitten that came in today?" I stopped. "What long haired kitten?" I said. While someone went to get it, I was told that it had been brought in earlier by a person who found it stuck in a chimney. "It was about 3 weeks old and NOT happy," she said. They looked. They couldn't find it . Finally, someone went and found it in a cardboard carrier in the euthanasia room.
So let me digress a minute. I want everyone to understand about kittens and shelters. All cats adopted out of a shelter MUST be spayed or neutered. In order to safely undergo the anesthesia involved in that surgery, a kitten must be 2.2 pounds. During kitten season, large numbers of kittens are brought to shelters and that surge in population causes cage space problems. Adult cats in shelters find it very hard to be adopted with all the cute kittens tugging at people's hearts. There isn't room for them and they are more likely than normal to be put down because the shelter is too full..
The shelters also are not able to keep cages full of little tiny kittens that don't weigh enough to be altered. They need a lot of time to grow. They are fragile and get diarrhea and colds and whatnot. They are too young to be vaccinated and their illnesses may spread between them or to other older cats at the shelter. So this where the wonderful shelter volunteers come in, kitten fosters who keep kittens until they are ready, heavy enough, to be returned to the shelter to be fixed and adopted out . There are ALWAYS more kittens surrendered to the shelter than there is space at the volunteer's houses. These kittens are euthanized.
Everyone taking kittens to the shelter needs to know that they all must weigh over 2 or 2.2 pounds to have a good chance of survival. I know people would not bring their kittens in so young if they understood this. They are thinking "these adorable loved kittens are 8 weeks old and are ready to go." I don't believe shelters generally tell these people the facts of life and death when they bring them in and I wish they would say, "Please bring these kittens back in a month when they are older" etc. So I am bringing up it here in Chimnie's story. People need to understand this .It is not the shelter's fault; it is the way things are is right now. To get this info out is partly why I am writing Chimnie's story.
So now we know why Chimnie was in the euthanasia room. The shelter had found a person to foster a litter of surrendered kittens already that day, thereby saving them. Then this single little hissy kitten was brought in. She was having a very bad day. Stuck in a chimney , handled by a huge human, separated from her mom and her littermates, driven in a noisy car, peered at by other huge creatures, left in a box all alone and hungry, and scheduled to be injected with poison when the evening came. Not a good day for a cute little scared girl kitten only 3 weeks old.
So I took her. But I don't know much about baby kittens. I figured my Purebreds friends would tell me what to do. I put up my rabbit cage and put litter in a cake pan and gave her a bowl of water and a paper plate of wet kitten food. She spat at me. "I know you are a fierce little kitten," I said. I was a bit worried that she would bite me. I am not super brave or competent handling bitey little animals. She didn't eat. My blood pressure rose. At midnight I took a food syringe, filled it with kitten milk and without picking her up at all put it in front of her mouth. She licked. Great joy. She ate quite a lot. Ah, we can make this work I told her. I relaxed and got up at 3:00 and did it again. This time I held her in a fleece. Pinched her tiny little scruff between my thumb and index finger and picked her right up. SO brave, both of us at three in the morning. After that first night, she did fine, ate on her own, used the cake pan!!! Yes, she had diarrhea, but I bought the Gerbers baby rice as instructed and mixed some of that in. It worked. We became friends.
Of course, I named her Chimnie. She now meows when she sees me and runs to me. Beautiful little treasure.
When she was about 7 weeks old, I brought her Willoughby to be her friend. She was overjoyed to have a companion and after a couple of unsettled hours, curled up with her head on Willoughby' s tummy and took a nap. Willoughby turned out to be Willow, a girl, and they have been inseparable ever since. They are very sweet together.
Chimnie has grown and flourished, a beautiful kitten alive only by chance and meant to be some human's wonderful companion She has long legs and will be a fairly big cat. She is full of play and is loving to other cats, especially Willow. She loves attention from humans especially if they wave a feather for her to chase. She eats wet and dry food and is liltterbox perfect.
