Our Guests

Many of you know that Ryan's mother and brother visited us for 11 days in July, but those aren't the guests I'm referring to. The guests I am talking about are a whole lot smaller, furrier, and have a few more legs. I'm a member of PAWS, the organization that works to help the stray animals living near the campus. My friends all know I'm a member, so they'll call me with any animal issues they notice. Several weeks ago, one of my friends told me about a litter of kittens that had turned up on a student's doorstep. Apparently the student had been feeding the mother for a few months, and when she had kittens, she decided to bring them to his house.

The kittens were about four weeks old and very small and vulnerable- and time consuming! It was too much work for the student to take care of the kittens on top of studying. So one Wednesday afternoon I swung by with a cat carrier and picked up the mother cat and two of her kittens. There were originally four in the litter, but two were already eating solid foods and had found homes. I took the mother and the two less developed kittens home with me and made up a pen in the corner of the kitchen. The kittens were as tiny and adorable as you'd expect! The mother is a pretty gray tiger with a lot of white. The female kitten is a dark calico, and the male kitten is a handsome tiger who looks a lot like his mother.

Ryan and I didn't worry about the kittens that night- we just shut the door to the bedroom and slept. The next morning I was horrified- the mother cat had been a bit naughty overnight! She'd gotten onto my counter and dug out and ate my houseplant, as well as took bites of several onions I had laying out. She ripped open the bag of dog food we kept around to feed some of the strays. She pooped on my cloth shopping bags which were in a basket by the door. It was a shock to wake up to!

After that we moved the mother and her kittens onto our porch. It is enclosed and sheltered and we would still let the kittens inside to play, but we'd also be able to look them up when we couldn't supervise them. It made things a lot easier to know that my house wouldn't be wrecked when I came home from running errands!

The kittens were so much fun- it was amazing to watch them grow and develop! They became more and more playful and adventurous... which is what got the little boy into trouble. One Saturday night as I was doing dishes I heard pathetic cry and ran to the porch door... to see the mother cat staring over the railing. I knew immediately what happened and raced downstairs. The little boy had tried to jump onto the porch railing and had fallen- three stories!

He landed on our Jen and Neil's tiled porch, and then tumbled another few feet to the concrete path. I was convinced, as I raced downstairs screaming for Ryan, that I'd find a dead kitten at the bottom of the building. I was so relieved to see him looking at me, all in one piece, that I nearly cried. Ryan and I carefully eased him onto a sheet of cardboard and then lifted him into a box to transport him up the stairs. It was very scary, because I could tell that he had a dislocated hip and I was very worried about internal injuries... and since this was Saturday night, and everything in Dominica shuts down from Saturday evening to Monday morning, I knew that I couldn't have him checked out by a vet.

I called Northway Animal Emergency Clinic, located about 20 minutes north of my home in New York, and begged for advice about how to prevent shock. They were very kind and honest, and I really appreciated it. They had no reason to help me- most vet clinics refuse to give out information over the phone because of liability issues- but they did anyways. I settled the kitten into a cat carrier with food, water, and a rice filled sock as a heating pad. My friend Jen, who is a nurse, had come up to help me, and we decided to call the kitten Neville- after the character in the Harry Potter series who fell three stories and bounced.

I was up about every hour all Saturday night, checking on Neville, checking his breathing, heart rate, and making sure he had food and water. I was afraid that he'd be dead every time I looked into the crate- if he'd had internal injuries we would have been unable to help him. But each time I peered in, he'd be looking back at me sleepily. And the next morning I was shocked to discover that he was very anxious to escape the crate. We settled him in the bathroom by himself- the emergency clinic cautioned us against putting him with his mom or sister who might unintentionally hurt him- and watched him carefully. We carried him to the food, water, and litter box several times that day. By that evening he was limping around a bit- he popped his hip back in on his own! Within a few days he was once again nursing from his mother and playing with his sister- on three legs!

The kittens stayed a total of three weeks, so they left when they were seven weeks old. The female kitten went to a wonderful local woman named Shirley and her family. They adore this sweet girl's beauty and her playful attitude. Neville... well, he went to our friend's Jen and Neil- the ones whose porch he landed on! He's doing very well. When he sits and lays down, he does hold his leg at a slightly awkward angle, but for the most part, you can't tell anything happened! You can occasionally spot a slight limp, but he's leaping and running and playing just like a mischievous kitten should.

The day after her kittens left I took Mom-cat home, back to the student who had been feeding her. He lives about a mile away from my apartment, and he'd been feeding her for six months, so I thought that she'd be pretty happy there. The next morning, I opened my door... and found a very familiar face! Mom-cat has been hanging around ever since, and has been fed by my neighbors both in this building and in nearby buildings.