After being handed off by his mother, a small, hours-old kitten got off to a tragic start. He was rescued from the abyss, and who knows what he would become months later.
A worker at the Saving One Life shelter, Caroline Grace, was alerted to the newborn pussycat, who was in dire need of bottle feeding.
Brent looks after the stray animals in his area on a daily basis. When he learned that a cat had given birth, he erected a shelter right once to provide a secure and comfortable home for the wild mother and her kids.
“One of the babies was left behind when mom transferred the other babies into the shelter. Caroline recalled, “Brent waited to see whether he would return for his wailing infant, but he didn’t.”
Brent attempted to place the stray kitten in the nest he created for it to be with mom and the rest of the litter, but the mother promptly took it.
Caroline recalled, “She didn’t want the baby any longer and placed him back out in the cold.”
Brent realized he needed to intervene at this moment and carried the cat inside to warm him up. He then began appealing for assistance from rescuers. “Newborn kittens are so delicate,” Caroline explained, “that when he came to me, the kitten was hypothermic and unresponsive.”
“I spent the first day getting Toby warm enough to feed him and giving him supportive care to keep him alive.”
Toby was still too frail to hang on and feed even after his body temperature had restored to a safe level. Caroline started a stringent extreme care program and tube-fed the kitten 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the following three days. The small one ultimately won the struggle on the fourth day when he developed enough strength to suckle.
“Every day, he became stronger and healthier, and his personality began to bloom. She began purring at the age of five days. Caroline recalls, “He would purr after every meal as she held him.”
Toby grew into a rather noisy continual purring machine that appeared to turn on whenever he was stroked, despite his little size of just a pint.
After each meal, he gulped down his food and turned his back to have his tummy stroked. The contented youngster couldn’t get enough of his adoptive mother’s love.
