Rescuing Rosie

I was out walking our dog Elvis.  Earlier that day I thought I had heard a kitten meowing across the street, but paid no mind to it.  This time I heard it again, but louder and more desperate.  I glanced across the street to a rehab home and some of the residents were standing by the fence.  They saw me looking and yelled to come over, there is a kitten trapped in a bush.

There is a huge bush just outside the fence.  The residents explained they were not allowed to leave, but had been listening to this kitten crying all day. They asked if I could try to see it.  One resident said she heard it crying the night before.

The bush was thick and gigantic. Probably 7 feet tall 6 feet wide.  It was thorny and I couldn’t reach in.  I could hear the sad cries of the kitten up toward the top.

I went inside to get a flash light and saw. I told my boyfriend Manny what was up.  He came outside to help too.  We looked hard but couldn’t see the kitten. We could hear her though and she sounded so scared.

The residents handed us some tools through their fence. Garden shears and a shovel.  I had a mini saw.  We trimmed and hacked and spent two hours as the sun started going down, not even able to see her.  We would hack where the sound was, and then the cries would move to the other side.

As the sun went down, the residents were shining their phone lights to help us, and cheering us on. We were covered in sweat and painful scratches from the thorny bush.

Finally, just as we were going to give up, I got my first glimpse of her! The tiniest little kitten, all black with icy blue eyes reflecting back at me!

Seeing that kitty gave us hope and we kept cutting.

Around 10pm the residents were called inside, we were tired and defeated. We couldn’t even get close enough to touch her. She could move around in the twisted thorny branches enough to stay out of reach.

We knew we had to go inside and go to bed at some point.  We brought out a towel, a little bowl of water, and an open packet of our dog’s wet food. We left it where she could reach it and hoped it would get her through the night.

We hardly slept. I just kept thinking about her thin tiny body and crusted blue eyes.  I hoped she would make it through the night and we could get her help in the morning.  Manny went and checked on her in the early morning hours and she was still alive, still crying for help.

The next morning I called the animal shelter.  They took down my name and number and said due to Covid they were short staffed and someone would call me when they were on the way.  We kept trying, and her cries were sounding weaker.

We got a friendly neighbor who loves cats.  We told him what was up and he came out.  With his help, we were able to scare her to a cut area of the bush and I was finally able to get my hand on her!  Manny came over and helped pry the branches apart so I could slide her out of the thorny maze.

She was thin with crusty eyes and a runny nose, barely the size of a hand.  We fell in love, she needed our help and we decided to keep her.  We couldn’t let her go now.

I got kitten formula and read up on how to care for the tiny kitten. Her eyes were bright blue, and she was still wobbly. We figured she was 3 weeks old.  She weighed less than a pound.  Poor girl had fleas, worms, a cold, and conjunctivitis.

That evening and for the first few weeks, she was clinging to us like Velcro.  She insisted on sleeping nestled under my chin every night.

I took her to the vet a week later and he said she was so small he couldn’t give her any shots or vaccines yet, I had to get her to 2 pounds.

She is now a healthy and happy 10 week old,  exploding with energy and personality.   We chose the name Rosie.

Her and Elvis are cuddle buddies, but she does get on his nerves sometimes with her bursts of energy.

I wanted to share her story along with all these cute photos. We didn’t want a cat.  We were not looking for a pet, but sometimes a pet needs you.  She needed help and we were the ones who answered her cries.