Kitten Crazy!

As I write this, I have two 8 week-old kittens curled up, purring in their little cat bed. Happy, content, at home. Hard to believe that just 3 weeks ago, I didn’t even know they existed...

Flash back to the aftermath of the Station Fire. The one here in Los Angeles that evacuated me and 10,000 of my closest friends. We Ferraros were still busy reconnecting computers and putting the family pictures back on the walls when at about 9:00 one night, I got a call from my neighbor, Terri. (FYI, if you have read The ABC’s of Kissing Boys, she’s the “Terri” of the book’s dedication: “For Terri, ‘cause she’s cool like that!”)
She’d found a teeny, tiny kitten outside her back door, shivering in the darkness.

I ran over there and we cuddled and cooed over the poor little guy. All the while wondering where he came from, where his mother was, how he got into her backyard....if there was one out in the wild, were there more?

By the next day, the kitten (who would go on to be called Ranger) was settled in at Terri’s house. That night, my husband and I took our usual walk. But circumstances prevailed and we needed to head back the short way--something we never do--ending up on the street below Terri’s. Suddenly:

Tiny Voice in Ivy: “Peep!”
Me (stopping dead in tracks): “Did you hear that???”
Husband: (with resignation): “Yes..."
Me: “Peep!”
Voice in Ivy: “Peep!”
Me: “Peep!”
Voice in Ivy: “Peep!”
Husband: “Oh, great, another cat.”

The problem was, it was a holiday weekend and no one was home at any of the surrounding houses. And as my husband pointed out, I couldn’t take a pet from someone’s property just because I thought it might be a stray. (Darn him and his logic!)

So I went and got Terri (and kitten food) and we fed the kitty. And left her in the ivy. What could we do?

But bright and early the next morning, I returned with more food, only to have her scamper up to me, let me pick her up, and start purring. And more? The people were home! So I talked to them and they said a stray mother cat had had a litter of four...but all had been disappearing one by one...and at last count, only two kittens were left.

What didn’t need to be said was what had likely happened to the others. See, we live on the edge of a national forest. And even before the fires, with our hot, dry summer, the coyotes had been coming down looking for food. Since the fires, it was every animal for himself.

So Ruby (as she was soon to be called) moved in with Ranger in his cozy digs. And from the first moment they reconnected, they sniffed and nuzzled and purred...and curled up together. Melted Terri’s and my hearts! We like to believe that Ranger was the “Scout,” the one who went and found them safety and shelter, and that somehow he sent us back for her. But--you know--we're cool like that. ;)

Here they are that first weekend at Terri’s house:



Here they are two weeks later when they moved in with me:


Right now, we are continuing to raise them together. Long stretches at Terri’s, and then at mine, depending on schedules. In either location, they’re as happy as can be--purring and playing and cleaning each other. We’re planning to separate them when they are older, Ranger to live with her, Ruby with me, but we’re just going to play it by ear for now.

So tell us, have you ever rescued a pet or stepped in to help one who needed a home?