Thoughts: Hannah's Blog

Stray cats used to visit our house on a daily basis, multiple times a day in fact, to meow for food. Sometimes they get milk or fish or cat food. One of those stray cats, gave birth to 2 kittens: One white and another white with black spots and a tiny black tail. This happened a few weeks ago. During the first 2 weeks the kittens have mostly been asleep, drinking milk and slightly mewling with a tiny voice (adorably!)

The mother cat, kept the kittens in the shade of a big empty pot, with multiple empty pots inside: between the pot and the wall. It doesn’t rain there and it is shady for most parts of the day – excellent choice. Of late, the mom has been bringing her kittens at times to their food area. Maybe to teach them this is where you get food.

Last evening, our playful dog, bounced into the garden to take a look at the kittens and the mommy cat freaked out and ran away. When we decided to check on the kittens, only the black kitty was there and the white one was missing!

An extensive search operation began. My mom in law on one side, my brother in law on another. We checked all the areas where the mommy cat usually travels. We suspected that the mom had taken it and ran but dropped it on the way in a hurry.

The mother cat also joined the search and was mewing and searching in every corner for her missing kitten. I even climbed upstairs to get an overhead view, but no luck. My brother in law checked on the way to the food area and even in the neighbours’ house as the cat could have dropped the kitten there while climbing the wall.

I even checked under the fallen big leaves to see if the tiny kitten is probably there but no luck. We searched for close to an hour. As I had climbed up to see from above, I was reminded of my plants that needed watering and proceeded to do so, momentarily abandoning the search for the kitten.

By the time I came down, lo and behold the kitten was discovered – inside the shoe rack! The mother cat used to pop in and out of the shoe rack sometimes to rest, it had taken the kitten there sometime and had forgotten all about it! The absent minded mother was the culprit!

I know I have misplaced stuff too, whenever I try to keep something “safe”, I always end up forgetting the safe place. But forgetting it’s own kitten and joining us in the search! That’s on a whole another level!

Kudos to my brother in law for remembering to check in the shoe rack and hand over the kitten safely to its mother!

The case is closed!