A Sad Surprise

This morning as John was walking the dogs, Taylor (who can hear and smell a mole underground) suddenly got excited about something on the side of the road. John went to see, fearing that it might be a snake. Taylor has been know to approach a copperhead with great curiosity! Instead, in the ditch underneath the leaf litter were 7 tiny kittens! They were about 3 weeks old, eyes still blue and terrified. John came home and got a cardboard box, put some straw in it, drove back to the spot and brought the kittens home in the box. Since he walks that route with the dogs daily, we know that they had to have been dumped out since yesterday morning. They appeared well fed, but they obviously weren't weaned and they didn't even have any fleas yet. We knew that we could not take care of them, so we took them to the Humane Society. Since they are not weaned, and so small, and probably sick from being outside, they will probably have to be euthanized. Somewhere there's a mama cat missing her babies and somewhere there is a hard hearted individual whom I hope cannot get this off their conscience. John was pretty upset about the callousness of people like that. There was no charge to take them to the Humane Society, so they just didn't want to bother. And because we live in the country, they would probably not have lasted another night with the coyotes, bobcats and foxes in the area. I wish we could have cared for them, but it just wasn't possible. At least we spared them the pain of being attacked by a larger animal.