ANIMALS
Starving Kitten Looks for Food in Family’s Yard and Gets a New Chance at Life
Not long ago, Ariel Heath saw four small kittens hanging out near her place, drinking water as if they belonged there. She looked around, but couldn’t find their mom, so she asked her neighbors about them. Unfortunately, nobody knew where these little buddies came from.
“They heard us and ran back off the property behind our fence and into some brush,” Ariel shared.
Afterwards, Ariel began putting out food, wishing those small furry creatures would come back. And they did! The food vanished quickly, but the kittens remained hard to catch.
“I never saw them eat but the food was always gone within half an hour.” said Ariel.
Then, one day, the smallest kitten of the group showed up at Ariel’s backdoor, looking for food, very nervous. “She was still quite skittish and ran back if you moved too quickly.”
Then Ariel got an idea. She decided to put food near the fence and make cat noises to try to bring the kitten closer. “I would meow and she would come slowly, sneaking under the fence to eat. She was alone now, and her siblings were nowhere to be seen.”
And it worked! The once scared kitty began to calm down, even peeking through the window to say, “Hey, I’m here!”
“Eventually, she trusted me enough to eat right from my hand and let me pet her,” said Ariel.
Ariel’s family soon chose to take care of the kitten and called her Billy, not knowing she was a girl. To make sure Billy was healthy, they took her to the vet for a check-up and vaccinations. With love and care, Billy changed from an adventurous outdoor cat to a pampered indoor one.
“We named our kitten Billy not knowing she was a young lady. I took her to the vet. She was a very healthy girl for being outdoors her whole life. We got her spayed, vaccinated and dewormed so she wouldn’t be repeating the cycle around the neighborhood.”
But Billy didn’t only find a place to live; she also found a great family. She quickly became friends with Ariel’s son, had fun with their adopted dog, and now, she has a routine of waiting for him at the door when he returns from school every day.
“Despite their differences, they wait together for their human to walk home from school.”