From Darkness to Light
With your support, Alley Cat Allies saved the life of a brave little kitten! In March, a tiny 4-week-old tabby was found huddled alone in a cold, pitch-black utility tunnel in Bethesda, Maryland, where Jakob Martin had been working. He heard the kitten’s distressed cries through the darkness. Since the kitten’s mother was nowhere to be found, Martin picked her up and sought help from Alley Cat Allies.
The kitten (we named her Gertrude after the patron saint of cats) didn’t seem to respond to movement or light. We wondered if she might be blind. We rushed her to get medical attention at a nearby veterinary hospital. Thankfully, the kitten was given a clean bill of health and the veterinarian expects her eyesight to return!
An Alley Cat Allies staff member fostered the kitten until she was 8 weeks old and could be spayed and adopted. Then she’s expected to go to the perfect forever home: Martin’s!
“I’ve always wanted a cat and I was thinking about getting one in the next few months,” says Martin, who is renaming the kitten Pyramid. “It was like destiny just walked in. How was I going to back down from that?”
Our generous supporters and donors like you make it possible for Alley Cat Allies to get kittens
like Pyramid the help they need. Thanks to your compassion, she will live out her life safe and sound with her rescuer.
Miracle on a Highway
To rescue a young cat from a busy six-lane causeway in New Jersey, Kim Kean, the Atlantic City program manager at Alley Cat Allies, had to think fast. She spotted the little tortoiseshell on the median strip as she was driving, while cars and buses zoomed by.
“I realized I had to act quickly,” she says. Kim knew she couldn’t save the cat on her own. She called an animal-loving police officer who has worked with Alley Cat Allies through the Atlantic City Boardwalk Cats Project for years.
A few minutes later, the officer and her partner arrived. Kim helped them stop traffic in both directions and scooped up the little tortie with a net. Then, Kim took her to a veterinarian. The cat was scared but, amazingly, had no injuries. She was very tiny, thoughonly 3 pounds at 6 months old. The veterinarian thought the little cat was so cute that she decided to foster her! Guess what we named her: Miracle!
*This article was originally published in Alley Cat Action, Volume 28, Issue 3, Spring 2018.