Minutes Away from Becoming Garbage

A message was left on the SNUGGLE Pet Rescue phone at 2:30 am this morning. It was from police dispatch in Jefferson County, Missouri. The deputy, with concern in her voice, explained, "A bag of kittens has been found and they need help?"

Dispatch had already called Animal Control but when they don't respond they called a former employee of a local humane society that was on their 911 list. She does not drive at night, so she did what she could and posted on Facebook a request to rescue groups in the area to see if anyone could pick up the kittens who were located in Cedar Hill Park. It was a long shot given most people were probably already asleep, but a wildlife rescue person, experienced with kittens too, was still awake and she jumped into action.

Calling the police station she got more specific details on where the kittens were located in the park from the deputy spearheading this middle of the night rescue operation. Never having been there before, she ended up getting lost, so she called the station again. The same deputy told her to hold on. Then in the darkness there all of a sudden appeared a cluster of red and blue lights. "Do you see some lights?" the deputy asked. "How could you miss them?" she replied. "Great, head in the direction of the police cars and you will find 6 officers. They have the kittens, and they are going to be so happy to see you."

Before she hung up, she gave the rescuer her cell phone number because she was about to get off work and said to call if she needed anything else.

Sure, enough, when the night owl got to the parking lot adjacent to a public restroom, and a grassy area with one picnic table, there were 6 officers standing around a table. Approaching them, she did not see any sign of the kittens, so after introducing herself, she asked where they were.

"We have them in one of the squad cars to keep them warm," the officer explained. "Meanwhile, there is an adult cat that has been hanging around the whole time and we think she is the mother. We did try and catch her, but we only got as far as touching her and then she batted us with her paw and hissed. The fact she did not run off into the woods makes us suspect even more these are her kittens."

The decision was made to set the trap that the rescuer had brought with her and then to check on the kittens and get them into the carrier she had brought with her. What the officer brought from her vehicle was an Aldi grocery bag.

"Are they in there?"

"Yes, this is what I found them in," she explained. "I was doing a drive thru around 10:30 and when I shined my light on the table is when I spotted the bulging bag. I decided it seemed a little suspicious, so I went to investigate. Imagine my surprise when I looked inside and saw something move and it turned out to be a kitten."

Peeking in the bag, there was the oddest assort of fabric scraps all jumbled together and in the light of a tiny flashlight the officer held you could barely make out several tiny heads, paws and tails poking out from the material that was doing little to keep the kittens warm. The babies were quickly removed from the bag and put in the carrier that had several fleece blankets to wrap around them.

The night owl did feel there was a good chance that the cat hanging around was the mother, so she thought if all the officers left and she just sat in her car the mother would go into the trap. For almost 2 hours she waited. The cat didn't go anywhere but she still would not go near the trap. That was when the decision was made to put the carrier with the kittens inside all bundled up near the trap to lure the cat closer. Then the rescuer quickly ran to a nearby gas station to use their facilities since the park restroom was locked. She was hoping that her short absence would be enough for the mom to decide to go into the trap. Instead, when she returned the trap, carrier, kittens and cat were nowhere to be seen.

After searching the area and finding nothing, the next hour was spent making phone calls. Thankfully she had the deputies' cell number, so she called her first. She gave her some numbers to call but she did not get any answers. By now it was around 7 am. One of the calls she made was to the civic center because they oversee the park. First attempt no one answered, but when she called back the man that answered got the whole run down on what was going on and he replied, "I was at the park earlier to unlock the bathroom, and I saw the trap and carrier and picked them up."

"Did you see the kittens?"

"No, there were no kittens," he said with confidence.

Heading to the Civic Center to retrieve her trap and carrier, she met the man in the parking lot. As she approached, he reached into the back of his truck and grabbed the trap and carrier.

Reaching quickly for the carrier, the rescuer opened the door and carefully moved the blankets around until she spotted the first kitten. Then she counted another one, and another one, and another one . . . There were 9 in total.

The man was in shock. "Good Lord, there are kittens in there. I had no idea. This is unreal. I can't believe how close I came to tossing the crate and the carrier into the dumpster. If you had not called that is where they would be now."

It wasn't five minutes later that the trash truck pulled up to empty the dumpster. That is how close Ash, Aspen, Cedar, Elm, Hickory, Mulberry, Oak, Pine and Willow came to being tossed out like garbage.

The kittens were taken back to the rescuers home and by chance she is very familiar with SNUGGLE Pet Rescue because her cousin is one of our Foster Care volunteers. Between the two of them they will be caring for the kittens that had a whole lot of caring people working really hard through the night to save them.