Peek-a-Boo

How often have you exited a shed, garage or outbuilding and closed the door behind you? A whole bunch of times most likely. But have you even stopped for a second to make some noise in case there was a cat, possibly with kittens, inside? If there is an animal taking up residency in a building, once you close the door you take away their access in and out. Making a loud noise may bring them out of hiding though.

Stray mother cats do leave their kittens throughout the day to go in search of food. When she leaves a building where her kittens are and returns to find she can’t get in, she will eventually abandon her babies if the door remains closed. That is what we think may have happened to Peek-a-Boo.

The woman who found him had seen a stray cat in the yard, but she didn’t pay much attention to her. It was when the homeowner had a reason to go into her shed, that she opened the door and found a crying kitten inside. Putting two-and-two together she figured the mother she'd seen had decided the shed was a safe place for him. You have to wonder though if maybe there had been more kittens, and the mother was in the process of moving them. However, when she returned for the last one, she could no longer get to her baby.

Thankfully, more days had not passed before Peek-a-Boo was discovered. If it had been really hot outside, he would have been in more danger of dying from the heat. When the 10-to-12-day old kitten arrived at the home of one of our Foster Care Volunteers, she wasted no time getting him what he needed. The priorities were to stabilize his body temperature, get some formula into him and remove all the fleas from his tiny body.

As of today, Peek-a-Boo is fat and happy which is how we like our kittens. As you can see in the photo, he's discovered some good stuff comes out of that bottle. Peek-a-Boo was lucky a door got closed because he's not going to grow up now to be another stray cat struggling to stay alive like his mother, who is somewhere in an O’Fallon neighborhood with one less kitten to feed.