They Didn't Want to Stop

Living in a car, whether you're a person or an animal, is far from an ideal home. For two kittens, a broken-down Chevy Camaro in Wright City, Missouri is where their life began. And it's where their sibling died and it was the last place they saw their mom alive.

The woman, who actually had two junk cars in her front yard, began to smell that pungent smell of death a few days ago. When she could not ignore it any longer, she went to find the source. Whatever wad dead was in the Camaro.

Holding her breath, she peeked inside the opened window and was surprised to find two kittens very much alive, lying next to a deceased sister or brother. She grabbed the two and took them inside. Assuming the mother was dead somewhere in the car, she decided to not look any further.

On the day Cammie and Chevy were rescued the heat index was between 105 and 108. There is no way they would have lasted the day, especially without a mother feeding them. When the woman called and asked if SNUGGLE Pet Rescue could take the kittens we said yes and we couldn't wait to get them.

Both kittens arrived covered in seed ticks which are very tiny ticks in the larval stage of their life. This stage occurs just after hatching from an egg, but before they find their first blood meal. Besides the ticks, the kittens reeked of the smell of death and urine. Our Foster Care Volunteer came close to dry heaving a couple times the smell was so bad. We don't normally give kittens this young a bath, but we had no choice in this case.

After their bath it was time to eat. Kittens are usually good at knowing when they have had enough to eat. They will let go of the bottle nipple and push it out of their mouth. Not Cammie and Chevy though. Having gone without food for at least a day, they weren't willing to run the risk of not getting another meal any time soon.

Our Foster Care Volunteer had to finally take the bottle away from each kitten, annoying both of them. What happened next was that when they started to complain by meowing, what came out of their little mouths instead were burps. It is really rare to see a kitten do this.

Overfeeding a kitten can happen, which endangers their health. Kittens have a fairly small stomach, and overfeeding causes it to overflow. This forces their digestion system to work harder and faster than it is used to. Thus, a lot of the food is not properly digested. In return, the kitten will then get diarrhea as a way to get the excess weight out of the body as quickly as possible.

Feeding times are going to be a battle over the next few days but hopefully Cammie and Chevy will realize soon they will never go without food again and stop making pigs of themselves.