Newborn babies go from a box marked 'please take' to a future filled with hope
Alone on an Iowa roadside on a cold day in February, a group of newborn kitten siblings huddled together in a cardboard box.
Unable to speak for themselves, the kittens relied on a brief message scrawled on the side of the box to tell their story, just four words — “kittens,” “free,” “please take.”
The kittens could have easily fallen into the wrong hands, but luckily, fate was on their side. When a Good Samaritan walked by and saw what was inside the box, they quickly called King’s Harvest Pet Rescue for help. Soon, the babies were safe at the shelter.
Rescuers couldn’t believe someone had treated the kittens so heartlessly.
“We don’t know who put them there, but we do know this — leaving fragile, newly born babies alone on the roadside was a terrible decision,” King’s Harvest Pet Rescue wrote in a Facebook post. “They could have been hit, frozen, attacked or simply left to slowly fade away.”
Rescue team members knew that the kittens would have the best chance of survival with a nursing mother who could feed and care for them. They reached out to colleagues at Quad City Animal Welfare Center, who graciously took the babies and settled them with a foster mama.
“Having a nursing mom available and willing to accept them made all the difference,” Quad City Animal Welfare Center executive director Patti McRae told The Dodo.
Heartbreakingly, one kitten was too weak, and, despite rescuers’ best efforts, she passed away.
Rescuers bonded with the other two kittens, whom they named O'Rourke and Hennessy.
“[T]hey have quickly become very special to all of us,” McRae said.
The shelter director hopes this story encourages community members to spay and neuter their pets and to do the right thing when rehoming them.
“Situations like this are preventable,” McRae said. “We also want people to know that help is available, and to reach out sooner rather than later if they are struggling to care for animals.”
Certainly, in the case of O'Rourke and Hennessy, intervention made all the difference.
“Right now, the focus is on keeping them healthy and continuing to gain strength,” McRae said. “But we are hopeful they will grow into strong, healthy kittens and eventually find loving homes.”
