On Sunday, 13 March, a group of teenage boys from Hanover Park rescued four tiny abandoned kittens from two separate dump sites. Their first discovery involved a tiny injured ginger kitten with a gaping head wound.
The boys who found him lying alone amongst a pile of builder’s rubble in a litter strewn alley initially thought that he was dead, but decided to go back and check.
They nudged the little kitten and to their surprise, he moved and meowed.
They quickly scooped him up, dusted him off, took another look to make sure that he was still alive and hurried to local animal welfare legend Gadija Sage who assessed the kitten’s injuries to be life-threatening prompting her to seek their urgent help.
The abandoned kitten’s Hospital Admission form reads like a horror story: Head gashed open/skull exposed/dumped/no identification/guarded prognosis.
“It doesn’t get more brutal or much sadder than this but after a few painstaking hours in surgery, we managed to clean and successfully suture the wound closed,” says the Animal Welfare Society of SA.
Thankfully the only lasting trauma Garfield will suffer is a permanent squint to his left eye as a result of the blow to his head.
The youngster’s second find of the day involved four three-week-old kittens found dumped on a sports field. What intrigued everyone was the manner in which they were dumped and the timing of the discovery.
It appeared as though whoever dumped them wanted them to be found – so the Animal Welfare Society of SA dug a little deeper and discovered that one of the boys responsible for saving Garfield had been commissioned by a neighbour to dump the kittens.
It then dawned on everyone that this second discovery wasn’t a chance find. The teenager’s conscience had got the better of him and he led his friends to where he had dumped the litter.
Sadly one of the kittens had succumbed to the elements leaving Gadija to take care of her three surviving siblings who are being bottled-fed every few hours.
“Gadija is confident that she knows who instructed the youngster to dump the kittens and is determined to help us ensure justice for them and the immediate confiscation of any other at-risk pets found on the property,” concludes the Animal Welfare Society of SA.
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Clear out your clutter and you could change an animal’s life
Picture/s: Supplied
