10/08/2024
Hello All,
We need your help. We need a GOOD home for Dutchess. This is going to be long but I want to give a little bit of her background story. For the 2 months or so I’ve been taking care of a mama cat & her babies (baby….I’ll explain the babies/baby in a minute) that have been living outside on the condemned property on Grant St. The mama (who me, my best friend Danielle & my niece Victoria named Dutchess) cat is the MOST friendly, lovable baby you’d ever meet. Which makes me wonder if she was at 1x someone’s pet. Alls she wants is loved and petted constantly. She is skiddish at 1st, which is understandable & expected, but she does warm up VERY quickly, even more so if I’m there. Then there are her babies, or then there is her baby. And I say either way bc when 1st found her, I actually thought she was pregnant or JUST had babies bc she had a massive belly and & her ni***es were huge. You might remember her bc we posted about her & how her 1 ni**le looked like something was wrong with it like mastitis or even clogged duct. Which, Thank God, it was neither. Anyways, a few times a day, everyday, I’d go to the condemned house to give her food & water & visit with her. After a week or 2 of seeing her everyday I started to ask her mama, are you pregnant or did you have babies? If so please show me your babies. After like the 3rd time asking I got my answer. I walked up the steps and to my surprise there was a little tiny baby black & white kitten sitting there. We named it Pepper. I was so excited. But the baby was SO scared. As soon as I got close it ran. But it stayed on the porch & ran into a corner that ended up being the hiding spot of another baby, a grey & white 1 we named Salt. After looking high & low we determined she only had these 2. But why was her belly so big & hard? Was she pregnant again? My estimation was the kittens were only like 4 weeks old. They were so hungry that, even though terrified of me, Pepper came close to me & ate hard cat food out of the dish. I tried multiple times to grab it, but was unsuccessful. Salt would not come out at all. The next two days I tried every day multiple times to capture them finally caught Pepper the one day. It was so terrified of me, but it didn’t hiss at me or bite me or scratch at me. Nothing it just kept trying to jump out of my arms. I contacted Andrea and we made a plan to try to capture them, including Dutchess. I made a decision to let Pepper go so I could try to help lure out Salt to capture both of them. And that it was a mistake that I wish I never made. Because that was the last time I ever seen Pepper. I told Andrea that it was around five days since I last seen Pepper anywhere. I feared the worst. But we made a decision to keep looking for pepper and try to capture salt and Duchess because of that appointment was set up for that Monday for Duchess to be looked at to see if she was pregnant or not and see going with her ni**le and if she could be fixed, if she wasn’t pregnant. And at that time, I still was unable to capture Salt at all. Sunday night came and I had to get Dutchess no matter what. I contacted my friend Brooklyn, who said that she would come up and try to help us look for the kittens and capture Dutchess. Sunday night came and we tried for a while and was still unable to locate Pepper, which was like day 7 of not being seen and was unsuccessful and catching Salt. They were going inside of the condemned house so we made a decision to shut the one door to stop them from going upstairs and only containing them to one room to try to make it easier to catch them. We then proceeded to capture Dutchess who, like I said she is so friendly that Brooklyn just picked her up and put her right inside of my cage. We waited to capture her all weekend so I didn’t take her away from her babies for long. So unfortunately Pepper, we had no idea what was going on with and Salt was going to be left outside by itself. I took Dutchess to my home and left her in my basement for the night to take her to the vet. The next morning we took her and fortunately she was not pregnant again and could be fixed. I was going to take her to my friends house in East Conemaugh to stay until she healed because my dad really didn’t want them to stay at our house. I get her that night from the surgery and I made a last second decision to keep her in my basement and told my dad that I promised that she would go in a couple days when she healed. I kept my eyes out for Pepper and tried to capture Salt. Dutchess was in my basement, the entire time, crying. The 1st night I had no luck, capturing either kitten. The 2nd night I went over to the condemned house to try to see if I could capture Salt and locate Pepper. I seen neither kitten and was about to leave when I heard a faint cry. I started meowing back at it and I actually thought it was coming from inside the house and I panicked because we shot the door and I thought it was trapped inside the house. I happened to turn around on the porch, and seen a tiny head peeking up from a box and it was Salt!! I go over to the box and it lifted another box off of the top of it, and it was so scared. It tried to go down inside of the box that was full of garbage, but couldn’t it then decided to jump out of the box and run and at the last second I grabbed as it was halfway out of the box and I just happened to grab one back leg and it’s tail. I immediately scooped my arm underneath it so I wasn’t holding it by its leg until too long and I pulled it tight to me and held it. Immediately run to my house, which is two houses away from the condemned house and mind you. It is 1 o’clock in the morning so the doors are locked and my keys are in my car on the road. I had to run back down and grab my keys and come back up, I immediately get in my basement and go to the room. Shut the door behind me and put the kitten down. Dutchess was so excited to see her baby as the baby was excited to see her, she started licking it and purring. They immediately run underneath the table that was down there and hide in the corner of the room. I smile and watched for a second and then I decided to leave and let them be. I decided not to tell my dad that the kitten was down there because I knew they would be going soon since then I have continued to look for Pepper but have been unsuccessful in finding it. It is probably been about 2 weeks now since I’ve seen Pepper. I am hoping it’s alive and somebody got it but I have a feeling it’s the worst. I keep them both in my basement for a few days while we look for homes for them then I was told that we found a home for Dutchess but not for Salt. So a few nights ago, Andrea comes for both of them and takes Salt to Brooklyn’s and took Dutchess to her house until she could take her to her new home. But that night we received word that the home Dutchess was supposed to go to is not the best home for her that the people are neglectful and hopefully not abusive towards animals, but she made the decision not to take her there. So now, unfortunately, Dutchess does not have a home. so please someone please adopt her. She does not deserve to be out on them streets. She is extremely friendly and lovable so if anyway could please please please take her or pass the word around to try to find her a great home. She is fixed, litter trained, she will be up-to-date on shots, and we will have her tested for feline leukemia. also, it looks like she has a cleft palette, but it is not. It is from her being outside and having so many fleas and licking. Andrea is going to be calling the vet and getting her in again to we haven’t looked at to see if what’s gonna potentially happen with it. But please for the love of God someone, please take her or help us find her home. Please share!!! I’m sorry these are not the best pictures. It was very difficult to get them. Message us for more info or if you’d like to adopt her. Even if you can just foster. Thank you & God Bless you all.
