By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on November 29, 2024.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com
After multiple kittens were abandoned at Galt Gardens on Saturday night by a person driving a red mini van that was caught on video and since has gone viral on social media, they have been rescued.
Levi Cox, owner and stylist at Catwalk Salon and Spa, told the Herald Wednesday that he was able to help the abandoned kittens on Monday afternoon and he was happy to report that even though by then they had already spent two night out in the elements, they were all alive.
He said that even though the salon is closed on Mondays, he happened to be in his car listening to a podcast while his mother was inside the salon doing payroll when a lady started knocking on the door with some urgency.
“She said she has seen on Facebook that a man dropped off a box of kittens and a mother cat across the street and she wanted some help looking for them,” said Cox.
He said he offered her a cardboard box, some towels and some food for her to look for them and then went back to listening to his podcast in the car.
“Then she comes running across the street with the one cat under her arm and a box on the other hand and yells, I got them! So we brought them inside to check if they were OK,” said Cox.
He said the kittens were very cold and some of them were barely moving, so his mom warmed them up with a blow dryer at a low heat and low setting.
“The kittens were meowing and they looked scared. We separated them and we counted them. There was seven kittens and the mom, but we noticed that she was not latching them and she was very hungry and scared as well,” said Cox.
He said that while that was happening, the lady who found them asked him to check the park again to make sure no kittens fell out of the box, or have wondered off before she got to them and she was unable to bare the idea of possibly finding diseased kittens.
“I’m back there by myself, videoing myself as I walk over there telling the story, because I document my life on Snapchat and I finally see a box. I thought I heard meowing and when I went over, I couldn’t even believe it. They were stacked on each other like Jenga trying to stay warm,” said Cox.
 He said at this point he looked around to see if there was another mom cat as there were multiple kittens in the second box but could not find it.
 “I raced back. They were even more cold than the other and smaller, so we warmed up and the cat mom actually seemed more interested in these cats. So, we think these were her kittens, not the first ones, because she was more attached to them,” said Cox.
He said the cat began feeding her kittens after they warmed up and once her kittens were fed, she jumped into the other box and began to feed the other kittens as well.
Cox said at that point he called the Last Chance Cat Ranch as the animal shelter is over capacity and he was told they have found a cat mom who needed to be milked. They have been contacted by Progress Clothing as they took her in when she wondered into their store looking for help.
“When we called them to tell them about the other kittens, they told us they will bring the other cat mom to reunite her with the kittens,” said Cox.
He said when they arrived with her, the kittens started meowing loudly and when the cat mom saw them, she immediately embraced them and began to feed them, but also jumped into the other box as some of the kittens in the other box were hers as well and they have been mixed up.
“The two cat moms looked so much alike that we think they were either sisters or mom and daughter, as they embraced each other when they reunited,” said Cox.
The two cats and their combined total of 15 kittens are now at the Last Chance Cat Ranch and Cox said the idea is to have them all together for both cats to “coparent” all the kittens.
“There are 17 cats that will be on the market soon. They’re adorable. And we will be collecting donations for Last Chance (Cat) Ranch here at Catwalk to help them take care of them in the meantime,” said Cox.
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once AGAIN! Last Chance Cat Rescue is the agency that steps up to bail our sad city and its equally sad surrounding towns out of an ugly, inhumane mess (recall the sickos in picture butte that had long been torturing cats and kittens until LCCR worked their tails off to get legal intervention and then took on the tortured cats and kittens that were still alive there).
recall this is the great hearted group made up entirely of volunteers that were run out of town by some sad-sack neighbour(s) and the city council.
would the city please consider offering up some money to help this organisation, which is always beyond capacity and stretched to the limit?
would people with hearts and some decency please donate to this very worthy organisation? https://www.thelastchancecatranch.com/
kudos to the people that helped these cats…hard to imagine the stress and trauma for the dear creatures, as well as for those that stepped well out of their comfort zone with great hearts.
They really do an excellent job
Way to go Levi and the lady that helped. Bless your souls. We need more good people like you in this community. We must get our spay and neuter programs going so that these kind of things don’t happen.
i think it a worthy expense that the city cover spay/neuter, even with the chip – humane, and, not only keeps population under control, but also makes it easier to keep critters indoors.
anyone that has held a cat or dog, or taken the time to really interact with open mind and heart with any creature knows full well they are thinking and feeling creations with the capacity for great love.