Late last month, a woman named Valerie and her mom, Donna, arrived for their morning volunteer shift at the Catnip Acres Rescue clinic in Waynesville, Pennsylvania, and found something strange.
There, sitting just outside the door, was a taped-up cardboard
box with air holes poked on either side.
Donna and Valerie rushed to open the box. What they found inside was heartbreaking — a mama cat and her three 4-week-old kittens, abandoned like trash in front of the building.
The women took all of the cats inside and gave them water and milk. They were pleased to find them in good health, despite their situation. They nestled the cats in a warm kennel, where they quickly settled and fell asleep.
Rescuers named the mama cat Pandora. Today, Pandora and her kittens are safe at the rescue, enjoying all the comforts of their new home.
“Mama and babies are thriving,” Catnip Acres Rescue president Toni Ferencak told The Dodo. “They are all sweet, and the babies are starting to play and jump around on their mom and are the cutest things in the world. Pandora is doing a great job taking care of her three babies. She is very patient when they are nursing and also when they are playing.”
Shelter team members hope this story encourages pet parents to spay and neuter their animals and to make the right choices when rehoming them.
“We would like to stress the importance of not discarding animals when it becomes inconvenient,” Ferencak said. “There are multiple ways to surrender animals, and this was definitely not the way to do it.”
Overall, the animal lovers are glad that, in this case, everything turned out for the best.
“[Everyone] at the rescue was just super happy that this situation ended with a good outcome,” Ferencak said. “There were a lot of ways that this could have ended differently.”
