A woman and her dog were on a stroll one day in a distant part of England when they came across an old, tattered luggage on some defunct railroad tracks. She didn’t give it a second thought until her dog began frantically smelling it.
The woman stopped in front of the suitcase, and was suddenly able to hear faint meows coming from inside. She unzipped the suitcase just a little bit, and discovered a mother cat and her eight kittens.
The mother cat, subsequently given the name Tarini, was severely dehydrated, and all of the kittens were underweight and frail. The generous woman brought all nine cats home with her, and she promptly made a contact to the RSPCA to have them picked up. While her young were sent to an RSPCA facility, the 5-year-old mother cat was rushed to the doctor and placed in urgent care.
She was held in the vet’s office because she was so dehydrated and required a drip, but Amy De-Keyzer of the RSPCA reported that she has since been relocated to the cattery to be with her litter and is doing much better.
The kittens were only 5 weeks old, and other than needing food and love, they were all in pretty good health. Staff at the RSPCA decided to name the kittens after characters from the Disney movie The Aristocats. Their names are Toulouse, Tiny Tim, Scat Cat, Berloiz, Alli, Duchess, Marie and Eve.
The RSPCA wants to make sure that this small family is robust and healthy before sending them off to their permanent homes, so it will still be some time before they are available for adoption.
The kittens are still too small to be placed in a new home, and we must first ensure the mother is well enough, according to De-Keyzer.
If the woman’s dog hadn’t forced her to stop and open that suitcase, Tarini and her kittens might not have survived. Now they are safe and happy, building up their strength until it’s time to find their forever families.