MISSISSIPPI – David went fishing the other day but instead, he caught four kittens.
The poor babies had been stuffed inside a pillowcase and thrown out the window of a moving car — a bundle of fur tumbling down an embankment on the Mississippi River.
David, who prefers that his last name to stay out of the news, figured it was garbage at first. He might have simply ignored what he saw, might have shrugged and returned to the business of fishing, had the discarded pillowcase not started to move.
“We’ve been so touched by this story,” stated Kelly Sackmaster, cat director at the Winona Area Humane Society, which acquired the kittens Tuesday after David brought them in.
He explained to the shelter he was on his boat Monday, waiting for bites along Prairie Island, when he started to watch the car in question. As it sped off, David approached and untied the pillowcase — discovering two buff tabbies and two black torties, scooping all of them up and bringing them home.
“He’s an amazing guy, and they are the sweetest angels,” Sackmaster stated. “They’re so cute and loving. They’re about six weeks, too young to realize what happened.”
David could not be reached by phone on Friday by the Daily News, but the Humane Society has posted his story on Facebook, along with several photos of the rescued kittens.
Sackmaster went on to explain that abandonments like this one are not uncommon, that the Humane Society comes across a “strange, unique and touching story … probably once a month.”
In September alone, she continued, there were six cases when people simply left a cat outside the shelter.
It’s the frequency of these abandonments that makes this story even more heartening, she said.
After taking the kittens home, David cleaned them and fed them, and pulled some money together to help with any medical procedures they might need.
Sackmaster noted it is a wonder the kittens were not harmed from their fall. Except for some flea and tick problems, they are perfectly normal and healthy — tumbling around, swatting at tails, meowing high and soft when they want attention.
In just a couple of weeks, if everything goes as planned, Sackmaster stated, people will have a chance to adopt the kittens that were thrown away.
