My brother has a stray cat that lives by his house. Every spring this cat has kittens. This particular year I got a phone call from him asking if I would take care of a kitten he had found abandoned by it's mother. He waited hours to see if the mother came for the crying kitten and she never returned. He put him in a box with some blankets and brought him to me. I named him Rango.
When I first got him he was the smallest kitten I had ever held. I quickly researched how to take care of an abandoned kitten for days and days. I figured out that he was less than a week old when I got him. Most websites painted a very grim picture for an abandoned kitten in the hands of a human at such a young age. I raised him from scratch and he is healthy as a horse.
However, I did have one more hurdle to jump. That hurdle always seems to have one name: DEBO. When I first got Debo I had one cat (Kittens) and 2 ferrets (Hyphy and Nessie). Kittens is a very particular cat that was rescued from the streets. She is paranoid and doesn't usually like too much going on at once. She HATED Debo when he first arrived. She had gotten over worse though and they eventually came to an understanding. The ferrets were another story though. Debo looked at them like they were prey. I never let them play together but one time because he acted like they were sandwiches that one time. A short time later I gave my ferrets to a rescue because Hyphy was old and became very ill. He had adrenal disease and had developed a horrible UTI. Nessie went with him because he wouldn't eat without her. Sorry for the side love story.
Anyways, it was starting to get down to the wire. My parents didn't want the kitten in the basement anymore since he was now running around like a typical kitten and biting ankles because he wasn't raised with a litter to learn better. I live in the attic of my parents house (not like an unfinished creepy spider infested attic) and I have a huge walk in closet which I call my "beauty room". I rigged it up real nice for Rango to live in. Put up a gate so Debo and Rango couldn't interact yet. Rango wasn't having it. He quickly escaped. Leaving me with no choice.
I put Debo in his muzzle, leashed him up and let Rango go. Debo greeted him like a dog greets another dog, poked him with his nose for like an hour.
I paced and paced wondering if it was too soon to take his muzzle off or if I should listen to my gut which was telling me Debo loved him. I took it off. They have literally been attached at the hip ever since. Best brothers. It is these sorts of things that make me wonder how many wonderful dogs have been discarded and put down because of fear aggression when all they need is someone to give them a chance. Sure, he can't go to the dog park or to petsmart. Hell, he can't even go to the park in the snow without some old man asking "is that a pitbull" because he is barking his head off and growling. But, he can give an orphaned kitten a companion. I think that is something. I think that is something a lot of you might not be able to do.
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