We noticed a little tabby hanging out by our place in New Orleans. Before we could determine whether she had people watching over her, she had kittens under our house. We didn’t discover this until our inside cat, Norton, started staring at the floor and then a little while later we heard the mews and coaxed her out. Stella was a tiny 2-week-old kitten who had apparently been elbowed out by her (unbeknownst to us at this point) siblings, and she was crying because she was hungry. We brought her in and gave her food, took her to the vet, took her mama Ezmerelda to the vet, found out she had siblings, and took them to the vet and now everyone is spayed/neutered.

Their mother was too wild to bring inside at that point and there was a family down the block who had been looking after her so we let her continue her lifestyle (now spayed and with clean teeth after her recent dental work), placed two kittens (Tennessee and Bartleby) together and kept the remaining three (Stella, Artemus, and Crenshaw). We became a five-cat household and the “kittens” have been with us around 8.5 years.

We were in a position when we needed to get healthcare quickly in order to bring the kittens inside and spay Ezmerelda, their mother. Louisiana SPCA (LA-SPCA), particularly the Feral Cat Program, was stellar in their support to help us give care to our cats and so many who come through with the cat caretakers in the New Orleans area.