Sharjah: For a whole week, whenever I left my building I saw a kitten in a bad state. Both his eyes were covered with dirt and he lay still beside a restaurant’s kitchen door. Across the street was his mother and siblings. The mother was breastfeeding the rest of the kittens, except for him. I suppose she had abandoned him because he was sick.
He was skinny and so small, less than a month old. I felt sorry for the kitten, but I could not take him as I already had a rescued cat in the apartment, and I knew that my mother would not approve.
A few days later, I told my sister I wanted her to see the kitten. We went to the place I had last spotted him, so we could take him upstairs to get him cleaned up, feed him, and give him back to his mother. But, when my sister saw him she said that he needed immediate medical attention. And so, we decided to take him to a veterinary clinic in Sharjah.
When we were looking for a cardboard box to put him in, one of the workers in that restaurant came up to us and said: “He is dying, why bother yourselves? You will not be able to save him!”
We ignored him and took the kitten to the clinic. The vet cleaned his eyes and ears, checked his teeth, clipped his nails, checked his temperature and gave him an injection. After examining him, the doctor said that he was starving and hadn’t eaten for a long time.
We took him for a grooming session, bought him a cat carrier and took him home. We put him in a separate room, as the other kitten was bigger and we were afraid that they might fight. Additionally, we wore worried he might transfer any viruses that he had and make her sick, too.
He was so small and light in weight. He did not even meow; we thought that he had lost his voice. Ten days later, we took him to the vet again, who was surprised and said there was a positive change in the kitten since his last visit.
We called him Nunu, which losely translates to small baby in Arabic. The only tiring thing was that we had to play with the kittens separately for a few months, because we waited for him to regain his strength. When they met, Naughty, the older kitten, was slightly vicious. I think this was because of her living conditions before we adopted her. It took time, but eventually they became friends. Now, Nunu has become bigger than Naughty and he has started to meow. Saving this kitten’s life meant so much to us.
- The reader is based in Ajman.
