Spartacus’ adoption story: My husband and I were celebrating our 26th anniversary in Greece. One evening we heard what sounded like a kitten crying in distress, so we began searching for it and found an abandoned kitten just hours old. We couldn’t reach him, but after some quick thinking we were able to carefully extend a selfie stick and balance him on the end that holds the phone while slowly pulling him up until we were able to reach him.
Lucky for him we foster neonatal kittens so we already knew what to do with a kitten that small, however, since we weren’t home, we didn’t have any of our usual supplies (bottle, formula, blanket, etc). Knowing time was of the essence for kittens this small, we frantically tried to gather supplies but had difficulties finding what we needed; pet stores were closed, the nearest vet was closed, and the grocery store only had goat’s milk, which we bought as a last resort, however, we had to find a pharmacy to get an eyedropper to feed him.
As we rushed to find a pharmacy that was open, we happened to find a vet that only opened in the evenings. Thankfully he had one box of kitten formula which included a bottle and nipple. We quickly made a bottle and fed him right there; this was just the beginning of our journey…
We tried to find a rescue that could take him, but the few we found would not take a kitten that young. Knowing that we couldn’t just leave him to die, we altered our plans to only include events that we could take the kitten (now named Spartacus) with. I kept him warm by keeping him in my sports bra. We fed him every 2hrs and took him everywhere with us- the subway, tourist events, restaurants, a ferry to the next island, and yes, even the plane back to Athens. When the time came to return to the States, we packed up a little “diaper bag” for him and off we went. The flight was long, and we were happy to be home where I had all my supplies on hand in the nursery we had set up for kittens.
We placed Spartacus, who was now roughly 1.5 weeks old, in the incubator to provide him the best environment so that he could continue thriving. After just a couple of days in the incubator, he started showing signs of separation anxiety, so we decided the best thing for his well-being was to continue taking him everywhere with us since that’s what he was already accustomed to, so that’s what we did.
Our intent was only to foster him, like all the other babies we take in, but we ran into some health issues which included FCKS (Flat Chested Kitten Syndrome), only one working lung, and EPI (Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency). Any one of these are life threatening, but to have all of these at one time stacks the odds against him. Not knowing what his fate would be, we worked closely with the vet to try and overcome these things. He’s now 3-months-old and has beaten the odds, proving to be a true Greek warrior! He’s now part of our family and still goes everywhere with us, including out of State trips.
About Happy Paws Kitten Rescue: Happy Paws Kitten Rescue is a non-profit organization dedicated to caring for, providing medical treatment, and re-homing homeless, abandoned, and abused cats in East Tennessee. We are also dedicated to promoting proper care of animals through community education and to strengthening the human-animal bond.