Laura's Story

Laura and her babies were rescued eight years ago from a garage in Woodbridge. We were alerted one morning to two kittens, approximately one week old, having been found on the floor of a garage in a Woodbridge home. The kittens had been there for some time and seemed to be stone cold and motionless. We arranged for the kittens to be transported to the nearest vet right away and we were very lucky because the vet technician working there was very experienced with kittens. With love, knowledge and care, she slowly resuscitated the two kittens. After their temperatures had been normalized and they were able to move around a little, the revived kittens were then carefully bottle-fed every two hours.

In the meantime, after further investigation, it appeared that Mom Cat and her other kittens were living on the rafters of the garage ceiling! We immediately made arrangements for two experienced volunteers to go in to the home the following morning to rescue the mom and the other two kittens and eventually unify the whole family. The volunteers spent many hours clearing away all kinds of storage items in the garage that were blocking access to the rafters, and to make matters worse, the owners of the home were very uncooperative. Hours later, the volunteers succeeded in clearing enough of a path to successfully rescue the three kittens down from the rafters. Once they ensured that no one else was left behind, they proceeded to get Mom Cat.

Laura, whom we later renamed Mom Cat, was absolutely terrified. There didn't seem to be any way to coax her to come out from where she was hiding: a sure spot that the volunteers could not reach! In the meantime, the owners of the home were becoming increasingly inpatient, insisting that the volunteers wrap up quickly and leave. By early evening, after numerous failed attempts to lure out Mom Cat, the volunteers seemed quite ready to give up. It took me many attempts to reason with the homeowners and to beg them to let us finish our rescue, and several more to exhort the volunteers not to give up!

By early evening, though, things finally turned around for our rescue team. Laura, enticed by the scent of fresh tuna, came out hesitantly from her heretofore unreachable hiding spot.

Some time after our successful rescue operation, Mom Cat and the five babies were reunited and eventually transported to a foster home where she immediately took to feeding all five kittens as if nothing had happened. It was an emotionally tough rescue for the cats and for the volunteers, but much to our relief, Laura and her kittens made it through.

Claireby was adopted the same year of her rescue by ORA members, Clara and Justin Speer, and has since moved with them and their older cat, Mao, out to Los Angeles, California. Dexter was also adopted, but returned after only two days because his new owners found him too "needy," or in other words, too affectionate; Dexter would never leave the side of his adoptive Mom. A few years later, Sara and Sidney were adopted together by an older Mississauga couple (who would prefer to keep their anonymity).

This is our rescue story of Laura and her kittens.

Claudia Vecchio, Founder
ORA-Organization for the Rescue of Animals
http://ora-animalsrescue.org