One day I came to the barn to feed. There were plenty of kittens scampering around. I placed food for the adults in the usual neat piles, then placed kitten food in its usual places. I heard screaming from somewhere deep in the barn. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but assumed another female was giving birth. I had no idea what that would sound like. This was screaming.
The next day Rose and I came to feed together. We were on our way to some function, and were pretty dressed up. The screaming was still going on. It wasn’t a female giving birth. We searched. There, in the interior of the barn, was an old Lacrosse goal. Caught in the goal’s netting, about five feet off the ground, was a rag-like figure, flailing about. It was an orange kitten with its head stuck in one of the netting holes. She was wildly waving her legs and screaming. We couldn’t touch her for all her activity. Rose ran to the Syria store to grab a scissors. I held an apple basket under the kitten while Rose cut the net, dropping the kitten into the basket. The kitten continued to thrash about in the basket; there was no way we could get that net off. We covered the basket and brought it to the local vet, who sedated her and cut off the net. The vet’s comment: “Be careful, she’s very feral.”
That kitten, thereafter named Lacrosse, ended up back at our house, where she was quickly socialized (it took about fifteen minutes), bottle fed for a bit, then integrated into our family, where she spent the rest of her life.
Lacrosse's First Day Home
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