I got the call just after 8pm. She didn't have anything with her, and the kitten wouldn't let her get close enough to pick it up. I grabbed one of my feral cat traps and met her up there. One of the employees met me outside the drive-thru and explained she thought someone had dumped kittens in the dumpster behind the restaurant after they closed the night before. She didn't know how many had been dropped off, but she said when she came to work that morning she noticed one had ventured off into the road and gotten hit. I looked around but only saw one kitten, the same one that was making all the noise next to the window.
I took this picture:
He looked about 4-5 weeks old, pretty dirty and dusty and didn't want anything to do with me. He found a storage shed next to the dumpster and even though he was desperately hungry, he wouldn't come out for more than a second or two without diving back behind it. I set one of our custom kitten traps with some wet food. I also then set one of the hairiest hair triggers I've ever managed to set. I honestly figured I'd be there a few hours, but within a few minutes of us backing away from the trap, he was pacing around it. He was leery of all of it. He didn't like me or the trap, but his nose kept leading him back to it. Within another few minutes he was sticking his head in the trap. Again, something spooked him and he ran back behind the shed. At this point I was wondering if he'd even go for it.
We backed off even farther, the employee that was outside talking to me went back inside. Eventually he came back to the trap and got a little more courage. He finally went all the way in the trap, but he was holding still and being really careful eating the wet food. He didn't even weigh enough to set off the lightest trigger I could possibly set. Right when frustration was beginning to set in, a car in the parking lot started up. It startled him just enough to where he forgot about being all delicate with whatever he was touching and spun around to get out of the trap. He put just enough pressure on the trigger plate and set the trap off. I had him. Victory is mine.
After getting him back and inspecting him, he looked like he was in need of some food, a bath, and a flea treatment. Besides that, I couldn't spot anything seriously wrong with him. I transferred him to a larger cat cage when I got home and got baby kitty hissed at a few times as I expected. We set him up with some food and made a vet appointment for the next day.
The vet confirmed what I thought. Besides getting his shots and a flea/de-worming treatment, he was good to go. Within a few more weeks he would be big enough to get his second round of shots and his rabies vaccine. It was my job now to socialize him. The next few days I made sure to take him out of his cage every few hours and pet him while I topped off his food and water. I still got hissed at, but his body language seemed less and less panicked. After two days of doing this pretty regularly, I didn't get hissed at anymore. He actually started purring a little when I would pick him up.
Then I brought him inside. He was immediately my buddy. I couldn't go anywhere in the house without him following me around and sitting close-by or on my lap. He purred all the time, so much so the vet couldn't listen to his heart or lungs on our next vet visit because every time you picked him up -- instant purr. He made a habit of falling asleep on anyone he could. He had decided he loves people.
So now, he's a totally domesticated cat. He spends his days playing with the other cats, sitting on my lap, or keeping an eye on me whenever I'm on the computer... from on top of the computer. Like so.
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