Oct 24, 2017 3 min read

The kitten I brought home a few weeks ago found a nice home last weekend. Just in time, too, as the rest of the litter – which we incorrectly assumed had not survived – made their presence known at work shortly thereafter. I told my coworkers that if we could trap the kittens, I would foster them, as well.

The first night after seeing them playing, a live trap was set and we caught the mother. We immediately made an appointment with a low-cost spay agency to have her fixed.

The trap was reset, and that night we caught a male kitten, solid black with blue eyes. He was a bit feisty upon removal from the trap, but he quickly cuddled into the vest I was wearing and went to sleep. We reset the trap in anticipation of catching his siblings. I had my eyes on one kitten in particular, a little chubster with a perfect white stripe right across his nose and in between his eyes.

Two days passed before another kitten was caught. The second kitten was a black female with a crooked white moustache and white paws. She didn’t nap in my shirt, but she was content to be carried around in there while looking out at all of my customers.

Finally, several days into the trapping process, the kitten I had been waiting for got hungry enough to venture into the trap.

With eager anticipation of the cuddles he would give me, I opened the trap and pulled him out. Unlike his siblings before him, he started off fighting, clawing and growling.

After several minutes of soothing, cooing and stroking his fur, he calmed down in my hands. I removed my gloves to try to check him over for injuries that he may have sustained from his hostile struggling. Immediately, he whipped his head around and bit down on my index finger. Somewhat in shock, I stared at this kitten that I had wanted to love as it attempted to kill me.

It refused to release my finger, even as blood poured from the holes he was making. A coworker attempted to help pry him loose, but it only caused him to reposition his teeth into flesh slightly to the right of the previous spot.

Oh, man, did it hurt.

Finally, I relaxed my hold – hadn’t realized that I had been squeezing the poor thing – and focused on my breathing enough that he let me loose.

I turned to put him into the crate and must have startled him again, because he turned and bit down on my knuckle as hard as he had bit me the first time.

Tears sprang to my eyes as the blood continued to drip from my hand.

Thankfully, he let go as I sat him down, and I was able to take myself to the bathroom. The bleeding eventually stopped, my wounds were bandaged, and I cleaned up the mess I had made everywhere.

Then I called a cat rescue who came and took the little guy away. (I assure you, my dear readers, that he will be rehabilitated and socialized and not euthanized; I just couldn’t take the chance of him biting my kids.)

The other two siblings are currently cuddled in an afghan in my mudroom with full bellies and each other to cuddle. The mother has been returned to the warehouse to live. Even my finger is returning to normal.

So I would say that, all in all, this story ends as a “happily ever after.”