09/04/2026
💔🐾 FOR THE KITTENS WE COULDN’T SAVE 🐾💔
Rescue often brings heartbreak.
Managing feral colonies comes with its own challenges, and unfortunately, my colonies—like so many others—are often used as dumping grounds.
Sometimes we find the dumped kittens.
Sometimes we don’t.
The last few months, we have found three kittens who had apparently been dumped and then wandered aimlessly through the forest until, somehow, they found one of the areas where we feed our colonies.
They were found months apart, but their condition was heartbreakingly similar.
All three were covered in ticks.
All three were emaciated.
All three had been starving, dehydrated.
And all three eventually lost their fight.
Cats can be incredibly hardy and adaptable, to a point, but kittens are different. They don’t have the body reserves of an adult cat. They don’t have the experience or survival skills to suddenly fend for themselves in an unfamiliar place.
Dumping a kitten near a colony does NOT mean the colony will take it in.
It does NOT mean it will find the food.
It does NOT mean it will survive.
Sometimes it means that little kitten wanders through the woods, hungry, frightened and alone until its tiny body simply cannot go any farther.
The little black kitten is the one weighing especially heavily on my heart.
She was so skinny. So sucked up. So depleted.
But God, she wanted to live.
She ate.
She purred.
She soaked up affection.
She wanted to be loved.
She wanted a life.
And for a few days, we let ourselves believe maybe love, food, warmth and medical care would be enough to undo what had been done to her.
But her little body had endured too much starvation for too long.
Sometimes in rescue, no matter how desperately you want to save them, you simply can’t.
And then the only gift you have left to give is to end their suffering.
We held her, loved her, and let her go.
And it hurts.
It hurts to finally find a kitten who has somehow survived long enough to reach you. It hurts to get your hopes up. It hurts to watch them begin to trust you and realize that people can be kind.
And it is absolutely awful to then have to euthanize that same kitten a week later because someone abandoned her long before you ever had the chance to help.
This is for the little black kitten.
And for the tabby kitten before her.
And for the sweet orange kitten who suffered the same fate.
And especially for all the little ones we never found.
The ones who wandered away from the road instead of toward our feeding stations.
The ones whose cries nobody heard.
The ones whose stories we will never know.
I hope there is a heaven for kitties.
I hope somewhere there is a place where their bellies are always full, their bodies never hurt, and they never have to be afraid.
A place with warm sunshine, soft beds and gentle hands.
A place completely free from the cruelty and evil that exists in this world.
And I hope when they get there, somehow they know…
They mattered.
Even the ones we couldn’t save.
Even the ones we never found.
They all mattered. 🖤🐾🌈
