By Nancy K. Crevier

It was intuition, “Just one of those feelings,” said Paula Young, that led her to stop by the Mount Vernon Animal Shelter of Mount Vernon, New York, after going out to dinner in Manhattan with her son on the evening of Tuesday, August 7.

Ms Young is the director of the shelter, and on occasion someone will drop off one or two cats or dogs for the shelter to take in. But that night, Ms Young found three large boxes on the shelter’s doorstep filled with 63 squirming kittens that ranged from one or two days old, umbilical cords still attached, to six or seven months of age. The kittens were all clearly uncared for, infested with fleas, and in several instances, in grave need of medical attention.

Coming right on the heels of a horribly injured pit bull being left at the shelter just one week earlier, Ms Young believes that the kittens were rescued from a future as bait in dog fighting.

“Who in his right mind would have 63 kittens in one place if it wasn’t for some ill use? Even a crazy cat person wouldn’t have 63 kittens or try to get rid of them at once,” she said.

 It was through the kindness of some good Samaritan who wondered why someone had a great number of kittens and rescued them that the shelter ended up with the more than five dozen kittens Ms Young surmised.

“I couldn’t leave them at the shelter that night,” said Ms Young. “So I took them home and began bathing and medicating them as best I could, and panicking. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with so many needy kittens.”

With media interest in dog fighting heightened by this summer’s allegations of National Football League star quarterback Michael Vick’s involvement in the underground dog fighting world, the news of the Mount Vernon kittens quickly caught the attention of newspapers and television stations.

“A lot of wonderful people came forward to offer foster homes or to adopt the kittens,” said Ms Young. One of those people was an unidentified woman from Newtown who arranged for four of the sickest kittens to be brought to Mt Pleasant Hospital for Animals in Newtown.

“I don’t know who she was. She was just someone who really cared. We called the veterinarian to make sure that the kittens were really going there, and this kind person took them,” Ms Young said. “With so many kittens, we didn’t really have a lot of latitude as to where they all were going, as long as the person passed the interview. And these kittens really needed a vet.”

The four kittens arrived in great distress at Mt Pleasant, according to Dr Rock Vali. “They all had intestinal worms, skin infections, fleas, upper respiratory infections, and diarrhea,” he said, adding that the kittens, between three and four weeks old, were all severely malnourished as well.

Aside from an abandoned and badly burned Pomeranian dog cared for at the hospital last year, the kittens are some of the worst cases of abuse Dr Vali and hospital owner Dr Brian Silverlieb have seen, he said. Using kittens and other dogs as bait gives fighting dogs a taste for blood and is not an uncommon practice, said Dr Vali. The abandoned kittens are just one example of the sad repercussions of dog fighting, he said and added, “Dog fighting is just a terrible thing.”

The kittens have undergone treatment for the various ailments and are on a special diet to calm their digestive systems. Despite the intensive care that the hospital has administered, one of the kittens succumbed to complications on August 28. Another remains in an intensive care unit to stabilize its body temperature. The other two, while still fighting diarrhea and skin problems, are recovering steadily, said Dr Vali.

“They are all very sociable already and should not have any issues for adoption once they are healthy again,” said Dr Vali, who believes the dismal early weeks of their lives will not affect their personalities. “Until kittens are older [than these are], their true natures will not be established. So if they are in an environment with lots of TLC and good care, they will come around quickly.”

Not all veterinarians are willing to take on charity cases, Ms Young said.

“These vets [at Mt Pleasant], who have taken this on should be lauded and applauded. They are walking saints, in my book,” she said.

If all goes well, the kittens should be healthy enough to go to good homes the end of September, said Dr Vali. Anyone interested in adopting should call Mt Pleasant Hospital for Animals at 426-8585 at that time.