This runt of the litter was not much bigger than a Chapstick when he was born and didn’t look like he would survive. But with love and care from his foster mom, he made it through.
In 2013, a man stumbled across a litter of newborn kittens hiding in the bushes with their mother. He immediately took the cats to Fabulous Felines NWA, a cat rescue organization in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Day Six. Stuart Little pictured next to a ChapStick for scale. His face and head are still very bald. He almost got…
The cats were not in the best of health, and one in particular was in dire physical condition. The runt of the litter was tiny and hardly moving at all, according to Love Meow. Rescuers didn’t know if he would make it, but they decided to do their best to save Stuart Little.
“Stuart was motionless at the bottom of the pile of kittens, shockingly dehydrated, losing hair, and with eyes so infected and swollen with green pus, we thought he would be blind if he survived at all. But we had to at least try,” Fabulous Felines wrote on their Imgur post.
Day One. We gently soaked the eyes open with warm saline so they could be cleaned and medicated. Poor Stuart was…
The organization sent the family of cats to volunteer staff Amanda Rhea to foster.
“Stuart Little was brought to me in August with his mom plus six litter mates, rescued from outdoors by a Springdale resident,” Rhea wrote. “The mom was malnourished and semi feral and the kittens were really struggling, Stuart Little worst of all.”
About 8 weeks old.
Rhea noticed that the mother cat’s behavior was not normal as she stopped eating and nursing. For the well-being of the mother cat, Rhea sent her to Cat Haven Ranch, a cat sanctuary, and had to bottle-feed the kittens until a surrogate mother cat was found.
It was not an easy task, but the care and love was paying off—Stuart Little was getting bigger and catching up to the rest of his siblings. At 3 months old, Stuart was a solid 2 pounds (approx. 1 kilogram) with fur now grown over his head and body.
Look at how this little guy has grown!
By the fourth month, Stuart found his forever home with his foster mom.
“When Stuart’s brothers and sisters starting getting adopted, I realized for the first time how attached I was to the little guy,” Rhea wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. “He’ll probably always be smaller than average, but who knows? Maybe he’ll surprise me with a growth spurt soon.”
Stuart grew into a beautiful and sweet cat with fur as white as snow, a far cry from the mouse-like size he was before. It just goes to show how love and care can make a difference.
Stuart Little is now 8 months old, but his story recently went viral. We are happy for the publicity, but it has also…
