Jackie-O, a mother dachshund, feeds her family, two of her own puppies and two of the kittens she adopted, at the Young County Humane Society Shelter. The kittens have been raised with the puppies for close to a month. The animals have become inseparable, eating, sleeping and playing together. (Photo by David Rupkalvis)
Nature turned upside down
by By David Rupkalvis
(Posted 11/10/2009 03:17 pm)
editor@grahamleader.com
Dogs hate cats, and cats hate dogs.
Even the youngest child understands that simple law of nature.
Put a dog and a cat in the same room, and they are bound to fight. Who hasn’t seen dogs and cats facing off? The scene usually ends with a cat in a tree, and a dog below barking wildly.
But in an emergency, even nature can be turned on its head.
When four young kittens were brought into the Young County Humane Society Shelter on Oct. 9, Kim Baxter had a choice to make.
Baxter said the kittens were found in a warehouse at Swan right after a severe storm. She said the storm likely scared the mother cat away.
“They were in fairly good condition,” she said. “You could tell they had been nursing. He did the right thing.”
Since the kittens were too young to live on their own, Baxter could either set up around-the-clock feedings, giving them milk every two hours, or she could find a new mother to adopt them.
There was only one problem. The only new mother in the shelter was a dachshund. Baxter said she has heard reports of dogs taking in kittens and feeding them, so she decided to give it a try.
She put one cat in the cage with the mother dog and her two 4-day-old puppies and was surprised to see the dog immediately take to the kitten. She slowly put in the other three.
“She took them right away and started cleaning them,” Baxter said.
Over the last few weeks, the kittens have become part of the litter, eating with the puppies, playing with the puppies and sleeping with the puppies. As a result, the mother dog and her litter believe they are all puppies.
“They believe they’re dogs,” Baxter said. “Actually the puppies have pooped in the litter box a few times. As far as they’re concerned, they’re all littermates. They have no fear of dogs whatsoever.”
While the kittens love dogs, they aren’t so fond of cats. Baxter said she put an older kitten in the cage last week just to see how the kittens would interact with other cats. What she saw was four kittens bundled together on one side of a cage, leaving the other cat by itself on the other. But put them with dogs, and the kittens are ready to play.
While the kittens have reached 6-weeks-old and are starting to transition to solid food, they still need their “mother.”
“We separate them during the day,” Baxter said. “They’re eating canned food and beginning to nibble on dry food. They’ll probably be ready in another week.”
But when the kittens are put back in with mom, they let nature take its course. The cats and the puppies, which are almost the same size, fight amongst themselves for the best eating positions. The mother dog, for her part, treats the cats as her own.
“She’s very protective of them,” Baxter said. “If she doesn’t know someone, she doesn’t want them there.”
When the kittens are ready to be adopted, Baxter said she will look for homes that have dogs. After all, the young cats believe that’s what they are.
For now, the volunteers and employees at the shelter are enjoying as nature is turned upside down.
