"Kitten" the kitten

I found a tiny kitten when I was out walking my dog.  It was on a bit of ground between a metal fence and a paved road, far from any houses, and with no mama cat in sight.   The kitten was crawling around and would have certainly been killed by traffic within a few minutes if I had not rescued it.  Nearby was another kitten, already dead.  I couldn't bear to leave the living kitty behind to be killed.  So I picked it up and carried it home where I quickly gave it a bath.  After checking online I figured that the kitten was about 3 weeks old.  I also read that you aren't supposed to wash tiny kittens, but I wasn't going to leave it all filthy, and it survived the bath.

Our big cat wanted nothing to do with the kitten at first.  But Teddy dog loved it.  My silly dog thought that he was the kitten's mama.  He licked it and gently carried it around in his mouth.  (later, when the kitten was older, he wasn't quite so gentle with it, but it learned to be tough)  I thought it might die because it wouldn't eat on its own, I had to feed it milk out of my hand.  Somehow it lived.  We had the kitten for 6 weeks because it took me awhile to find it a new home. 

 

Here is Teddy with the kitten just before it left.

After having already asked a lot of people and not finding someone to take the kitten, I thought I would ask my English students if they wanted it.  In my big class of 24 students, no one was interested.  I was discouraged.  I hadn't thought it would be so hard to get rid of the kitty.  Our pet quota is filled, so we really couldn't keep it.  Besides, we already have a cat, and I'm not even a "cat person."  Then I asked my smaller class of 12 students.  I had 3 of them raise their hands.  All 3 wanted the kitten!  So I left it to them to discuss and decide who the kitten would go to. 

 

So here is one of my students (the one who best convinced his classmates that he needed a kitten I guess) getting ready to take the kitty home.  He said he was going to name it "Kitten."  How do we transport a cat in Mali?  In a bird cage of course.  I really need to find a cat carrier or get some kind of box built before we move again.  Our big cat made the long trip here crammed into this same bird cage!  I sort of missed the kitty the first day after it was gone, but I don't miss dealing with a litter box.  Our big cat goes outside to go to the bathroom, so normally we don't have a litter box.  I am glad that Kitten has a new home, and I hope that she will do a good job of getting rid of all the mice there.