This brave kitten risked it all and saved his siblings on a B.C. farm
At just two weeks old, a starving orphaned kitten stranded in a bucket with his three siblings went on what rescuers describe as an incredible journey – and now he has a name befitting his nature.
Aslan – named after the brave and noble lion from the Chronicles of Narnia – was found in a barn in critical condition and is now in the care of the Tiny Kittens Society in Langley, B.C.
"We wanted to honour him for the fact that he saved his family," the charity's founder Shelly Roche told CTV News.
Last week, a farmer called the team at Tiny Kittens, who work predominantly with feral felines, and told them she had found a lone black kitten crying in her barn. That discovery led the farmer to find three more kittens in a bucket that was starting to fill with rain water.
Roche says she has no idea how Aslan summoned the strength to climb out of the bucket and navigate over hoses and other equipment to the spot where he was ultimately found. He was also lucky to have survived given how vulnerable he was while making the journey all alone at just two weeks old – an age where even healthy kittens are still wobbly on their paws.
"It was pretty incredible," she said, adding that Aslan was so hypothermic when he was found that his temperature so low it didn’t even register on a thermometer.
And his siblings were in similarly dire straits.
"They were hypothermic, they were hypoglycemic, they were emaciated, they were dehydrated. They just were really on the edge," Roche said.
While the team at Tiny Kittens always tries to remain hopeful, they also know that some cats and kittens just won't survive.
"We do everything we can, and then we just have to wait and see," Roche said.
In this case, the possibility of a happy ending for the four siblings is emerging as all of the kittens have "rallied" since being rescued, according to Roche.
"We're pretty excited," she said.
Caring for rescued feral kittens is only part of the work Tiny Kittens Society does. The organization also finds foster and forever homes for cats and kittens, and works with rural property owners to spay and neuter animals that in most cases have been abandoned on their properties.
More information on their work is available online. They also have a 24/7 live stream of the kittens in their care, where people can monitor the progress of Aslan and his siblings.
Aslan and his three siblings are shown in this photo provided by Tiny Kittens Society.
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