Pit Bull Adopts Newborn Kitten and Now They'll Never Be Apart
— -- Pitty and Kitty, a pit bull and newborn kitten, can't bear to be apart. And now, they never will be.
They were discovered on the side of a Dallas, Texas, road last week by a "good Samaritan," according to the veterinarian who is bringing them back to health at Mercy Animal Clinic.
It was a member of Dallas Dog RR -- a group that works to rescue dogs from the most impoverished parts of Dallas -- who spotted Pitty, as she has come to be called, lying on the side of the road, said Dr. Rick Hamlin. As she put Pitty in the car, a person walking by mentioned there was a kitten too. Sure enough, the Dallas Dog RR worker, Hamlin said, went back to the spot and there lied Kitty.
Kitty immediately attached to Pitty's nipple, which Pitty was fine with.
Hamlin said Pitty had recently been lactating. "It seems she had been nursing the kitten and had just dried up." He called the timing of their discovery the "stars aligning."
Hamlin said the kitten, about 10 days old, would have died within 24 hours had it not been rescued.
Kitty arrived at Mercy Animal Hospital and started being bottle fed. Pitty immediately went into mother mode, licking and stimulating Kitty with her tongue the way her mother would.
Kitty needs to be taken home by Hamlin each night to be bottle fed. The first night was hard for Pitty, he said. "When I took Kitty out of the cage [that she had been sharing with Pitty since they arrived] Pitty started howling. It was the first vocalization she made since she arrived."
The next morning when they were reunited, Pitty just "cleaned and cleaned and cleaned" the kitten. "It was a tremendous reunion," Hamlin said.
Given all they've been through, Hamlin said the two will be adopted out together, noting that the "hysteria around pit bulls is exactly that." Pitty, he said, "adopted kitty and provided maternal needs for kitty."
