When a pair of nine-week-old kittens were found in a feral colony, trapped and brought in to rescue, one of the kittens was discovered to have a distinct handicap. The darling little black and white tuxedo kitten was missing his back legs, according to The Huffington Post.
Speculation is that he could have actually been born with his legs, but his mother accidentally chewed off the bottom half of them when she chewed off the umbilical cord. Whatever the case, this little guy was darn lucky to still be alive. How on earth did he manage to survive, when he couldn't even walk?
See the siblings on their first day arriving at the nonprofit animal rescue TinyKittens, the perfect place for this pair. While Topper was a healthy kitten, his little brother Cassidy needed intervention immediately if he was going to have a chance at survival.
The veterinarian visit revealed that not only was Cassidy undernourished, actually starving, but his chewed off stubs, where his back legs should be, had a life-threatening E-coli infection in both stumps, and he was also unable to urinate on his own.
"He was feral and also missing his legs, so the emergency hospital assumed we would want him euthanized," TinyKittens founder Shelly Roche said. "But he was such a fighter, and I saw he wanted to live. He deserved a chance."
"We don't know what he was eating for the first nine weeks of his life [before he was rescued]," Roche said, ABC News reported. "It may have been gravel." But even with all of the pain medications and antibiotics, the little guy sure loved his food.
As Cassidy started feeling better and began to move around, Roche could see that he was frustrated. Imagine Roche and Cassidy's delight when a pair of local high school students heard about the kitten's plight and decided to make a 3D design model and then build a teeny tiny wheelchair for the appreciative Cassidy, Mashable reported. That temporary fix worked wonderfully while he waited on his official wheelchair from Handicapped Pets Canada.
See the video of the now 12-week-old Cassidy learning how to "roll" in his new wheels, allowing this rags to riches kitten a chance at life and a chance to walk on his own for the first time.
