Starving Stray Cat Lets Rescuer Feed Kittens First Like the Best Little Mom

One of my cat was taken in by a rescue agency as a starving, pregnant stray. She was being fostered by a friend of mine who can’t get over how different she looks today than she did on the night she was first brought in. Then, she was a tiny, bedraggled thing, with patchy hair and a haunted look. The first night she spent under my friends’ roof, she promptly gave birth to four kittens and ate three whole cans of food—not necessarily in that order.

When I took her home, my own mother remarked on how scraggly and unattractive she was, n insult for which of course, the cat has never forgiven her. And, in a quintessentially feline show of spite, the former stray has blossomed into the most beautiful and luxuriantly fluffy long-haired tabby cat anyone has ever seen. I think of her transformation often, and what it must have taken for her to give her all to her babies when she had so little for herself.

In this video, a rescued stray cat shows the meaning of a mother’s generosity when her rescuer comes in with treats, and the cat ensures that each of her kittens have gotten a bite to eat before she takes any for herself. The mama cat is clearly young, visibly thin, and even appears to have some patchy, bare spots on her neck and face, indicative of hard times and infections or infestations. She’s obviously hungry and her keen eyes watch every bite of meat as it’s thrown to the kittens surrounding her. But she waits to take any until the rescuer hands her some directly.

Related: Stray Mama Cat's Trust in Kind Stranger Gives Her a Safe Place to Have Her Kittens

What a good mama!

In the comments, people are moved by her patience and good nature.

“Mama cats are some of the most resilient compassionate, motherly, empathetic animals I've ever known,” says one person.

And so is the rescuer in this video.

Stray Pregnant Cats

In subsequent clips on her social media page, the woman explains that she’s a vet and was luckily able to diagnose and treat this poor family of cats, who were all suffering from a severe infectious virus so bad that several the kittens had completely swollen shut eyes.

The vet first found these kittens when the mother and her babies approached her on a city street, as if somehow innately understanding that she could help them. And she did, even though she was required to let them crawl freely all over her car on the trip home, as she had nothing else to put them in.

The Future For These Cats

The kittens are recovering and growing fast, and though the vet is watching them carefully, even she is astonished at how much their poor mother was able to do with the little she had.

It warms my heart. My darling cat, too, would have been just like her had she not been rescued when she was. Even in a safe home, one of the kitties did not survive infancy due to the infections they all had at birth.

But the future is bright for this little family, and we hope that all the kittens and their caring mom find happy homes.

(Oh, and pro tip: adopt a mama cat. You’ve never met a sweeter pet.)

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