Hannah: So I just got a call from an Animal Control officer
who said that a man walked into PetCo with a tissue box with a baby kitten in it and said,
"Can you take this kitten?" and then ran out before they could even answer.
So Petco called the Animal Control officer and the Animal Control officer called me.
We've been dying for babies! We needed a baby... a feline baby.
Andrew: Feline baby.
Hannah: Not a human baby, I'm not interested in human babies.
My favorite babies to care for are the really, really tiny ones,
because they're the hardest to care for, they're the most vulnerable,
when you raise them from that young you feel so bonded with them.
Oh, this is like straight up the nose. This is not a flattering angle.
I should have looked.
Okay, we're here.
Andrew: It's always so exciting.
Hannah: Here we are! Petco! Ready to get our new baby! You ready?
Andrew:Yup.
Hannah: Hi! Oh, hi! Andrew: Ooh. [Kitten meows throughout.]
Woman: They did feed it once I believe.
Man: Yeah, we fed them once.
Hannah: Okay, what did you feed the baby?
Man: Just the milk substitute.
Hannah: Okay, the KMR?
That's a newborn baby.
Really dirty. Covered in fleas.
Okay! Well you got good lungs on you!
Andrew: Yeah, he's alive! Hannah: That makes me happy!
[Kitten meows.]
Man: Yeah, you know, he's real talkative.
Hannah: Yeah. How long have you guys had him?
Man: Uhh, I would say maybe an hour.
Hannah: Oh good! Really, really recent, good.
Okay, well, I brought a little heat pad for him to help him get warmed up,
and we'll take them back, and he'll be in good hands.
Look at this little angel. [Quiet meows.]
Andrew: So cute.
Hannah: I love him. I can't wait to get all the flea dirt off of you. Do you see all that dirt in there? See that?
That is not good
All right, so we need to give him a name.
Andrew: Yup.
Hannah: And he came in a tissue box, so there's gotta be something we can come up with around that.
Andrew: There's nothing glamorous that happens with the tissue.
It's all like sick fluids that you discard immediately, so...
Hannah: That's like what I use to wipe butts.
Andrew: Yeah.
Hannah: Okay, maybe we don't name him after tissues. That's not very dignified. Andrew: Butt wipe.
Yeah, we're not... Hannah: I mean, that will probably be his nickname in about three minutes.
[Kitten crying.]
It's okay.
Weigh him.
[Kitten continues meowing.]
81 grams so he's definitely just a couple of days old.
Before we feed him, I want to make sure he's nice and warm.
When a little guy like this is found outside in the cold,
it's really not safe to feed them immediately.
You want to help them get back to a good temperature before you feed them.
What I'm doing right now is I just have him on a heat disc,
covered by a blanket so that we can get him to the right temperature,
so his organs are ready to process the food that we're gonna give him.
You can see with that warmth, he really calmed down.
Yeah, you got warm.
I'm just gonna keep him on that for a couple minutes.
Make sure that he's warm enough to feed.
It's okay.
I'm estimating that this little guy is probably...
about five days old. He doesn't have his umbilical cord anymore.
[Kitten meows.]
So zero to five days they'll have an umbilical cord.
His is gone, but he's still really little. His ears are folded his eyes are closed, and he only weighs 80 grams.
So I think he's under a week for sure.
He's so little that I'm gonna start him with a syringe.
This is a three milliliter oral syringe
And I'm gonna use a miracle nipple mini with it.
[inaudible]
So at this age he's not gonna eat more than one syringe.
So we'll see how he does. Sometimes the first feeding can be a little tricky.
You wanna try this?
You wanna try that?
Ohhh!
He's hungry!
Wow! Okay!
He's hungry.
Andrew: Yeah. It's really good, though.
Hannah: That is a really good first feeding. Wow!
He's swallowing all of it I can feel it.
The funny thing is when their eyes are still closed you can't tell when they're awake and when their asleep.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Hannah: Sometimes they fall asleep when they're eating.
That was delicious.
He ate two milliliters, which was a nice big meal for a baby this one--He's purring!
I can't believe you're purring and you're only a couple of days old.
Can you hear his purr?
[Faint purring sound.]
You're so spectacular little dude. That was great!
You're so good at eating---oh! There's a flea! Oh my god! Do you see him I got him?
Squish him. Oh, we're evicting all your fleas, there's one too.
Okay, now, let's see if you got to go to the bathroom. His little backside is so dirty.
Whoo! We gotta a lot of pee! [Kitten meowing loudly.]
Okay, so see how dark his urine is. Andrew: Yeah.
Hannah: That's because he's dehydrated. He's dehydrated because he wasn't eating.
Well we'll take care of that. Your pees gonna be nice and clear next time.
That probably feels really good to get to finally pee. He has to poop. You have to poop. [Kitten meows getting softer.]
We're gonna be doing a lot of...
pooping into a tissue over the next couple weeks.
And we gotta wash those fleas off him. I feel so horrible giving baths to these little tiny guys.
But we'll just make it really fast.
So this is a flea comb. The flea comb will pick up all the flea dirt,
so you see all those little black specks. This is like leftover...
blood and crust from the fleas being on him. So they're all over him.
He's crawling with fleas. Fleas are gross little parasites that
will nest in the animals fur and they will actually suck his blood, and that is
bad enough for an adult cat, but it's really bad for a kitten
because a kitten his size can't afford to lose any blood.
Basically the only safe way to get these fleas off of him is by giving him a bath.
We're gonna use a gentle baby soap for him,
so this is like a fragrance free, tear free, baby bee wash by Burt's Bees. That's what I'm gonna use on him.
We're gonna try to do this as quickly as possible because I really don't want him to get a chill.
So the water is comfortably warm. [Kitten meows throughout bath.] The first step is to...
create a ring of soap around his neck,
and you have to be very careful not to get his face. We don't wanna get his mouth,
we don't want to get his eyes. We just want to create a ring around the neck.
This protects his head from any of the fleas from traveling up.
Okay once I've got that, I'm gonna cover his body, and we're gonna quickly suds him up.
Now as sad as it is to hear him cry, it's actually a great sign cuz it means he's responsive.
Umm, a worst sign would be if he was not responsive, if he was...
lethargic, or not meowing, not reacting.
This is not pleasant for him but it is much more pleasant than losing his blood and becoming anemic.
You never want to put a kitten through this unless there's a good reason to.
We got to dry him off immediately. You never ever leave a kitten wet.
They cannot regulate their own body temperature and being cold is not safe for him, so we've got his...
little heating pad right here, which we're gonna use with him.
That blanket is contaminated now because it's covered in all of his nasty flea eggs, so we'll wash that.
And then we gotta wash his head.
Sorry, so I'm gonna purrito this little guy. I wish I had like ten arms sometimes.
Give him a little sponge bath on his dome.
See all that black flea dirt. Can you see it?
That's pretty gross, so that's all blood and dirt.
I'm gonna try to get as much of it off as we can, avoiding his ears and avoiding his eyes.
You can even see the red from the blood.
That can't feel good for a little guy.
These fleas will hide between their toe pads. They'll hide on their eyes, in their ears.
They'll hide all over these little kittens so you're gotta be very thorough.
See 'em? Andrew: Mm-hmm.
Hannah: They're trying to take up occupancy right here, and I'm saying no!
Rinsing him down the drain, get out of here.
Just trying to get these living ones off of him.
It's like fighting a war against little aliens. See the blood?
That's from the fleas. This is why fleas are not our friend.
[inaudible]
I gave him a little center part.
[Kitten's meows quietly.]
Okay, so now he's eaten. He's been weighed.
He doesn't have any more fleas, he went to the bathroom.
Now we're gonna just keep him warm and let him sleep for a few hours.
And we'll wake up and we'll eat again.