The incredible hitchhiking kitten

Around six months ago, Marti and Bob Burgess noticed a feral cat hanging around their property in southwestern Gilmer County, not far from Carters Lake. They knew it was hungry because it was getting into their garbage and stalking birds. Soon they learned more about their visitor.

“Foolishly — as I look back now — I put food out, not knowing anything about cats,” Marti revealed. “A couple of weeks later I noticed she was extremely pregnant. She ended up having six kittens at a neighbor’s house; it was posted on our neighborhood group page. A couple weeks later, I noticed she was bringing these kittens over two by two and putting them under our old Yukon parked in the driveway. Then she proceeded to teach them how to get into the Yukon from underneath — and then get on top of the motor.”

Since the felines literally moved into the vehicle, the Burgesses seldom drove it.

“(The mother) would go off into the woods, and she’d tell them to stay there, and being obedient little kitties, they did,” she continued. “Eventually they came out, although we did manage to kill one of them unintentionally. We thought the car was clear, but there was one in there. We kept feeding them because, well, they’re cute.”

Two other kittens disappeared, and Marti figures it was due to coyotes, a fox or hawks.

“So we’re down to three kittens,” she said. “We did manage to trap all three, they’re all males. Someone had put me in touch with FOGAS (Friends of Gilmer Animal Shelter), and they gave us some traps and we had them neutered.”

Still, Marti didn’t know what they were going to do with a mother cat and three kittens. Yet one of the little ones was endearing. She named it Micah, after the biblical prophet. Meanwhile, it was the Christmas season. She and Bob hosted a parachurch ministry party at their home on a Thursday night in mid-December, and on Friday Micah was missing.

“I thought, oh shoot, there goes another one,” she said. “And he didn’t reappear and didn’t reappear.”

However, on the next day at the home of Mary Jo and Steven Cockburn — 15 miles away — a couple who had been at the party noticed an unanticipated visitor.

“We have Ring (security camera) on our front door, and we saw a kitty cat out there, and it’s an animal we don’t normally see at Walnut Mountain, except for deer,” said Mary Jo. “So I went out there and it was a little kitty cat, and I didn’t know who it belonged to. It acted like it was hungry, so I fed it. The next day and the next day it was there again meowing at the door, so I finally let it in and played with it. It was going to be down to 25 degrees that night, so I let it stay in. It even crawled up and slept on the bed with me.”

At least most of the night.

“The next morning it woke me up at 4 o’clock and it was just wild as a buck, so I finally put it outside with a quilt and food and water,” she said. 

The kitten had also leapt up onto her kitchen counter at one point, at which point Mary Jo declared, “You’re going out!”

“On Tuesday, I went into Bible study,” Mary Jo said. “I’d taken pictures of the cat and sent one to (daughter) Karen. We’d talked about having a kitty cat because we lost our dog several months ago. I said something to Marti about having a new kitty cat because I knew about her feral momma cat. She said, ‘The one I wanted to keep has gone,’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ve got one now.’ So I showed her a picture of mine and she said, ‘That’s my cat!’ And I said, ‘No, that’s my cat!’ She got her picture out and I got my picture out, and when the vet spays or neuters them he puts a little notch in its ear. And sure enough, we got to looking at those cats and they were identical.”

Marti added, “We both said, ‘That’s the same cat!’”

Both deduced the kitten had hitchhiked from one home to another.

“It had to have ridden on the motor of our truck,” said Mary Jo. “But when we left that night, we had no idea we were carrying a cat home.”

The Burgesses came to see the Cockburns, and they all had a taco salad together — but not the kitten — and Micah rode home in a cage.

“Now I let him in the house for 10 or 15 minutes, pet him, play with him and then put him out because I don’t want my furniture shredded,” related Marti.

What’s her future as a new cat lover?

“I’m afraid this momma cat’s going to get pregnant again,” she replied. “We tried to trap her, but she knew what those traps were and wouldn’t take the bait. Right now (during the phone interview) the mama cat is sitting on my back porch staring at me. We did get rid of our Yukon, and were going to get rid of it anyhow. So that option is gone for the mother to repeat that situation. I do not want more cats, and I know the thing to do would be to stop feeding them and they would go away. But now it’s cold, and I feel sorry for them. 

“I’m not sure what we’re going to do.”