A kitten in the middle of a road stopped a Richland County deputy. Here’s what happened next
In the early hours of Friday morning, deputies from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department were on patrol when they heard something crying.
A tiny, black ball of fur.
In the middle of Longtown Road near Blythewood, was a kitten. The kitten was only a a few weeks old and his mother was nowhere in sight, so the deputies scooped him up.
The kitten was dirty, his eyes glued shut from gunk, Deputy William Hunter said, and it looked sick.
“Are you comfortable taking care of this cat?” Hunter asked the other deputy. She said no.
Hunter decided to take it. He emptied a container of cleaning products from his car and got a jacket to make a bed for the kitten. They rode around together for the last hour and a half of his shift.
“I went from call to call with this little kitten screaming at me from the passenger seat,” Hunter said. “He’s a noisy little guy.”
Then his wife, who is studying to become a veterinarian, came out to help him. Hunter and his wife are no strangers to taking in stray animals. They’ve nursed nine different cats, as well as dogs, chickens and a squirrel.
“She was all on-board for it,” Hunter said. “She’s very passionate about animals.”
The couple cleaned up the kitten up and fed him kitten formula, which he took to well. They took him to a clinic, and he’s now on antibiotics for a viral infection, but he’s doing great, Hunter said.
“The eyes are wide open now, he’s stumbling around because he can barely walk,” Hunter said. “He’s wide-eyed and bushytailed, trying to figure out what’s going on.”
He’ll climb up on things, and he likes to sleep on peoples’ shoulders and curl up next to them while they’re on the couch.
The kitten twitches his ear when he eats. So, Hunter and his family have dubbed him “Twitch.”
Will Twitch make a permanent home with Hunter? He says he’s unsure, but they are looking into at least being a foster family for the kitten. His two sons are already pretty attached.
“We’re taking it one day at a time,” Hunter said.
