An eight-week-old kitten was lucky to still have all of its nine lives.
On Monday, the female tuxedo cat was stuck inside a frame of a pick-up truck and driven for several miles until the truck driver heard meowing at a stop light. When he pulled over, he found the cat with her head tightly stuck in a hole in the frame.
"I think she may be short a life or two from her nine lives," said Dr. Brie Sarvis, the hospital director for the San Diego Humane Society, Escondido Campus. "I believe that she probably had her face stuck while he was driving, so that's pretty terrifying."
The truck driver pulled over on Centre City Parkway near state Route 78 in Escondido and the San Diego Humane Society veterinary team met him there.
“I wasn't sure where to go from there because we couldn't take the frame apart. We couldn't cut anything," Sarvis said. "So we got pretty worried that we wouldn't be able to get her out.”
She sedated the kitten and used Q-tips to gently push the kitten's head through the hole. She then used a snare to pull the kitten to an opening where she was able to reach in and get the kitten out.
"When we arrived, she was obviously very frightened," Sarvis said. "So that's part of why we gave her some medication to help calm her down and allow us to manipulate her to try to free her."
Staff at the Humane Society named the kitten Wednesday. The kitten is doing well. She was spayed Friday and is ready for adoption though the truck's owner has expressed interest in adopting her.
Sarvis said it's kitten season right now. This is the time when kittens are weaned from their mothers and start living on their own.
"Car engine kitties are pretty common because they're seeking warmth. And even in San Diego, where it's not that cold, they tend to climb up in there, especially these little tiny ones," she said. "They're looking for a place to hide. So paying attention to the area, seeing if cats are around, especially litters of cats, they're more likely to be up in there."
Servis recommends people knock on the hood of their car a few times to wake up and warn any cats who may have fallen asleep near their warm engine.
While Wednesday may be spoken for, the San Diego Humane Society still has plenty of kittens ready for adoption for anyone looking for a furry companion.
