Maltese Poodle Mix Rescue - Cookie
by Lindy Taylor
(Lawrenceville, GA USA)
Cookie saved the kitten
I rescued Cookie my Maltipoo 4 years ago. My Maltese Poodle mix rescue was shy and looked thin and sickly. Now, not only is she adorable, but she has tugged at the hearts of everyone I meet. She is now friendly, loving and just saved a kitten from drowning in a storm drain. Here's the story:
How a Cookie saved the Kitten
In these times there is a saying ‘paying it forward’. It’s when someone does something nice for someone they don’t even know and that person then goes on to do something for someone else and it creates a chain of kindnesses to strangers.
I have seen this ‘paying it forward’ at my Starbucks drive-thru window. A customer at the window will ask to pay for the car behind them, even though they don’t even know who it is. When that car pulls up to pay and they are told that
their bill was paid-for by the person in front of them who has already driven away, it gives them such a good feeling that they decide to do the same for the car behind them. I have seen this become a chain of events for dozens of
customers. When this occurs, it makes my day too!
Well, one morning as I and my husband were on our daily walk with our dog, Cookie. We passed by a storm drain in our neighborhood and we heard a tiny meowing. Cookie’s ears stood up and so did ours. We stood still and tried to figure out where the meowing was coming from. After a few more kitten sounds, we discovered that the meowing was coming from down inside the storm drain. Then we continued our walk home. I called the animal rescue department and they said they would send out a rescue vehicle. About an hour later I received a call-back from animal rescue unit. The lady on the other end of the
telephone line told me that the rescue worker had tried to rescue the kitten but his loop tool was too short to reach the kitten and he was not allowed to climb into the storm drain. He, therefore, had to leave without accomplishing the
rescue. I then called the public water department and they said they were not in the animal rescue business. So, I tied two sheets together and took a hot dog and my dog cookie back to the storm drain. If no one else would rescue that poor kitten, then I would try myself.
When I arrived I noticed that the storm drain cover was off and as I leaned over to peer into the drain, a head popped out. It was the head of a lady that lived in our neighborhood and she was trying to coax the kitten to her but the kitten
was scared and it has crawled far into the drain pipe that crossed under the road leading to another storm drain. She said that the kitten was too small and young to grab hold of the sheet that I had dropped into the hole.
That was when I devised a plan. I told the lady to stay in her hole and to take my Maltese Poodle mix and hold her while I climbed into the storm drain hole across the street. The manhole cover seems very lightweight as I pulled it up and set it aside. After I climbed into the hole I could see her and Cookie on the other side and in the middle of the drain pile under the road I could see the tiny outline of the kitten. I told the lady to put Cookie down and I proceeded to call Cookie to me. Cookie was a bit confused but when she saw me on the other side of the pipe she began to come toward me. When she got to the middle of the pipe she stopped and sniffed the kitten. She and the kitten sniffed each other for a minute or two and then Cookie came toward me.
The plan worked, the kitten followed Cookie through the drain pipe right into my grasping hands. Hurray! The lady at the other end climbed out of her hole and ran across the street to help me get the Kitten and Cookie out. We pushed the manhole covers back in their places and we took the kitten back to my house to bathe it. After Cookie and the kitten were bathed the kitten snuggled up to Cookie for warmth and comfort. I think it wanted Cookie to be its new adoptive mother.
At first Cookie was a bit leery but her motherly instincts kicked in and in a heartbeat Cookie was allowing the kitten to snuggle and Cookie started licking the kitten dry, just as the mother cat would have done after the ordeal this poor tiny kitten went through that day.
Cookie was a rescue dog that I had rescued from a bad situation three years before. Cookie was now ‘Paying it forward’. Even the kitten was ‘paying it forward’ for Cookie, because the Veterinarian had told me that before I rescued her, she had had a litter of pups but they had been take away from Cookie. Now Cookie has a chance to be a mother all over again to this precious needful kitten.
