Cats are known to be fiercely protective of their young, as Cindy demonstrated. She stayed be her kittens side, shielding them from BB pellets as she was being shot in the head by young miscreants with no respect for life, a Los Angeles County-based animal rescuer reported.
What happened was the Los Angeles County-based animal rescuer spotted a dirty, malnourished cat hovering over her five kittens last week, and didn’t suspect that there was anything seriously wrong when the cat hissed as she approached as mother cats are very protective of their young the rescuer just assumed the cat was behaving the way mothers do.
When the cat and her weeks-old litter were taken to the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., however, doctors noticed something out of the ordinary: the mother cat had been shot in the head with a BB gun. The BB entered through the top of her head and ended up behind her ear; the rescuer didn’t notice because her matted hair had covered up the wound.
“She had stayed with her kittens and hadn’t moved,” spokesperson Jessica Gercke tells PEOPLE. “We don’t know much, but what we do know is she stayed right there and didn’t leave her babies.”
After staffers removed the BB, gave her a full medical exam, spayed her and cleaned her up, the cat, now named Cindy, has been recuperating well. Her five kittens were made available for adoption on Friday, and they were all adopted by the weekend. Now that she’s seen all her kittens off, Cindy is looking for a forever home of her own.
Update: Cindy has been adopted! The Helen Woodward Animal Center announced that she found her forever home over the weekend.
