Kitten Found Glued to Road with Rubber Cement by Samaritan on Drive to Work
When we say “curiosity killed the cat,” we generally mean that cats are nosy in such a curious way that they often end up getting themselves into sticky situations.
But in this case, the curiosity (or whatever else fueled this horrible act) was not the cat’s, and the stickiness was literal.
Chuck Hawley was driving early Friday morning near Salem, Oregon, when he spotted what looked like a small box in the middle of the road. As he got closer, he realized the box had fur, and was no box at all — it was a kitten, motionless in the middle of the street.
He did what any kind-hearted person would do and got out to check on the little critter.
“When I went to pick her up, her feet were stuck to the road, and I’m like uh oh,” he told Fox 12. “So I start to pull her feet up — and it was like a rubber cement, so she was glued to the road.”
“It was all under her neck and then she had a little bit down her side, but it was mostly her tail and her feet.”
Someone’s first reaction to this situation might be to guess that the kitten had somehow accidentally found its way into a bad spot on the road and gotten stuck, but Hawley believes it was more nefarious than that.
“We were hoping that she had just walked through glue,” he said, “but it was pretty apparent that somebody had soaked her feet in glue and sort of rubbed it into the pads of her feet.”
“I think the way she was sitting someone actually went out and put her there. Because there were no glue foot prints around, it was just a glob of glue under her, so it looked like someone just took her and put her in the road.”
The vet at Silver Creek Animal Clinic agreed with his assessment.
“I mean, what can you think when something like that happens?” Dr. Jenny Bate said. “Our first reaction is disgust, and then what could cause a person to do something like that?”
“Somebody put that glue there, I don’t know how or why, but yeah, I mean, somebody did that,” she concluded.
Once the kitten was checked over and cleaned up, the pressing question of a home came up. Hawley finding the little ball of fur almost seems providential in retrospect.
“The funny thing is we were just talking about getting a cat a couple of night ago,” Hawley said. “Seems like there’s easier ways for the cat to find us, but if that’s how we’re doing it, okay, I guess that’s how we’ll do it!”
The kitten now has doggy siblings and a very caring family that will keep her away from glue and off the streets. She also has her own Facebook page and a name to suit her.
Apparently Mrs. Hawley named the kitten, as Mr. Hawley said, “My wife named her Sticky!”
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