Pet Connection: Meet the Preemies

FARGO — If you’re ever wondering just how much hard work and heartbreak goes into animal rescue, you’ve got the answer in these five tiny, fragile, one-week-old kittens.

They were discovered abandoned, no mother or caretaker in sight, in a cardboard box at a gas station, having been born premature and undeveloped.

Their odds of survival are far from assured even today, but there would have been no way for them to survive without someone taking action.

That someone is Heather Clyde, of Homeward Animal Shelter.

The smallest of all the five is the tiniest kitten she’s seen in 21 years of rescue work, just half the size of one of his siblings.

With kittens this tiny, there’s no way to save them except by feeding them every two hours — every hour on the hour for the tiniest in the litter.

It’s hard, long, exhausting hours of work… and Clyde says one of the hardest aspects is knowing that sometimes stories like these don’t end happily, since mortality rates for abandoned preemies can be high.

But the kittens are lively and active, although their eyes and ears aren’t open yet, which means they’re still both blind and deaf.

Clyde and her colleague Heather Klefstad joined the Morning Show to talk about Thursday’s Spayghetti and No Balls fundraiser, and how your contributions can help save the lives of homeless pets throughout the region.

For more information: https://www.homewardonline.org/news-events/spay-ghetti-no-balls-dinner.html