They didn’t want her newborn kittens to be orphans 😿
In early June, a woman in Northern California discovered a surprise in her backyard — a litter of tiny kittens. She quickly realized they belonged to Muffin, a stray cat she’d seen around the neighborhood. While she cared deeply for the little family, she didn’t have the means to raise them, so she turned to social media for help.
That’s when Joy Smith, founder of FieldHaven Feline Center, stepped in.
“I’m the cat lady around here,” Smith told The Dodo. “So I get ‘notifications’ like this often.”
FieldHaven was just a five-minute drive from where Muffin had her kittens. A friend of the woman who found the litter offered to transport the little family to the center. But the trip didn’t go as planned.
Just half a mile from the center, Muffin — likely scared by the unfamiliar sights and sounds — jumped out of an open car window at a rural intersection and disappeared.
When the kittens arrived at FieldHaven without their mother, Smith was heartbroken. At only two weeks old, they were far too young to be without her. Smith worried not just for the kittens, but also for Muffin, now lost in unfamiliar terrain.
Still, she jumped into action. She organized a search for Muffin while checking over the kittens. To her relief, they were in great shape.
“Mom had been taking excellent medical care of them,” Smith said. “No fleas, chubby bellies, clear eyes and noses.”
Smith tried everything to lure Muffin back. She placed the kittens in a carrier near a humane trap, hoping their cries would draw her in. She even played recordings of kittens meowing on YouTube — a method that had worked for her before — and waited in her car for hours. But there was no sign of Muffin.
Over the next few days, Smith walked the area at dawn and dusk, using a flashlight to spot “cat eye shine,” and putting out food in case Muffin returned. Still, nothing.
Fearing the worst, Smith placed the kittens in an incubator to keep them warm and enlisted the help of an experienced foster caregiver to bottle-feed them.
“The kittens were not happy about not having their mom to nurse from,” she said.
Then, a week after Muffin vanished, Smith received an astonishing message: Muffin had returned — to the exact yard where she’d given birth.
The journey back was an estimated 2.5 miles through rural land with predators like coyotes and bobcats.
“[Muffin] either had to travel the road or go through an uninhabited area of woods and grassland,” Smith said. “She has to be a clever hiker.”
Smith, who has experience rescuing cats displaced by wildfires and evacuations, wasn’t entirely surprised.
“This ‘homing pigeon’ type behavior is common,” she said. “Cats often try to return to their home territory.”
Muffin was safely and securely transported — this time without any open windows — to the foster home where her kittens were waiting. The reunion was pure magic.
“No one takes care of baby kittens like a mom cat can,” Smith said. “Mom is just darling.”
The kittens are now nursing contentedly and cuddling together in their foster home. Once they’re weaned, the foster hopes to adopt Muffin permanently.
After years of rescue work, Smith is still awed by stories like this.
“Cats are such marvelous creatures,” she said.