Two Kittens Rescued From Car Engine Compartment Are Adopted

two cats who survived car engine compartments

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

Cases of cats becoming trapped near car engines tend to make the news in the winter, when cats are trying their best to escape the cold. As it turns out, cats also try to escape the heat. This is what happened in two separate cases in Maryland. The northeast has been suffering a heat wave over the past month, and even the cats can’t keep cool.

Here are the stories of Ford and Fusion, named after the cars the kittens were rescued from.

FUSION

Fusion is a six-week-old kitten who was removed from an engine compartment of a car on June 21 by Anne Arundel Animal Control with a great deal of assistance from a local towing company. Animal Control had attempted to remove the cat from the car two days prior, but were unsuccessful. The car owner saw the kitten exiting the car and believed he was out when he drove from Shady Side to Edgewater. Thankfully Fusion wasn’t injured during the trip and was rescued from the vehicle. He is an extremely affectionate kitten found his forever home after being at the shelter more than three weeks.

At the time of his removal, Fusion wasn’t very affectionate and bit one of those helping to remove him. For that, he was held in quarantine for 10 days as a rabies precaution. He has since found his forever home.

FORD

Ford is an 8-week-old kitten who went for an actual ride before his rescue. Last week, Anne Arundel Animal Control officers removed the kitten from a car’s engine compartment after the owner of the vehicle drove it from Annapolis to the Animal Control headquarters in Millersville. The kitten was seriously overheated and had to be given water before an officer removed him from the car. Ford has also gone to a forever home now.

DISTURBING ALL AROUND

This is a disturbing story all around. For one thing, these kittens shouldn’t have been away from their mother at such young ages. It also means the owners (if there are owners) of the two mother cats aren’t spayed, and will likely produce another litter before the end of the summer or early fall.

It also shows that cats do indeed get up into the engine compartment during hot days. If a car is parked under a tree, the metal of the engine may even feel cool against the cat. A good place to curl up and take a nap. This article was my most recent warning owners who use a remote start button to cool their car before driving. There are also many articles at PoC about our car fan blade injured cat Sealy, who lost his left ear in a car fan blade accident.

Ford and Fusion are very fortunate not to have been seriously injured or killed while in the motor compartment of a car. And the owner’s of these vehicles are lucky they didn’t have to face the horror of finding a mutilated or dead cat after the car fan blade has done it’s work on an unsuspecting cat.

THE LESSONS

There are several lessons to this article. The first is to have a cat spayed or neutered so there won’t be an 8-week-old kitten to climb up into the motor area. The second is to keep kittens with their mother. We also need to pay attention “under the hood,” even when the temperatures are hot. And avoid using a remote car starter regardless of the season. There are just too many dangers involved.

I also wonder whether Ford was purposely driven from Annapolis to animal control knowing the kitten was under the hood. That thought makes me more nervous than Rudolph Furtado’s balcony act cats.

Ford and Fusion were lucky to find homes, as many kittens run out of time while awaiting adoption, and euthanized to make room for more unwanted kittens.

Elisa

Sources:

  • capitalgazette.com/news/
  • lifewithcats.tv/2013/07/22/

Please search using the search box at the top of the site. You are bound to find what you are looking for.

4 thoughts on “Two Kittens Rescued From Car Engine Compartment Are Adopted”

  1. These two kittens are so very lucky not to have been mangled by the car engines.

    That’s a good suggestion about making engine compartments inaccessible to cats and other small animals.

    I’m pleased that Halfords finally make an antifreeze with bitterant added. It apparently only costs less than 1p per litre to do this and that’s at the retail price.

    There have been several campaigns over the years to make it compulsory for manufacturers to add s bitterant. The government have never been interested in legislating for this.

    I read once that most anti freeze is imported from China, and it would fall to the importers to add the bitterant.

    There’s also a very slightly less toxic to cats version, I can’t remember the name, but it’s similar to ethylene glycol which is the really toxic one

    Every year our vets see several fatal poisonings from this stuff.

    Once again, cars and irresponsible people are enemies of cats 🙁

    Jane

    Reply
    • It is possible to install,installing an underpanel keeps cats out of your engine bay, gives you faster warm up times, reduces your car’s aerodynamic drag, and keeps the mud and salt out so you can keep a cleaner engine.

      Reply
  2. Why can’t people just give a damn for a change and spay and neuter their animals. Why are people so lazy. They want to watch tv and not spend money at the vet I guess. People shouldn’t be allowed to have animals in their homes if they can’t be responsible.

    I wish animals were treated as important as children.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Ellina Cancel reply

follow it link and logo