When you’re on the train, you don’t expect to see a little kitten stuck on the tracks. But that’s what happened to Portia Duke, a tour guide on the Alaska Railroad, who managed to rescue the kitten she found while working over the weekend. Willow the kitten is enjoying playing with the best cat toys in safety, while Duke is aiming to raise money for the vet care the tiny feline needs.
Duke saw the kitten while the train stopped to switch engine crew.
“We could hear it crying over all the noise the train was making,” she told PetsRadar. “We saw it and radioed the conductor for permission to be able to get off the train, but unfortunately they run on a very tight schedule so it wasn’t possible.”
She couldn’t stop thinking about the kitten after, even calling a local campground to see if they could help, but they didn’t answer.
“It was crying so loudly that any number of wild animals could hear it – plenty of predators that would love to have a little kitten for dinner. And so my heart was just breaking.”
Because Duke was struggling to sleep that night, she drove out with her boyfriend in the morning holding out for the “one-in-a-million shot” that the kitten would still be there.
“At the same time, we heard that little squeaky meow and we both just looked at each other and started walking faster, because we knew she was out there,” Duke said. “She was alive and we found her within about 10 yards of where we saw her the day before 18 hours earlier. We were both just in complete shock. We just were stunned.”
They picked her up, put her in a carrier, and began trying to find an emergency vet to better establish her condition. A vet found that Willow weighed half a pound and was about three or four weeks old, and while she needed dewormer and antibiotics, and has some minor tail issues, she’s doing “really well” and becoming playful.
“She's much more sure on her feet,” Duke shared. “She's not wobbling and falling over as much and she's developing a personality. Obviously, to be a survivor out there all that time overnight, we can tell she's very tenacious. She’s a little fighter, a little survivor.”
If you’d like to find out more about Willow’s story, or donate to help contribute to her vet costs, you can do so on Duke’s GoFundMe.
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