in another case of animal abuse in area
But the trip took a detour Sunday when Lowe, 20, and his friend, Washington University student Nestor Wheelock, 24, spotted a skinny kitten
in the empty lot adjacent to Lowe's home in the 4300 block of Hartford Avenue. Its white fur matted and left side smothered in "yellowish-brownish
gunk," the kitten approached them, purring.
"He looked really, really bad," Lowe said.
Assuming the 5-month-old male kitten was the victim of a chemical spill, Lowe and Wheelock asked a neighbor for baking soda, mixed it with water and applied it to the kitten's coat. Then they wrapped the kitten in a towel
and shuttled him to the Humane Society of Missouri's St. Louis headquarters
at 1201 Macklind Avenue.
From there, the kitten - a Siamese Flame-Point mix - was taken to the Animal Emergency Clinic at Big Bend and Interstate 44 for immediate care.
The cat was returned to the Humane Society Monday morning.
The diagnosis: first- and second-degree burns that will eventually heal, and possibly some third-degree burns that won't.
Teresa Garden, director of veterinary services for the Humane Society, said the kitten probably was doused with some type of chemical, likely a household item such as bleach, motor oil or ammonia.
In the past summer, Garden said, she has seen nearly a dozen such cases,
all of which turned out to be "malicious" incidents, often committed by
children or adolescents.
A humane society investigator is working with St. Louis police to find the culprits, who are suspected to be neighborhood children.
As for the kitten Lowe and Wheelock named Suerte - the Spanish word for
"luck" - Wheelock hopes to adopt him in about a month, when he has recovered.
