It’s a tough job, but some kitten had to do it.
An animal rescue group in Kansas City, Missouri, pronounced a 6-week-old black cat the “most responsible kitten in the world” after he was found watching over three younger kittens whose mother was nowhere to be found.
“Meet the most responsible kitten in the world,” wrote the KC Pet Project on Facebook last week alongside a photo of the fuzzy quartet. The nonprofit added that “the person who found them told us that he’s been taking care of babies, and we think this is about the cutest thing ever.”
The person who spotted the four felines outside first waited to see if a mother cat showed up. When no mother materialized, the individual “brought them to the shelter together,” KC Pet Project spokesperson Tori Fugate told HuffPost in an email.
Very young kittens need milk from a mother cat ― or must be bottle-fed by human caretakers ― to survive. But the older kitten, who has since been named Binx, appeared nevertheless to be looking out for the “little ones” and trying to care for them “as best he could,” Fugate said.
The three younger kittens, estimated to be about 2 weeks old, are all male and have been named Ollie, Frankie and Ziggy.
It’s unknown what happened to the mother. But all four kittens are “doing great so far,” Fugate said, and are in the care of a foster home, where the youngest ones are being bottle-fed every few hours. Binx is still with them.
“They all went to a foster home together,” she said, “because how could we split them up?”