Cassidy, the kitten who lost both of his back feet shortly after birth, has been fitted for a wheelchair.
Andrew Phillips of Handicapped Pets Canada met with Shelly Roche of Tiny Kittens last week, and they got Cassidy fitted out to take his first steps.
Phillips had offered his services shortly after Cassidy appeared on the Tiny Kittens website and Facebook page.
Because of the wide exposure from Tiny Kittens and local media, there was a lot of support for finding some kind of solution that would allow Cassidy to move around freely.
“We got inundated with calls from the general public wanting to help Cassidy,” said Phillips.
The chair will be extendable as Cassidy grows larger, and when he outgrows this the kitten can move into a new chair.
“He still needs to grow into it a little bit, and get a little stronger, but I think it will be really wonderful for him,” Roche said in an email to the Langley Advance.
Other options like prosthetics may be investigated for him when he’s older, she said.
“We ended up getting three wheelchairs,” Roche said. That includes the one built by Phillips, one 3D-printed by two Walnut Grove Secondary students, and another built by an online viewer.
Any excess equipment will be made available to other animals in similar need in the future, Roche said.
Cassidy was found living in a feral cat colony in rural Langley. He had apparently lost his back feet shortly after birth, but had survived almost nine weeks when the landowner trapped him and gave him to Tiny Kittens to care for.
Cassidy suffered from a severe infection, and is still slowly recovering. He is to meet with a specialist this Thursday (Oct. 1) to check into whether he can maintain the use of his left knee.