A duffel bag was tossed out of a pickup truck on a busy Missouri road over the summer. A woman passing by stopped and found two kittens inside the bag, covered in a slimy chemical that appeared to be bleach. She rushed the kittens to an animal shelter.
“Going through in my head [were] all the things that bleach can do to a body,” said Julie Brinker, a veterinarian at the Humane Society of Missouri who treated the kittens.
The list is long, Brinker said, including damage to the skin, eyes, mouth and digestive tract.
After the kittens were washed with soap and water, they appeared to have avoided major injuries — probably because they had not been exposed to bleach for long, Brinker said. Still, the kittens, who Brinker said are probably sisters, were severely underweight, each weighing under 3½ pounds.
The Humane Society of Missouri shared details of the kittens’ situation on social media in late August, a few days after they came in. Dozens of commentators were appalled.
“That’s just heartbreaking,” one person wrote on Facebook. “So thankful that this Good Samaritan was in the right place at the right time.”
“Hard to believe some people could be so cold hearted,” another user wrote.
In the following weeks, shelter staff bulked up the kittens with chicken-flavored food, and their personalities emerged.
The kittens, whom shelter staff named Dolly and Monroe, were inseparable. They walked beside each other, groomed each other and napped together.
“After lots of medical care, love and TLC, these two are healing and showing us just how resilient they are,” the shelter wrote on social media Sept. 11.
Once the kittens gained a few pounds, the shelter put them up for adoption in mid-September, hoping they would find a home together.
About three weeks later, on Oct. 6, Haley Joiner visited the Humane Society of Missouri to look at kittens. Her father, Mike, had died of pneumonia in late-September, Joiner said, and she hoped raising kittens would help distract her from her grief.
As Joiner looked at the available kittens, a shelter employee suggested she meet Dolly and Monroe. The kittens quickly cuddled up to Joiner, and a shelter employee shared their backstory.
“Well, I can’t say no now,” Joiner, 26, recalled thinking. “They’re too cute, and their story will get you.”
As Joiner completed paperwork to adopt the kittens that day, Dolly and Monroe each climbed out of their separate carriers so they could see each other, Joiner said.
The shelter shared on social media this week that the cats, who are 7 months old, had been adopted together.
At Joiner’s home in Festus, Missouri, the kittens — whom Joiner renamed Edith and Estelle — are still inseparable. They walk side-by-side, sleep together in bed or in their cat tower and enjoy the same salmon-flavored treats.
Joiner said they bring her as much comfort as she had hoped. On nights when Joiner feels sad and sits on her couch, thinking about her dad, she said the kittens hop onto her lap and shoulders.
“They’re immediately there to cuddle,” Joiner said, “and fill that gap for me in my heart in that moment.”
Animal cruelty investigators are still searching for the person who tossed the kittens from the truck, said Laura Keller, a spokeswoman for the Humane Society of Missouri. Regardless of how and why the kittens were abandoned, Joiner said she’s lucky that she and the cats met when they did.
“We were destined to find each other,” she said.
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