The car was meowing.
Little did the motorist know that a 5-week-old feral kitten apparently had hitched a dangerous ride from Newport Beach to Laguna on the skid plate just beneath the burning-hot engine, officials said.
“I don't know how he did it,” said Dr. Gershon Alaluf of the Canyon Animal Hospital, where the kitten is being cared for. “He had no burns, no scratches. He was just very, very scared.”
Called to the scene May 23, Laguna Beach Police Department Animal Services Officer Dave Pietarila spotted the pound-and-a-half kitten with orange and white fur trapped on top of the skid plate, the metal surrounding it too fiery to touch.
Pietarila waited long enough for the engine to cool and got the cat out, but not without being bitten by the spooked animal.
Authorities declined to release the name of the driver.
They’re also baffled about the kitten’s choice of transportation: Cats sometimes like to find refuge in hot engines to keep warm, but usually only when it’s cold outside.
“I honestly have no idea why this particular cat would have crawled into this engine on a summer-like day,” said Pietarila, who has responded to one other similar case in the past year.
The kitten, nameless for now, will soon be transferred to the Laguna Beach Animal Shelter. It will be available for adoption when it turns 12 weeks old.
“He came in so stressed out and shocked, he was ready to kill anyone who went near him,” Alaluf said. “Now we can’t get him to stop purring.”
(OCRegister - May 30, 2014)
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