By SHELLEY TERRY - Staff Writer - sterry@starbeacon.com
AUSTINBURG TOWNSHIP — Imagine driving through Ashtabula County on the way to Florida and finding a box of kittens on the side of the road.
That’s exactly what happened Tuesday.
A family found five kittens tossed in a box on the side of Route 45, and asked a store clerk what to do with them. The clerk pointed them in the direction of Austinburg veterinarian Becky Salinger.
The kittens look to be about 2 weeks old, she said.
“We are seeing more and more abandoned kittens,” Salinger said. “It’s a growing problem. It’s alarming.”
The staff at Austinburg Veterinary Clinic got busy feeding the kittens “kitty formula” with eye droppers, she said. Then they made the tiny tabbies a bed of soft towels inside a large storage container, but they still had to find them a surrogate mother.
Salinger called her mother.
“I’m really a dog person,” said Claudia Salinger of Concord. “But our whole family is crazy about animals.”
That explains why her daughter became a veterinarian, she said.
Three of the kittens are black-and-white tabbies, and the other, the one Claudia Salinger calls Big Mouth is a male brown tabby.
“He’s a good eater,” she said.
Unfortunately, the runt of the litter died, leaving four kittens.
The cute kittens will be ready for adoption in a week or two, when they can eat solid food, Claudia Salinger said. Right now, they are being bottle-fed and cuddled every two hours or so, she said. To adopt a kitten, contact Salinger by phone (440-275-1071) or stop by the clinic (1568 Route 45, Austinburg).
