Grandma's booties get a tiny kitten climbing

Nikki has fostered a lot of animals, and she took Scottie in when another rescue asked her to. He came from Arizona, a scrap of black-and-white fluff with his fur going every direction, and he had two little nubs where other kittens have back legs. One of them had bone showing through, the vet told her, and it would have to come off once he was big enough.

Nikki panicked a little. She did not know how a kitten with legs like his would get on, or whether anyone would want to adopt him, so she set up a room just for him. He hated it. He screamed and cried all night, until she scooped him up and brought him into her own room, where he settled right down.

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He could hop well enough. Nikki made him a makeshift set of stairs in her room so he could practice walking, and coaxed him up and down. He got the hang of them, and then he got fast, and he started banging his little nub on the wooden steps. That hurt, and the stairs were done.

So Nikki asked her grandma for help. Grandma had been a ballerina and was good at this kind of thing, and she made Scottie a pair of booties. With the booties on, he could hobble around the whole house.

He watched the other cats go up the cat tree, and soon he was going up after them. Nikki could see it then. He was going to have an ordinary life. When the vet looked at his X-rays, the word was that he did not need the booties anymore.

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Scottie grew up happy and playful, and Nikki started looking for his home. Quite a few applications came in. One of them was from Moses, who had a kitten named Scout, the same age as Scottie, and Moses fell for him on the spot.

Before he left, Nikki put together a little travel bag just for him. For a lot of people who followed his story, that bag is the part that brings tears.

He went home to Moses and Scout, a brother his own age. Scottie has never acted like a cat with a disability. As far as he knows, all cats are built like this.