Kitten thrown from Chesapeake car is healing, enjoying fame

CHESAPEAKE

Perhaps the toughest thing for Trooper these days - worse than the pins in his femur and the clunky blue cast covering his right back leg - is being left alone.

Put him down and step away and the meowing starts, a squeaky sound that doesn't seem to cease until you lift him up again.

But he is rarely alone.

The hazel-eyed, barely 1-1/2- pound kitten was tossed from a moving car and onto a highway the last morning of July. Now, Trooper is the most famous feline at Mount Pleasant Veterinary Clinic, where he has lived since a motorist stopped to pick him up.

With fame have come cards from well-wishers and gift baskets packed with toys and so many monetary donations for his $2,000-plus surgery that the vet's office had to put a stop to them. PETA offered a $2,000 reward for information about the motorist. So far, that hasn't yielded any calls.

"We're all running around holding him when we get the chance," said Barbara Springer, a receptionist there. "I'm trying not to get attached because it'll break your heart when he leaves."

That could be a week or so, said Gabrielle Reed, a licensed veterinarian technician and Trooper's primary caregiver. He'll go home to Michele Laney of Moyock, N.C., the woman who stopped to save him.

In the meantime, Trooper is on a high-calorie, high-protein diet. He gets regular antibiotic injections. His back end is shaved. He's got scabs on his pink nose and under an eye. Stepping with the cast-covered leg is a bit of a struggle.

"He's really doing fabulously," said Reed, who had placed Trooper on a white towel, and then a scale, for a photo shoot Thursday.

He stretched his neck and started to squeak.

"Life is rough for the famous kitten," she said. "I know. Yes, I know. Come here."

Reed scooped him up. He curled against her dog-print scrubs. He was perfectly quiet.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5208, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com