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Adoption Requests Pour In For Smurf The Kitten, Who Was Dyed Purple, Chewed By A Dog

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 06:53 PST, Jan 4, 2016

It may never be clear exactly what happened to Smurf the kitten.

The kitten was found last Monday in a box that had been left on a road in San Jose, California. Inside were lemon slices, purple rags, and the 8-week-old kitten whose fur had been dyed with indigo fabric dye, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

An anonymous rescuer brought Smurf to the San Jose Animal Shelter, and they called the 9 Lives Foundation to give it some much-needed medical care. The kitten weighed less than two pounds and was covered in puncture wounds that may have come from a dog. NBC Bay Area reported that the kitten had suffered a dozen deep lacerations and bite marks.

Smurf was dyed before he was bitten, and shelter staff believe Smurf was used as a chew toy for a larger animal, CNN reported.

“He wasn’t beaten or strangled; these are repetitive bites all over his body,” said veterinarian Monica Rudiger. “I can’t imagine how else he would come to have so many puncture wounds.”

Since Smurf arrived, the staff at 9 Lives have treated him to heated blankets and Gerber baby food. He’s also been shaved so that his natural fur color, believed to be gray or black, can come through. The kitten is also making friends with a blind cat.

But after suffering this bizarre and cruel abuse, Smurf has a long road ahead of him. He needed stitches and was given antibiotics to prevent infection. And on Saturday, he needed emergency surgery.

On Friday, vets said that kitten became “quite depressed and withdrawn” and they grew concerned that some of the bite wounds Smurf sustained on his tummy had become infected. So they took x-rays of his abdominal cavity and then performed an exploratory surgery on Saturday night.

Luckily, vets didn’t find any internal damage, but they did fix an injury on the kitten’s hind leg and knee, which means he’ll now be able to extend his leg. By Sunday, Smurf was eating “like a champ,” and his health is improving.

Smurf the kitten’s story has gone viral after a photo of his strange purple fur was posted online. For the past week, people from as far away as Brazil and England have volunteered to adopt him.

But it’ll be a long time before the kitten is ready to leave the shelter. His wounds still need to heal and his fur needs to grow back in, so he won’t be available for adopting for several months.

These enthusiastic adoption offers have Rudiger worried, however. She’s concerned that people only want to adopt Smurf the kitten because his fur was dyed and that his story will inspire other animals to be abused in a similar way.

Every day, she posts pictures of abandoned and neglected animals on 9 Lives Facebook page, and many of those animals have suffered the same level of abuse Smurf experienced, and in some cases even worse.

Sadly, these animals never garnered as much attention as Smurf the kitten has.

“It’s become a craze. I appreciate the exposure, but I hope the message is long-lasting that animal cruelty is real, and this is just one guy who’s experienced it. There are plenty of other kittens who need to be saved.”

All of the cats that her shelter takes in are at risk of being euthanized; most of them have been taken from high kill shelters. They have plenty of both kittens and injured cats.

And those animals, even though they aren’t purple like Smurf or come with a viral story seen on the evening news, are also in need of a “forever home.”

“We want to make sure people don’t want him just because he’s purple,” she said. “We don’t want to encourage other people to do the same thing.”

[Photo via YouTube]

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