Many animals seem to understand when they’ve been rescued and look for the sweetest ways to show their appreciation.
Amber Nadinic, an animal rescuer from Melbourne, Australia, has seen this play out numerous times over the years. She’s helped nurse hundreds of sick kittens back to health, but it was Starlight who won her heart for good!
Starlight and Amber first met when the kitty was just a few days old. She had been abandoned in a box by a footpath, and the hot Australian sun had done a number on her skin before a kind stranger spotted her and brought her to a shelter.
The kitten was left red and raw with sunburn, and Amber said she wasn’t sure the poor feline would make it through the night.
“As soon as I saw how small she was and how red she was, I was just like, ‘Oh, here we go,’ you know?” Amber explained. “We’re gonna try, but if she did pass, I wouldn’t have been surprised.”
Thankfully, Starlight proved to be much tougher than she looked! Amber woke up throughout the night to feed her with an eyedropper while also treating her sunburn with aloe vera. Despite having multiple health problems, including the often-deadly parvo virus, Starlight began to thrive under Amber’s care! As she grew bigger and stronger, Amber noticed that she became incredibly attentive to new foster pets as they arrived.
“She’s fantastic with the little baby kittens that we foster,” Amber said. “She just straightaway gravitated straight towards them. She was in their little box with them, was cuddling up to them, grooming them, and it did make me think, ‘Well hang on, do you remember when it was like that when you were a lot in this situation?'”
These days, Amber truly believes Starlight understands how close she came to death – and wants to give back to others like her!
Even better, she now acts as a wonderful surrogate mama to all the kitties who pass through their home. What a beautiful soul!
Watch Starlight care for one of her babies in the video below, and don’t forget to share this story to make someone smile.
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