This story was originally shared on The Animal Rescue Site. Submit your own rescue story here. Your story just might be the next to be featured on our blog!

Driving to work one fall morning, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye by the curb. After passing by, I looked in the review mirror and saw a small animal stumbling off the curb and moving toward the center of the street. I pulled over and ran back fast because of the heavy traffic.

I found a tiny kitten wandering blindly in the road. I picked him up and assumed him to be maybe 4 weeks old. His eyes were crusted shut, he couldn’t see, and his body was completely encrusted with fleas and flea dirt. I refused to try and find his home, because his condition and situation indicated a bad outcome for the kitten.

I went back to my truck holding him in the palm of my hand, he was so small. I called my wife to tell her I was on my way back home with a very small sick kitten that we had to try and save. We named him Kerby because I first saw him when he fell off the street curb.

Our vet told us we could certainly try, but that he most likely wouldn’t survive. We gently bathed him, cleaned and medicated his eyes until the crusted infection was gone, and fed him kitten milk with an eye dropper, offering warmed canned kitten food on our fingers, too, as he would know when he was ready.

Because of our full attention caring for and loving this kitten, he quickly began to show improvement. Soon he was scarfing the canned kitten food! He was going to make it!

Kerby had a beautiful, loving, and happy life in our home, along with our other cats and dogs. At night Kerby would end up sleeping on the edge of my pillow next to my face, and during the night, he would occasionally reach out with his paw and softly touch my cheek.

The joy of life with our cats and dogs is that they only want to be loved and return the love to us in their own special ways.