Not many people would stop in the middle of the road to save an abandoned kitten or any other animal for that matter. Only a few would set their plans aside and get out of their car to see whether there is any way they can help the poor animal.
But thankfully, Robert is one of those few who – without an ounce of hesitation – stopped his car and went to rescue a kitten he saw desperately meowing on the side of the road one day.
However, what he saw when he got out of the car, he definitely could not have even imagined in his wildest dreams.
On one Tuesday last summer, Robert Brantley, a 37-year-old professional shooter from Pioneer, Louisiana, was headed to the shooting range to practice a little and relax after work.
He was driving 40 miles an hour and somewhere in the middle of his journey, he thought he saw a little scared kitten wailing by the side of the road.
The image of the frightened kitten had stayed in the back of his mind, refusing to leave him. So he decided to turn his car around and go back to check if what he saw was true and if so, what it is that he could do to help him.
When he returned to that place on the side of the road, he realized that he was in fact right: there was a little black and white tabby kitten waiting to be rescued.
He immediately remembered his wife saying how she always wanted to have a cat. He thought about how an adorable kitten would make her happy and definitely be a nice surprise for her.
Little did he know that more surprises were on their way, lurking in the grass.
Robert picked up the kitten from the floor, remembering to take a video of the special moment. However, upon lifting that black and white kitty, three more white kittens popped right out of the nearby grass.
To his surprise, it did not end there. Soon, a swarm of kittens began flooding out of the grass, one by one, and it appeared as though they would never stop coming.
After a brief moment, Robert managed to count 12 kittens in total, which made this unexpected surprise even bigger and more unbelievable.
Being ambushed by 12 adorable and obviously abandoned kittens was no joke. Robert did not know what to do with all of them. In his video, he proclaimed this situation a “kitten problem” and said there was no way he could save them all.
However, fate had different plans… Luckily for all 12 kittens, Robert decided to keep them all, abandoning his original plan to go to the shooting range because he had more important things to think about at that moment.
One of those important things was: how on earth was he supposed to get all 12 of them in his car?
Robert admitted that the whole thing was a real struggle. After putting some of them in the back seat of his car, he would turn around to get the others, only to find the first ones briskly jumping out.
His agony lasted for a couple of moments until he came up with another plan: he closed the door of his car, rolled down one window, and carefully started to put them one by one in his car.
So, that’s how Robert returned home with a dozen of kittens. He decided to post his video on his social media and share his interesting experience, after which he received a lot of kind words and support from all around the world.
But most importantly, thousands of people from all over the USA contacted him about adoption.
Robert, of course, made sure that all 12 kittens were examined by the vet, thoroughly cleaned from fleas, and properly fed.
He also said that he was putting a lot of thought into the whole adoption process. He confessed that he did not want his kittens to end up with bad and neglectful people. Therefore, he said he was making sure the families they were going to were kind, caring, and cat-loving.
And of course, he decided to keep one kitten for his own family, that being the first one he saw on the side of the road, the one that brought him the rest of the fluffballs. He named him Scout.
Robert continued sharing his journey online until all the kittens were adopted. He did it because he felt like he owed the good people around the world to be updated on the story since many of them had shown their appreciation and offered to help him in any way.
Robert’s story can teach us all many lessons. First, it should be a warning to all people not to abandon kittens on the side of the road or anywhere, for that matter. Instead, if there’s no way for them to take care of the kitten, they should take them to the nearest pet shelter.
And second, a message Robert himself wanted to send to the world: don’t give up on doing good. In Robert’s words, “No matter where you’re at and how much bad you see in the world, there’s still a lot of people doing good things and not doing it for recognition.”