The team effort behind Rookie’s recovery

One evening, a member of public was in her living room watching the TV show ‘The Rookie’ – which would soon inspire the name of the tiny kitten she saw stumbling across her back garden.

With no other kittens or cats in sight, she quickly brought him inside out of the cold. Giving him a gentle look over, she spotted a painful-looking wound on his chest. Since it was late at night, she kept him safe until she was able to drive him to the vet first thing in the morning.

Upon the kitten’s arrival at Vetlife in Blenheim, the vets saw what initially looked like a large flap of loose skin on his chest. After closer inspection, they found it wasn’t simply a piece of skin, but his liver – that was actually exposed outside his body.

Rather than put him through the stress of further transport to our SPCA Renwick Centre, the Vetlife team thought it would be better to begin treatment on him immediately to stabilise him. They called our Renwick Centre, asking whether we could help by funding Rookie’s surgery and recovery.

“We were happy to be able to take this on, and Vetlife did everything they could to keep the costs down for us too,” says SPCA Renwick Centre Manager Susanne. “The surgery got underway, and they ended up removing three-quarters of his liver due to the damage that had been done.”

As the surgery was more complex than planned, the team knew that little Rookie would need a quiet, safe space to rest and recover. One of the Vetlife team offered to take him home and foster him personally!

SPCA supplied all the food, litter, toys, and bedding that Rookie would need in his foster home, and he had a very secure recovery with a capable vet looking after him.

Thankfully, this little trooper took everything in his stride, and amazed everyone with how quickly he returned to health. When he was ready, the Vetlife team were able to complete his desexing surgery, funded by SPCA, before being transferred to our Renwick Centre to get ready for adoption.

“He was such a sweet, friendly, playful kitten despite everything he’d been through. This is how he stole the hearts of both the Vetlife team, and our Centre team!” says Susanne.

After a couple more weeks in our care, Rookie’s big day came – he was chosen for adoption! We were thrilled to see him go on to his forever home at last, after going through such an ordeal.

His adopters, Austen and Natalia, have shared a wonderful update.

"We adopted Rookie and a few days later named him Stitch (or Stitchy) because as you already know, he's been stitched back together! We chose him because he was the most charismatic of the bunch, wanted to come and say hello, climb on us, and wanted to be held," says Austen. "Plus he's a cute wee fella."

"We actually also adopted one of his hutch-mates, Larry. He seems to get along very well with Stitchy, and they're always playing with each other or sleeping on top of one another."

"They are both very loved by us, and we enjoy every day with them. Doesn't matter if you've had a good or bad day, they make the day even better! Stitch is doing fantastically, you wouldn't even know about his tough start to life."

We're so pleased to hear this result - it's the outcome we all work so hard to reach.

Our SPCA team is very grateful to have been able to work together with Vetlife, who played a huge role in Rookie/Stitch's journey. Together we can achieve incredible results for vulnerable animals.