A trip to Wagga has taken an unexpected turn for a Melbourne family who will be returning home on Thursday with an addition to the family.
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A kitten, not even a week old, was rescued by the Wagga Rescue Squad yesterday morning after a mother-of-four Debbie Turnbull heard meows inside her aunty and uncle’s home.
“We heard meowing the past two days and I checked the roof the night before and in the morning but I couldn’t find anything,” she said.
“I called the firies first and they told me they couldn’t help, so then I contacted the SES who told me to call the Police, who then put the call into the Wagga VRA.
“At first, one person from the rescue squad came and then shortly after two more arrived to the home.”
Ms Turnbull said the kitten was found inside a wall cavity in the bathroom, but no damage to the house was caused.
“They took one of the vents out and a couple of bricks to rescue the kitten, which they believe is only about three to four days old,” she said.
The kitten has been named Shelby and will become the fifth rescued cat to be brought into the Melbourne home.
VRA’s senior deputy captain Tim Lidden said the squad were called to the home at 11am and described the one-hour rescue as “pretty difficult”.
“The kitten was up in the roof last night and apparently it dropped in the wall cavity, which is a brick veneer house and then it was pretty difficult to get because there was a bathroom on one side and bricks the other side,” Mr Lidden said.
“We managed to get the kitten out of a little air vent of the home’s outside wall and we used a telescopic inspection camera and located the cat about a foot inside the wall.
“In the meantime, we had an audience of little kids and one had a towel waiting for it and it was good to see their smiles when we rescued the kitten.”
While the main role of the Wagga VRA is motor vehicle accidents, Mr Lidden said animal rescues are still part of the job.
“This is the second animal rescue in two weeks as we rescued three kittens out of a roof,” he said.
“A lot of people don’t realise that cats jump into roofs with loose tiles because often cats think it’s a great place to have their kittens.
“People just need to make sure that their roof is secure so pets can’t get in.”