R’land attorney enlists auto shop to rescue kitten

R’land attorney enlists auto shop to rescue kitten

Posted

A tiny kitten was rescued from inside the dashboard of a vehicle last week and adopted all in the same day. 

Matt Vines, a Madison County resident and attorney at Jernigan Copeland Law firm, found his new furry friend last week.

“I found it in the bushes when I was leaving the office for lunch,” Vines said. “I decided to take it home with me to feed it and then give it away to someone who wanted a cat.”

Vines said he put the kitten on his front seat, but noticed it was gone on the way home. 

“After looking around my car for this kitten, I could not find it for the life of me until I heard it crying,” he said. “I realized it was up inside my dashboard somewhere.”

Vines and his wife Kendra knew they wouldn’t be able to get the kitten out on their own, so they called up Capitol Body Shop in Gluckstadt. 

“They ended up having to take apart the front console of the car to find it,” he said. “They had to run a camera up in there to even see the cat. He was that far in there.” 

Vines noted he had no idea how the kitten had crawled up inside the front console. 

“He probably crawled through the floor through a small opening towards the glove compartment area and got stuck,” he said. “I don’t know what other way he could’ve gotten in there.”

Vines said once the kitten was extracted from the car, the people at Capitol Body Shop told him this one was on the house and didn’t charge a nickel. 

“They called it a ‘search and rescue mission.’ All I can say is that they were good Samaritans,” he said. “We ended up adopting the kitten and calling it ‘Dash’ in honor of this story.” 

Frank McCluer, manager at the Capitol Body Shop in Gluckstadt, said this procedure was good for everyone and it felt good doing the right thing. 

“Matt called me and said he had a very strange request regarding a kitten trapped inside his car and asked if we could look at it, so I told him we would give it a try,” McCluer said. “It took around an hour and 15 minutes, but we eventually got the cat out of there.”

McCluer said the kitten was wedged up underneath the dashboard console right near the windshield. 

“We had to turn on the AC to get the kitten to make a noise so we could actually see where he was,” he said. “It took some work but I’m glad we were able to get him out of there.”

Vines reported Dash is living happily in their home and is in perfect health besides some ear mites they found and removed at the vet.






Powered by Creative Circle Media Solutions