A kitten who was being drowned in a bucket was rescued by a group of fourth grade students who begged for its life. Now their teacher wants to use the children’s experience to encourage compassion for all unwanted animals, according to CBS affiliate KXII.
“I can’t believe someone would do this to an animal,” said their teacher, Tiffany Rubio, who teaches fourth grade at Boswell Elementary School in Boswell, Oklahoma. The children brought the kitten to Rubio after they heard a loud cry, went to investigate, and saw an elderly woman trying to drown the kitten in a bucket.
They begged the woman to give the kitten to them, said Rubio, then brought it to her. “The kitten was covered in fleas and starving.”
Their act of compassion should be an example for the whole community, said Rubio, who also sits on the city council. She explained that the local stray cat problem is so extreme that no police report was filed and the unidentified elderly woman is not facing charges.
Rubio contacted a local woman, Linda Arnold, who fosters cats, and she is taking care of the rescued kitten. “We decided that we would use it as an educational tool to work with the other children in the class and let them see what a difference these kids made by doing the right thing,” Arnold told KXII.
“It’s teaching them that this kind of behavior to an animal is unacceptable,” Rubio said.
