Oh, baby, baby, how were we supposed to know?

It’s no secret that she’s not that innocent, but , still, we never expected Brittany to return to Tabby’s Place.

Sure enough, just as her namesake had a comeback, the feline Brittany made her return this summer.

Brit first came to Tabby’s Place two summers ago, with a raft of mamas and babies from Brooklyn. Caring for 22 kittens between them, the moms made quite a quartet.

There was Kim the long-suffering mom, Tia the sweet speckled mom, Angelina the angelically-good mom…

…and Brittany, the, um…not-so-good mom.

It’s not a charge I level lightly. After all, there are many styles of parenting, and as long as there’s love at the center, most kids, of whatever species, turn out okay.

But I just can’t imagine what parenting guide recommended that Brittany (a) put all of her very young kittens in the (used) litter box, (b) run as far from them as possible, and (c) repeatedly kick them in the heads - claws out - if they attempted to even approach her for warmth and comfort.

Yeah. Not quite Mother of the Year material, our Brittany. And, yes, her parenting skills were the inspiration for her name.

Our first introduction to Brittany came as we opened up the crate in which she’d arrived. The Brooklyn shelter (an arm of NYAC&C) had made this special delivery to Tabby’s Place in four cardboard crates. Three crates rumbled with the purrs of nursing kittens and caring mama cats.

One crate shook with screaming.

While the other mamas were quietly nursing their broods, there was nothing “quiet” about Brittany. No sooner had we tucked back the flap on her carrier, than she came flying out head-first, hell-bent on getting away from her six kittens. She was all screams and frazzled energy, and anything but a happy camper when she realized she would have to go back to her little ones.

The mother-and-child reunion didn’t last long. In her first few hours at Tabby’s Place, Brittany either scratched or bit one of her babies, Pesto, so seriously as to draw blood and create an abscess. Since there’s no feline arm of Child Protective Services, we took matters into our own hands and separated the kittens from Brittany once and for all. All six babies thrived in the absence of their mom.

Away from those pesky babies, Brit was suddenly free to show us her inner beauty. It turns out that, like her namesake, the feline Brittany wasn’t “bad,” just misunderstood. And like that other Britney, calico Brit had a comeback in her. While she didn’t love like approve of the existence of her fellow cats, she found contentment in Suite B, and, most of all, she came to love humankind.

The feeling was utterly mutual. Our lovely diva was becoming the people’s choice.

So, when she finally found her #1 fan, I thought we’d never see Brit again. But what a difference two summers can make.

I won’t presume to know what motivated Brittany’s adopter to turn her back in to Tabby’s Place. There was talk of furniture-scratching and hand-biting and inappropriate-eliminating. My experience has been that a pileup of reasons usually means a heap of guilty excuses that may or may not be true. But maybe they are; maybe Brit was on her baddest behavior.

Whatever the reason, it wasn’t meant to be.

I can only conclude that Brittany’s greatest hits still lie ahead.

Barring a miracle, her kitten-bearing days are behind her (which makes for a very happy Brittany), and our reformed pop-tart is now back in Suite B. She’s no fonder of her fellow cats than she was the last time around, but Brit keeps to herself and coexists quite peacefully with the mere peons. As for humans, her love for our kind has only grown.

Brittany, just as we’d never write off any human bean, however batty, we will never give up on you. Everyone - feline and otherwise - needs forgiveness and a second/third/thousandth chance. Your greatest songs have yet to be sung.

Tags: angelina, brittany, kim, kittens, pesto, tia

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