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Loading...Harvey, a Kitten With Two Faces, Dies After Two Days
After their cat, Nene, gave birth to a black kitten with two faces last week, Nash Hand and his wife, Amanda Forsythe, of Port Charlotte, Florida, turned to the internet. The response they received was far from helpful: As Forsythe says, they were told to put the kitten down and
“…that it is an abomination, that I am an evil person because I would let such a thing live like that. It’s a beast because it’s a black cat with two faces.”
Hand and Forsythe instead got in touch with Dr. Greg Fluharty of the Animal Clinic in Port Charlotte and were told that the kitten’s lungs, respiration and heart rate were normal for a cat of its age. They named him Harvey Dent, after the character in Batman with a “two-faced personality.” Forsythe noted how Harvey’s two faces worked together at once: “When he eats on one side it looks like he is eating on the other. When he meows it comes out of both sides,” she said. (A video of Harvey is here.)
According to WWSB, Hand and Forsythe had actually been watching a TV show about a cat with two faces (the scientific term for the condition is diprosopus) prior to Harvey’s birth. Another “Janus cat,” Frank and Louie, indeed lived to the age of 12. Janus cats are so called after a Roman god, Janus, who was depicted with two faces because he was believed to look to both the past and the future simultaneously. Janus was the god of gates and doors (ianua is the Latin word for “door”), and also of beginnings and transitions. His name can be heard in that of the Roman month Ianuarius, which was actually at the end of the year in the ancient Romans’ calendar.
Sadly, Harvey died last Wednesday of medical complications. The little black kitten was only two days old. Had he survived, Nash and Forsythe were prepared to take care of a unique animal, as Forsythe said:
“We are definitely not going to kill it. I am not going to let somebody tell me that it needs to be done. It shouldn’t be killed just because it is a little different.”
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Read more: cat, diprosopus, Janus cat, kitten, two faced cat, two-faced kitten
Photo by www.metaphoricalplatypus.com
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249 comments
+ add your ownSo sad this unique little kitten didn't make it. Fortunately, he was born into a family who would have loved him had he lived. Cross the Rainbow Bridge little Harvey Dent and be greeted by all the other animals who wait for you there.
so sad that this little kitty died. I am glad they were at least willing to love it and keep it as a member of their family. RIP
Poor baby, R.I.P. sweety.
It is absolutely awesome that you would have still taken care of him. They deserve as much of a chance to live as a child with down syndrome. I would have done the same thing, as a matter of fact, it has been my experience that the animals with the little quirks about them have the best personalities.
Poor little thing.
So sad.
REST IN PEACE LITTLE ONE!
RIP Harvey.
First off. I am asking Bast to be on the lookout for this wee baby and to take care of him and to teach him all the good things a cat needs to know. Like how to chase bugs and snakes and frogs. NOT KILL! Just chase and give a hard time! How to climb trees and how to get high as a kite on catnip! :-)
As to those that called him a monster and other such nasty names. WHO IS THE MONSTER HERE? I think cats of ALL KINDS are far better then people ANY DAY OF ANY YEAR! Had this wee one lived, HE WOULD HAVE FOUND A HOME RIGHT HERE WITH ME and MY THREE BABIES!
May The Blessed Mother watch over over you as well little one! YOU WERE LOVED WHILE YOU WERE HERE!
Lady Donna Marie Royce
At least Harvey was given a chance to make it... But I guess Mother Nature had other ideas. RIP, little one.
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