‘We Have A Kitten Problem, Hot Diggity Dog': Man Who Saved 13 (Video)

LOUISIANA — Kittens. So many kittens. So, so many kittens — all because Robert Brantley, 37, decided to do a good deed.

First, there was a single, forlorn kitten at the side of a road in northeast Louisiana.

Second, understand something about Brantley: He’s what you could call a tough guy. He describes himself on his Instagram page as a long-range shooter who enjoys “predator hunting.”

Don’t jump to conclusions, though. Judging from the video of what turned out to be an epic kitten roundup, Brantley is as soft and fluffy as that gray-and-white tabby responsible for the tug that made him turn his SUV around after Tuesday’s trip to the shooting range.

“Those kittens played you so hard,” someone commented.

Like a fiddle, we'd say.

Fortunately for people all over the world who are silly about kittens, Brantley had the foresight to turn on his video camera. If what followed is pure kitten gold, what Brantley said — in an accent as thick as Louisiana bayou gumbo — is pure platinum.

“Oh my gosh, it’s a whole — oh my gosh!” he exclaimed as three more kittens bounded toward him. “I can’t take y’all.”

The kitten brigade continued.

"Perfect timing," someone observed in comments. "They used the one as bait! 'Ok, now go! He won’t be able to resist!' ”

That sounds about right, actually.

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” Brantley said in the video. “There’s more. We’ve got a kitten problem.”

Each group of kittens was met with an “oh my gosh.” Near the end of the video, 13 were swarming around his feet, meowing. It’s all pretty adorable.

And then this: “Who would do this?”

Don’t answer that. We know. And it's not pretty adorable at all.

Moving on, if he left them along the side of the road, they would surely die. It was up to him to save their lives.

“I thought I was saving one,” he said. “Hot diggity dog.”

Committed to saving them, Brantley had a more immediate problem to take care of — organizing a wide assortment shooting gear and all the other stuff in his SUV to make room for 13 kittens.

In comments in the next of installment of his epic kitten save, Brantley noted he was “ambushed” by the kittens and that his Honda SUV wasn’t “prepared for this.” And it “didn’t come with a kitten box.”

Have you ever heard of herding cats? Yeah, it’s a real thing.

“I couldn’t keep up with them, as I would throw one in and 2 would jump out,” he commented. “So I had to close the door with the window down and funnel ’em in.”

Too bad, his video wasn’t running when that kitten kerfuffle happened.

“That would have been good footage, actually,” Brantley wrote in the comments.

He is finding homes for the kittens.

“We found some good people locally that want 'em, and I know that they're all good people and they're not doing anything bad with them,” Brantley told NPR. “We haven't gave any of them away yet — they're probably a little too young.”

In the meantime, Brantley wrote on Instagram, “the kids are loving on them … and we’re fattening them up.”

Below, watch the ambush.