Male cat plays mum for kittens in Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska: Six abandoned kittens named after the kids in "The Brady Bunch" TV series are getting a nurturing boost from an unlikely source - a male cat with a slight neurological disorder. The 3-week-old kittens - named Jan, Marcia, Cindy, Greg, Peter and Bobby - have been adopted by Henry, an eight-month-old male cat in the southeast Alaska community of Ketchikan.

Muench, a volunteer with the Ketchikan Humane Society, is caring for the kittens at home after someone put them into a cardboard box and left them on a road between Klawock and Craig on Prince of Wales Island. At home, she's getting a lot of help from Henry, a male cat she and her husband adopted from the all-volunteer Ketchikan Humane Society.

Henry spends hours licking the kittens clean and has become very attached. The kittens face an uncertain future because they're too young to be vaccinated, but she said Henry's care could be a difference-maker. "He's probably increasing their chances of survival," she said.