Saturday 29 January 2011

ANOTHER TYPICAL WEEK

I've started being more meticulous about keeping a diary. No, not one of those about everything I did, rather a brief entry like 2 cats to W&C neutering 8.30. Plus useful stuff like doctor's appointments. If I don't I forget as my memory is very poor.

The entry for Monday this week reads: Pickup at Christmas Close (not the real address). pm Easington Coll drop off.  The second is quickly explained. The rescue StrayAid is opening a charity shop in Easington Colliery, a depressed ex-mining village, and we're helping them with stock and other support. So this was me driving down there with a van full of stuff to drop off.

The first entry is more interesting. The story we got was that this woman had been feeding a stray cat  for a weeks but couldn't keep on doing it. Like we hadn't heard that one before. I picked it up -a one bedroom flat, young couple who knew nothing and had nothing- and took it away. On inspection it proved to be a female which had only stopped nursing kittens around a week or so earlier. There were two interpretations to this. One: that the kittens had been abandoned somewhere near where the couple lived. Or, two, that the cat was hers and now they got rid of (probably sold) the kittens they didn't want the mother any longer.

I did take some photos but none are good enough to show here. She's a young black cat and seems nice enough. Shouldn't be too much bother rehoming.

We got another kitten from a woman who bought it froma  pet shop for £120 and within 24 hours realised she'd made a terrible mistake. Nothing wrong with the kitten; it was just doing what kittens do, like climb up the curtains. Kittens, by weight, are the most destructive animals in the known universe as anyone who's had one will tell you. It's a cute little thing, playful, friendly, naughty.

On Thursday, and I'm going to be deliberately vague about the details here, I went to check on a kitten we'd rehomed which was ready for neutering. I'd been informed via a third party that all was not, perhaps, well. 

Not so. Although being kept as house cat in a smallish flat, the kitten was healthy, friendly, obviously loved, and had plenty of company from its responsible owner. The information had clearly come from someone with an axe to grind. Me, I was more than happy with the situation.

One o'clock in the afternoon that same day and I was off to Easington Colliery again for another drop-off. Back home, as soon I got my foot in the door the phone rang and I had to go take three cats to vets for a variety of reasons. One was losing weight, another might have a damaged rib, can't remember the third. One of them also had a red-raw ear from scratching mites.The vet checked them over and asked to see two of them back if there was no improvement. Today, Saturday, there isn't so I'm off to pick the pair up and take them over to Roker Park Vets right now.

Bye.

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