RESCUING CATS AND KITTENS

1.

I got a call earlier this week from a lady I'd helped a while ago. She regularly feeds strays where she lives but because she's elderly and lives in a small flat, she doesn't feel up to actually taking them in, but she does what she can. A cat she feeds had been injured in a fight and she was worried about it so I agreed to call round and, if she could get it inside, I'd take it to the vets. This she did and it turned out to be a fairly placid animal despite having been on the streets for at least two years -the period she'd be feeding him.

I got him to King's Road Vets where he was seen by chief vet Wendy. She bathed the wound and gave him a couple of vaccinations which he endured without complaint of any kind. He's about 6, hadn't been neutered and the lady -let's call her Ms A- didn't want him done because she felt he would lose his edge if he was. By the time I got him back I'd had an idea and I told her: if she'd keep feeding him I'd arrange for him to be vaccinated and then neutered and take him our Ferry Farm Re-homing Centre. This changed slightly as I had a cat in my conservatory -more about whom later- bound for there (today as it happens) and when he went, I'd take her cat in. And so, to shorten a longer story, that is what has happened and he's here now and will be for three weeks. I've also decided to apply my original plan to another cat Ms A is feeding.

I'm a little concerned about him as, before he could go in the conservatory I had to put him in a cage for a few hours. When I moved him I noticed he'd emptied bowels and bladder where he sat. He's also not eating and just sitting on the window. It's probably just nerves. Some cats take a while settling in to a new place and not eating is one of the main symptoms.

2.

I agreed to take in two 12 week old kittens (sisters) which arrived yesterday and are living in my bedroom. They'll go to the vets on Monday for a check up and first vaccination at the same time as I pick up a ginger cat which is hanging about an old people's home and which I'll also get checked and vaccinated. Incidentally, both reek of cigarette smoke. I've often wondered about the effects of passive smoking on animals but that's a subject for another time.

The grey tabby is very friendly and confident coming to me for cuddles while  her sister is extremely nervous and runs away from me. Give it time.

3.

Quite a few photos below and all taken at independent local rescuer Carole O'Brien's house. In this case I'm just the transport and always happy to help her.

The first kitten is only 5 weeks old and was founded and handed in to the local PDSA hospital where they did what they could for it and contacted Carole to ask if she'd take it. Not having transport, she asked me if I could collect it. I was going to nearby Kings Road Vets (see 1. above) to collect the cat in the photo anyway.

Once at Carole's she put it in a mother cat, the cat's sister, and mother cat's kittens which are about the same age as the new one in the hopes that MC would nurse him and kittens would accept him. It was a little awkward while I was there but I've since heard from Carole that all is well. There are no guarantees but the kitten now has a good chance thanks to the PDSA and Carole without whom he'd be dead by now.

4.

Houdini is the cat who went to Ferry Farm today. I gave him that name because he is a feline escapologist. Basically he's never seen an open door he won't run through whether you want him to or not and he combines speed with sheer determination. He's also a incredibly friendly cat who likes people but does intimidate other cats with his sheer ebullience. Anyone who takes him on should like a cat with a lot of personality and also possess fast reactions and an airlock to stop him getting outside when they want him to stay in.

By coincidence he also came via the PDSA (who removed the tip of an infect tail), then on to Carole (I collected him with her) who later begged me to take him because he needed space that he didn't have in one of her cages.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IT'S BEEN A WEEK SINCE I LAST PUT UP A POST?

Oh, it has been. Okay. Well I've been busy. And putting stuff on Facebook rather than blogging. So this is a hotchpotch of original material, Facebook stuff, and expanded/re-written Facebook stuff.

This cat was found on Rotherham Road, Red House last Saturday. She's between 3 and 4 years old, has white paws, is very friendly, and has a hernia (lump). Since then I've had her operated on yesterday to remove it and she seems fine. She's a nice friendly little thing but then most of them are. I've called her Tina.

Burnside the big tough old ginger monster has been re-homed on a long-term foster basis which, after a week, seems to be going very well. He's happy, his new owner's happy. All is well.

I am absolutely desperate to home Dora the kitten. Not because she's horrible, precisely the opposite. She's most loveable affectionate kitten I've ever had and I want rid of her before I give in and keep her.

My cats have a favourite song. Here it is. "Food, glorious food! Food, glorious food! Food, glorious food!" They don't know any other words, these are the only ones that matter to them. Apart from the food I give them they have also taken the opportunity to deprive me of the remaining four custard doughnuts in a bag on the kitchen bench -actually found a cat eating one of them- and the bag containing a loaf of sliced white bread was been ripped open and the contents partially devoured. Last night I did a stir fry of pork mince and onion  with noodles. There was too much for one meal so I left about a third of it in the saucepan, placed a plate and a glass dish on the top and went to eat the rest. While I was doing that, the cats removed the glass dish and plate and devoured the portion I was going to have for today's lunch.

Winston the Rag Doll has been re-homed but not in the way I expected. The previous owner's cousin came back from holiday not previously knowing what had been going on and asked to have him. As she had the owner's approval we couldn't refuse. So there you go.

If you're religious, say a prayer, if you're superstitious cross your fingers, if you're neither hold your breath, cat cuddlers and anyone else, but long-stay at our re-homing centre preceded by 9 months in my house, five year old all-black Aoife may have found a home with a wheelchair-bound lady. That was two days ago and I haven't heard anything yet so I'm cautiously optimistic.

And then there are times when I can get (insert a coarse emphatic adjective of your choice here) irritated with people.Earlier in the week I got a call from an elderly lady about a female kitten at risk. It had just appeared in her street so I went round only to find it had gone. I made the arrangement that if she could get it in her kitchen she'd call me. A couple of days later I got a call from a guy had to find a home for two ten week old kittens his cat had given birth to but, when I asked for his address, couldn't make out what he said so asked him to spell it out. He was on the bus he said and would call me later. Except he didn't.

Two days after that the lady got on the phone to say she had the cat in her kitchen. I went round, took one look at it and said: that's not a kitten! I still took it because she was elderly and stressed out, though I had a job getting it in the carrier -a new small one I'd just bought to use for kittens and small cats. I'd barely got home when the phone rang and it was guy from a couple of days ago who didn't realise he'd spoken to me before. Although I now couldn't take his kittens, I tried to help him as best I could by offering a couple of suggestions. How much he took in I don't know because it was obvious he was thick as a brick. He even rang me twice later that same afternoon, neither time realising...

As for the cat, I took it to the vets for a checkup a couple of hours later when I went round to pick up Tina (who I'd dropped off that morning) after her hernia op. The six month old female kitten turned out to be a grey intact male aged 18 months-2 years who would have to spend the next three weeks in an unsuitably small cage in my bedroom. He's a fluffy grey with white bits and after asked for suitable names from the vet staff -no I'm not going to call him Smokey just because he's grey- came up with Cirrus after the wispy grey-white cloud formation. He's since started to settle down and I'm beginning to get good feelings about him. After an initial defensive/aggressive reaction towardsw the other cats he seems to have stopped so I may be able to let him out. Maybe after he's been neutered on Tuesday.

I may have mentioned in an earlier post that my ex Sue Hardy, joint founder and director of Animal Krackers, and who I consider the engine that keeps our charity running smoothly, has had a knee replacement. It may not sound much but it's considered to be ten times worse than a hip replacement. Susan also has a problem in that pain killers upset her stomach so she's having a pretty hard time, even worse than it should normally be. I've been going round two to three times a day to feed her cats, get her breakfast, and do anything else she wants. She's also getting support from other people, particularly her brother and sister in law. The hospital are keeping an eye on her, Age Concern has provided some support ,and a nurse calls round. I'm going to print a photo which she'll hate but it's intended as a tribute to her in my own oddball (her description of me) way.

Animal Krackers Statistics of Cats & Kittens Re-homed.
October: 26
Yearly total to date: 138.
It's too early to thank everyone but you are all in my thoughts.

And once the current five monsters I'm fostering have gone then I'm not fostering any more. Seven is enough, more than enough, in my modest house. I know, I know, I've said that before.

But this time I mean it.

Said that before too.

KITTENS AND OTHER TAILS

1. Maisie's kittens.

Are coming along nicely. They're actually looking through the conservatory door at the really big world of the living room with other curious furries on the other side of the glass. They've even begun to steal their mother's food which came as a surprise to me as the last litter I raised left it much later before they started on solid food. Right now mother and kits are all curled up together.

2. New at Ferry Farm Kennels, our re-homing centre.

These are just a few photos I took yesterday. We've had a good turnover this month with 17 being re-homed. Some of these cats and kittens are reserved and some are temporary stays. Check out the official listing (link on the sidebar) for what is available.

3. The injured stray cat I took in on Saturday: updated.

The wound in his head is healing nicely which is good.  I was hoping to let him out of the cage but he tends to hiss and growl at any of my cats which go near him so that's a no-no. He's okay with me though. He can growl when I stroke him but he's never reacted aggressively to me. Although he'd been eating well, I grew concerned about his lack of evacuations, however, after over 36 hours of waiting he finally used the litter tray for a nice large solid poo (a sign of good health) and an extremely pungent long pee which permeated the house -he isn't neutered, though that will change tomorrow, but as he's about three or four it means it will take a while for his hormones to settle down and the smell will continue for some time yet. Lucky me. 

4. More photos of Squeak and Arya the loveable newsome twosome.

5. Extract from an email (with permission).

A couple of weekends ago, two of our volunteers had a table at a boot fair to publicise and raise money for Animal Krackers. One of them (name withheld on request) wrote to me:

Me and Amy did a car boot sale on Sunday for AK we raided their shop of books and cuddly toys. We also had a board where we printed out info and pictures from your site  (including the dogs), giving out leaflets to anyone who stopped at the stall. We had a few said they would look on your website, a possible cat cuddler/dog walker and lots of oohs and ahs over the pictures. You were also mentioned a couple of times by people who had adopted from you (Wendy was the name of one cat), another said you rehomed TJ who was renamed Tiger - lots of positive comments about you and AK and how you helped when no-one else would :)

 

We have some lovely people helping us. And, as I keep saying and can't say often enough, none of the rescuing and re-homing would be possible without their help. So thank you one and all.

MEET MUDDY WATERS

No you haven't got the wrong blog. This is not a post about that legendary giant of the Blues of whom I am a fan. It's about the cat I was called out about earlier this week -see the recent post. Having named the oldish stray ginger cat I'd taken in about three weeks ago after rough tough bluesman RL Burnside, I decided to name this poor dilapidated old soul after one as well. Given that his fur is grey and somewhat the colour of mud, it wasn't exactly a great stretch to name him as I did. It'll probably get shortened to Mud as did Muddy's -real name, McKinley Morganfield.

Now we've got that sorted, let me tell you about my  Muddy Waters.

After spending the first night on a drip, he pulled round to start eating properly and his bowels seemed normal, though dried food made him sick. Apart from a slightly poor reading on his kidneys which was probably due to dehydration, his blood tests came up fine. He's also about 14-15 years old so his best years are behind him but that doesn't stop me wanting to provide him with a decent quality of life for however long he has left which could be as many as five though I'd be surprised if lives as much as another two. All the matted clumps of fur were shaved off.

I brought him home from the vets this morning and put him in a -borrowed from the shop- large guinea pig cage which, surprisingly, is bigger that the cat cage I have in that there is ample space for the litter tray, his bedding, and food and water with a little room to spare. Talking of little room to spare, he's had to go in my bedroom which is actually about the same size as my living room but with less clutter. 

Initial impressions of his character are very favourable. Inevitably Aelfric was the first to want to say hello. Muddy, rather than hiss or spit, just sniffed him back. A few other of the cats arrived and didn't appear to disturb Muddy in any way. When I opened the cage up he didn't attempt to escape and seemed to like me stroking him. If this is typical of him I doubt he'll be in the cage for very long.

I will be putting him on the cats needing home list but I'm really going to be looking for a long-term fosterer and Animal Krackers will pay for any vets bills, which they'd do anyway if I kept him as a foster-cat here., but he'd be better off in a house with fewer cats.

Sorry about the poor quality of the photos below, a combination of brightness, cage bars, and Muddy constantly moving. And me being a crap photographer never helps much.

ONE BAD, TWO BAD, EHHH, NOT GREAT, DAYS

Tuesday. I'm starting this on Wednesday evening and it already seems like the semi-distant past. Hell, I can't even remember what I did on Tuesday morning. I know I went swimming and probably watched an episode or two of Murdock Mysteries Season 1 DVD but that's about it.

Tuesday afternoon is a different matter. About 1.45 I went upstairs for a nap, a regular ocurrence, and was half awake an hour later when I heard a knock on the door. The window cleaner wanting to be paid. I was half asleep and fumbling with change when I noticed Burnside halfway up the stairs and a second later he was through door, out the gate, under a car and then dashing across a thankfully, luckily for him, car free Leechmere Road. Bleeping great, I said aloud to the window cleaner as I gave him his money.

I'm sure you can imagine how I felt. I'd taken the cat on (for details see recent posts) and had just begun to think I might be getting somewhere with him when this happened. It's not the first time either but it's been oncee before, at least a year ago, and on that occasion, and thanks to neighbours and Facebook, I got the cat back and later re-homed him.

Luckily, if that's the right word, I soon had something to take my mind off Burnside's escape. I remember now that some time in the morning I wrote an email to a guy who was interested in adopting Hero from the re-homing centre and mentioned that, while I was generally free, something unexpected often came up.

Like an 80 something lady realising that she couldn't cope with a five month old male kitten. She gave me her address and where it was near -I knew the near- but I couldn't find it on Google maps and it wasn't in my quite new A-Z. So I went to the near and called in at a corner shop (the near) but nobody there knew exactly where it was. After some driving around and asking several people I ended up back where I started from and saw it on the other side of the road, about ten yards from the shop.

If only that had been the end of my confusion. The elderly lady said the kitten had had his vaccinations and his original owner, who lived nearby, had the documentation and she gave me directions to the place. She also said the kitten had been neutered. I couldn't find it and it wasn't in my A-Z or on my satnav so I went to the nearby PDSA centre where it had been apparently registered. After some discussion during which I discovered they couldn't give out the information I wanted because of data protection -which was fair enough- but they could give it to a vet- which was also fair enough as I was on my to one -Wendy's, our regular vets which was only half a mile away. So, do you have the information I want even though you can't tell me? As it happens, no they didn't. It took around 20 minutes, including waiting to be seen, to establish this. Look, it happens. I think the PDSA do a great job and they're in my will.

I took the kitten to Wendy who checked him out. Not neutered. Being a kind person, she agreed to keep him in overnight and neuter him in the morning.

I went home and felt depressed about Burnside.

Next morning the usual swim and a little later coffee in the city centre at Starbucks with my cat-loving retired colleagues, Denise and Sylvia. And then the unexpected happened again in the middle of me showing them photos of Jeff and her baby kittens. My phone rang. It was the lady who had originally contacted me about Burnside to tell me he'd turned up on her doorstep about a mile and half from where I lived.

I celebrated by getting a new phone on contract with EE-a 4G Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini. Kidding. I was going to get a new one from them anyway. I also bought a case for it and after the phone fell out of it half a dozen times ordered a much cheaper but more secure case from Amazon. I  put the box in the bin but if I can clean it up after being covered in used cat litter I take the case back for a refund.

Lunchtime, mini cheese and ham quiche interrupted by phone calls. Then, just before I was about to ring the vets to see if the kitten (he's called Dusty) was ready for collecting, another call, this one from a guy who'd found a very ill cat lying in the bushes in his garden; so ill it couldn't even walk. Well, I could hardly say no, could I? I rang the vets and if I brought it in at 2.15 vet Holly would see it.

It turned out to be a very frail elderly grey female with a collar and a disc with a phone number on it. Time was getting on so I drove to the vets before trying the number. I was talking to, as it turned out, the cat's previous owner, when Holly beckoned me in and was busy checking the cat while I was on the phone. The cat was seriously ill due to kidney failure and was suffering. The person I spoke said he'd contact the cat's owner, which he did and she rang me while I was still in with Holly. I passed the phone over to Holly with the upshot of the upset owner agreeing to have the cat put to sleep and to pay for it.

Me, I think the cat had wandered off to die but at least I'd been able to help reduce its suffering and let its distraught owner know what had happened. A good deed done, but a sad one.

I took Dusty home and locked him in my bedroom with food and water. Later he repaid my kindness with a series of bites and scratches. 

Around eight o'clock I went and brought Burnside home. He had something to eat and disappeared upstairs.

Okay, photo time. Starting with Dusty, followed by a rare photo of my five cats all in relatively close proximity to each other, and a couple of Jeff who, unlike certain other arrivals, is a friendly no problem cat.

(All the above was written late last night. It's now 7.50 next morning and I can authoritatively state that Dusty is a little sod. He is playful but his idea of play is to launch an assault with teeth and claws on the nearest part of human anatomy. I have the scabs and blood loss to prove it. I kept him away from the other cats last night but let him meet them this morning in the hopes that they'll have a calming effect. And he is playing, he just hasn't realised that you don't attack people they way you do another cat. Another bloody problem feline. To be a cat rescuer is to suffer endlessly.) 

BURNSIDE: AN UPDATE

(If this is your first visit, check out the previous post or this won't make any sense.)

Burnside is proving harder work than I expected. After being an outdoor/stray cat for the last three years, he's finding it hard to be stuck in a small room even when it does consist mostly of windows with a view to the garden. I tried letting him in the house only to have chased and attacked the first time by Aelfric. 

I've also been bitten by him a few times while stroking him. Not in any vicious way, more like a warning that he'd had enough. He also howls quite a lot. He'll be in the conservatory and he'll just open his mouth and go at it for a couple of minutes. 

Right now he's got the run of the house and the conservatory door is open if he wants to go back in where he feels safe. After the first couple of times, Aelfric had stopped attacking him though he does follow him wherever he goes whether to keep an eye on him or in an attempt to be friends, I don't know. Emma the kitten just wants to be friends of course and will run up to touch noses. Aoife, who doesn't like other cats, reacted exactly as I expected when Burnside jumped up on the window next to her.

Here's some photos I took a few minutes ago.

Right now he seems to be exploring the house, looking for places where he feels comfortable, so, unless he decides he wants to be back in the conservatory, I'll leave him alone and only put him back there at bedtime.

Cats are very adaptable so I'm sure he'll settle down given time and once he starts to feel secure in his changed circumstances. One thing I am certain of though and that is it isn't going to happen over night. Then again, with cats, who knows?