RECENTLY RESCUED CATS & OTHER STORIES

Seem to have been quite busy the last couple of weeks with regard to picking up cats and kittens which need to be re-homed for various reasons. Plus numerous visits to the vets. Plus meetings. So, without further ado, the photographs of recently rescued cats and kittens all in need of new homes.

And then there's Buster who was seen being dumped out of a van. We know he's called Buster because the people who took him in for a couple of hours know the family and this was the second time they'd tried to get rid of him. By the way, he isn't a cat but he's very loveable all the same and currently being fostered out.

Vets trips involved picking up young cats to be neutered. It's no secret that we use more than one veterinary practice -Williams & Cummings, Roker Park, Vets4Pets, and Westways. In the last week, a new practice opened up though the vet, Wendy, was not new to us at all. She's opened it in the old PDSA building at Southwick which is a good idea as it already had most of the fittings she'd need and it had been built as a veterinary practice, plus it's not too close to other vets. And it's also just over five minutes walk from where Carole lives which means she can take cats and save me driving from one side of the city to the other. We aren't dropping any of the other practices we use but it's nice to have another one.

A couple of cats -Sophie and Rossi- we recently and separately re-homed came down with cat flu which meant it had to be in them when they went out so it was our responsibility to pay for vet treatment and also, as neither lady had transport, to take them there. The earliest case seems to be starting to improve and I'm hoping the other will soon follow. Mind you, something odd did happen. Being on this side of the river, I took them first to Williams & Cumming it being the nearest. Then when Sophie deteriorated, I rang the vets, got an immediate appointment and only realised when I got out the van at Roker Park that I'd called the wrong vet. Oh well. Two days later I took Rossi back to Williams & Cumming having earlier that morning booked another appointment for Sophie at Roker Park and mentioned it to the receptionist at W&C who told me no,  I'd booked her here.

The next day in The Mail Online I saw a test for Alzheimers and took it. Score 1-4 and you were okay, 5-17 cause for further investigation, 17-25 and you're wondering what you're doing and where did this computer come from. To my relief, I scored 3. Okay, the test was supposed to be completed by someone close to you but the questions were all clear and the 22 I answered no to I'm positive were the right answers for me.

 

And then there were the meetings, the subject of which I shouldn't tell you as we have nothing in writing yet so don't tell anyone, but... And this is really big news. It's the most important thing to happen to Animal Krackers since we opened the shop nearly ten years ago.

Oh it's no good. I can't do it. Not before the written agreement is signed. It could still fall through. Maybe by the end of the month. Maybe.

But it's great. Really.

Console yourself with these photos of growing kittens still about three weeks off re-homeable age.

THE INJURED CAT

Don't ask me why, I just haven't been in the mood for blogging about cat rescue. I haven't done much on my Freethinking blog either. In both cases it isn't because I didn't have anything to write about, I just couldn't get my act together. Today I'm just going to concentrate on telling you about three or four things which happened since the last post.

A couple of weeks ago, in the aftermath of my strained shoulder muscle, I'd invited Mark, a new helper at the shop, to come with me to unload cat food at Carole's and take her cat waste to the council tip. We'd just unloaded the food when Carole got a call from pet taxi Lisa who was Low Fell PDSA in Gateshead. They'd had three kittens dumped on them and needed someone to take them. Carole will always take in kittens so Mark and I went off to pick them up.

The story from the lady at the PDSA was that they'd been found in a park by someone. Now I'm not saying that someone was lying, but I've heard so many stories from people saying that the cat/kitten had just been found and wasn't theirs honest gov, that... Well, I take it with a pinch of salt and I'm sure the PDSA lady did too.

Here are the kittens.

They were all friendly and of homeable age. Indeed one was homed the next day when a nice lady rang me asking if we had any kittens. The other were gone in a week.

Less than a week later I got another call from Carole telling me that Lisa had been contacted by a man who had a mother cat and young kittens in his garden which he couldn't take care of and the council was his next option. I was round in half an hour to find the mother and kittens snug in a cat carrier. His late mother's, he said. Whatever. The cat certainly wasn't remotely feral so she'd been someone's pet.

 

The next few photos are of kittens I had nothing to do with; they were just brought to Carole's. All were friendly and happy to be nursed. All have been homed within a few days.

Two cute kittens and one overweight multiple-chinned cat rescuer.

Friday lunchtime I got a call from Carole who'd had a call from an elderly gentleman who'd found an injured cat in his garden and was concerned about it. I called him and was there in about ten minutes. It was in a private road facing the Chesters pub, an area I knew very well as I'd lived not far away for forty years.

The cat had managed to get its left front leg entangled with its collar with the result that the flesh had worn away leaving an open, infected, and foul smelling wound. I tried cutting the collar but quickly gave up after cutting through in one place as it was pulling away the skin. I got her to Williams & Cumming vets in less than five minutes. There, the vet Mr Molina cleaned and dressed the wound and kept the cat in overnight. Next morning I was told that it was doing quite well so I picked it up and took her to Carole's. I'm taking her back again tomorrow morning and leaving her while she's checked out and given any further treatment.

Carole's reckons she's potentially a big cat. She certainly is very boney and, despite being fed at the vets, wolfed down everything Carole gave her. In the meantime I've emailed a letter plus photo to the letters page at the Sunderland Echo in the hopes that her owner will call me and claim her.

We've actually had a good week on the re-homing front with a few kittens and three adult cats going. If that happened every week I wouldn't have to turn down so many people wanting their cat re-homed. Wonder what this week will bring.

NEW YEAR'S PUPPIES AND KITTENS

Yesterday morning a Sunderland Echo photographer called round at the shop to take photos of some puppies for a feature on us in the paper. I went there as well to take some photos. You've seen these puppies before in this blog when they were a week old and looked like furry slugs. They look a lot different now and have their own distinct personalities. I picked one up (third photo, far left) and she just snuggled against my chest and didn't move the whole time I held her. Their mother is a sweet small german shepherd cross and their father a mastiff cross and they are going to be BIG.

 

In the afternoon I had to go to Carole's to deliver a week's worth of cat food and also collect all her black sacks full of soiled cat bedding and waste to take to the council tip. Because of my recent problems with my shoulder I managed to get Mark, a new helper at the shop, to come along. It would also give him a fuller appreciation of what sort of things we do. As thing happened, it turned out to be a longer trip than expected.

We'd just unloaded the food and were starting on the smelly sacks when Carole got a call from Lisa who runs a pet taxi service. Lisa had been at the PDSA hospital at Heworth in Gateshead where the staff asked her if she could help with three kittens they'd just had handed in, so she called Carole who could, who asked me if I'd go pick them up, which I did, with Mark.

Apparently they'd been found at some local park. Translated that means I think their owners just didn't want them. People tell a variety of lies when they're trying to get shot of their pets. To be honest, I don't care about the excuses. No matter what the reason, if we have space we'll take them, if we haven't we won't.

The kittens, around 8-10 weeks I guessed,  were used to being handled and should find homes pretty quickly. One has already been re-homed this morning.

Only two quickly taken snaps at the PDSA place I'm afraid.

LAST CAT RESCUING POST OF 2011

Not surprisingly it's been very quiet since the last post eleven days ago. I've been grappling (a singularly inappropriate choice of word if ever there was) with the physical limitations imposed by the strained shoulder muscle which, for much of the time, severely limited the used of my right arm.

All bar two black and white kittens have now been re-homed as well as a couple of adult cats though these were replaced almost immediately. We've been doing well for donated cat and dog food, not only from the donation bins at Asda, Morrisons, and Sainsburys (my thanks to their generous customers) but also from individuals and in one case a collection from a local church (again, my thanks to everyone who contributed).

My shoulder now seems to be on the mend and I'm psychologically gearing up for whatever the new year brings. Susan and I will be having a fairly quiet New Years Eve but that suits us. Hope you all have a good one and that your hangovers aren't too severe.

Images from Google.

CAT RESCUING IMPAIRED

Note: a longer version (which contains rude words and sentiments likely to upset the religious) has appeared in my Freethinking blog posted about three hours earlier.

A pain in my shoulder, which made raising my right arm also painful, started on Sunday. By Monday teatime it was getting worse so I went to the walk-in health centre at Grindon.  The place was almost empty and I got seen by a nurse within half an hour. He made me raise my arms in various positions and checked the muscles before deciding I'd pulled a muscle in the shoulder, probably through heavy lifting. 

Well I do heavy lifting quite a lot, loading up the van with unsaleable stuff to take from the shop to the tip or stuck stuff to  another charity like Barnardos. There was also the weekly tip trip from Carole's with a van full of sacks of soiled cat bedding and used cat litter and other smelly stuff. And in the last couple of days I'd done three trips to empty a flat of items we could sell. So heavy lifting is nothing unusual.

Then I realised what had caused it.

Until recently the skips at the council were about waist height (plus six feet further down) making it easy to get stuff out of the van and drop it in with no great effort. Now, however, the council have installed new skips which are twice the height and necessitate climbing up several steps to get to the rim which is then still higher than the old ones. When this happened I asked Carole to put less items in the black sacks and, when light enough, had got into the habit of hurling them over the rim with my right arm, sometimes without even going up the steps, and did the same with shop tip trip stuff when light enough. This was not a good idea.

So:diagnosis pulled muscle. Treatment: paracetemol and rest.

And about 1.30am I woke up in agony. Even the slightest movement caused pain. I struggled through the night until around 4.30 when I got up, emptied smelly cat litter, let cats out, read a magazine, and at 5.00am took two paracetamol and went back to bed. The pills must have had some effect as I dozed until half seven when I again woke in agony. An hour later I was on the phone to the doctor's. I wasn't disagreeing with the diagnosis, I just wanted to be prescribed heavy duty painkillers. She told me to start taking ibuprofen every three hours alternating with paracetamol and trying heat treatment (a hot water bottle on my shoulder). 

 

So I'm going to have be careful what I do this week with regard to cat-related activities. I certainly can't do any tip runs and transporting food (which involves collecting from three food bins and two deliveries) is going to be a delicate operation. 

 

I just hope this pain goes away by Christmas.

Sooner would be better.

FRED THE FERRET

So I normally deal with cats which is what I did on Tuesday morning. I picked up a lady and her young cat who'd caught her paw in a door and had been limping ever since and took them to the vets. Luckily it was just a broken toe which would heal with rest and a regular doses of Metacam painkiller. 

That, I thought, was my lot for the day but I got a call from Carole about a guy we know and regularly help who takes in animals in need, when he can, and he'd just taken in a rat (which was fine) and a ferret which wasn't. Indeed he thought it had a broken leg. So I picked up him and ferret, which he'd got in a hamster cage, from the north side of Sunderland and took them to Roker Park vets. While in the waiting room, he got the ferret out to show the receptionist.

The ferret was obviously used to being handled and our rescuer was more than familiar with them. I did learn something though. No matter how friendly a ferret is, it's tempting fate to put your fingers next to its mouth. In this case it was my thumb which the little sweetheart duly nipped but without drawing blood.

The vet checked him out and said his leg wasn't broken, though the skin was inflamed. It was just in a poor condition which antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and some TLC would take care of. I like ferrets and rats, though I don't have much experience of either. I just think they're cute. If I couldn't have cats (or a dog) a ferret would be third on the list, maybe second as I wouldn't have to take it for walks in the pouring rain on a winter's day.

Here are some more photographs of Fred (which isn't his name as he doesn't officially have one, I just like alliteration). I noticed that when he curled into a ball, a bit like cats, he didn't go to sleep immediately but rotated his curled up body like a wheel until he decided he'd got it right.

When I dropped them off I had a look at the rat which he'd taken in. Just your standard pet rat which is to say an intelligent playful friendly little animal.

In addition to these and some more conventional pets, Gary also had a rainbow crab. It was in a fish tank which was quite dark so I had to lean over, press the flash to find out where it was then take a few snaps to get a decent picture. As far as I could tell, all a rainbow crab does is sit in damp sand and occasionally snacks on cat food.

UPDATE/ CATS ON BEDS

It's been a fairly quiet week since the last post with not a huge amount happening on the cat front and, barring surprises and other than the usual routines like getting cat food, not much is scheduled this week. All the kittens have either gone to new homes or, having been booked, are waiting a week or so until they are old enough to go to their new owners. Apart from one cat with diarrhea who has had to go on a special diet, there are no health problems.

I did take our cat Big Ted to the vets because there's something just not quite right about him. Honor of Vets4Pets took a fair amount of blood from him to have a wide spectrum of blood tests. Only some of the results are back and there is no sign of feline leukaemia or FIP. Where there is a divergence from the norm it's only by a little and nothing to be concerned about. The rest should arrive in the middle of this week.

I finally managed to get my act together and send Phil a series of photos plus brief details of adult cats which need homes to go up on our official animal adoption website. I really hope we get some response as we haven't re-homed an adult cat in four weeks now. The corollary to this is that I have to turn down every call I get asking if we can take in their cat/s. There are some heartbreaking stories but you can't add to a full glass. I doubt if things will get much better with Christmas and New Year coming up.

Here are some photos I've called Cats on Beds because... well...

The first three are Leo, Little Bob, and Daisy. The second two are Lotus, our newest and at 14 our eldest and Little Bob, coincidentally our youngest. All feature on previous posts.

CATS & KITTENS WANTING HOMES: NEW PHOTOS

Just a collection of photos, taken on Friday, of cats and kittens needing homes.

These three are very scared ferals who need an expert carer to look after them.

Bonus photos.

A mongrel mother and her 10-day old pups fathered by a bull mastiff. She has a lovely nature and her pups will be bigger than her in two months or less.