CHECKING OUT CATS

I often get contacted four or five times a day by people wanting us to take one or more cats they can no longer keep or that have already been abandoned. That's around 30 cats a week. In a good week we can re-home maybe 3 or 4 so it's pretty obvious that I have to turn most people away. Or at least suggest other rescues or the website Cat Chat Tyne & Wear which lists local cat rescues. People forget or don't realise or just  plain don't understand that we are just a small local charity with very limited resources and we do the best we can but the simple fact is that we can't help every cat which comes our way and nowhere near it.

Around teatime this afternoon I got a call from a guy who'd been feeding two cats which, from conversations  with neighbours, he believed to have been abandoned by people who moved and left their cats behind to fend for themselves -a sadly all too common story. He'd been feeding these two but couldn't take them because he had two dogs who did not like cats. More recently his neighbours had been complaining that his feeding the cats was resulting in the cats messing in their gardens. I did say I might be able to take them if I could catch them and get the vet to give them the first flu jab but he would then have to keep feeding them for another three weeks before they could have their second and I could then take them to our re-homing centre but this wasn't really satisfactory. As he didn't live far away, I offered to come round and check them out. Which I did and this is what I found.

Two young (around 2-3 years old was my guess; I'd be surprised if they're much older) and very pretty females who seemed in good health and were very friendly. Both came up to me to be stroked and purred when I did. They are what I consider to be very re-homable indeed. If I didn't have so many cats already in my house I'd have taken them without a second thought.

What I am trying to do is find temporary accommodation for them and have put out feelers. If I can move Ted the battered smelly stray upstairs I might even just squeeze them in here for three weeks. As it is, all I can do for the moment is put them on the cats needing homes webpage and see if my feelers get felt. 

I'll let you know.