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.) 

GOODBYE, MAX

MAX

2001 - 30/01/2014

Well, this wasn't expected. I'd booked in Tilly, the small grey kitten-cat because her diarrhoea problem just wasn't going away. Max hadn't been eating too well this week and when he threw up his cooked ham yesterday morning and started retching bile in the afternoon I thought I'd best take him along as well just to get him checked out. The vet found a lump the size of a satsuma in his gut at a place that was hard to get to. So: palliative treatment to keep him going longer or put him to sleep. Obviously I chose, not without some deliberation and discussion with the vet, the latter. As the vet said, just because we can prolong life doesn't always mean that we should. My first rule is: never let an animal suffer. And that would inevitably happen to Max. I wanted him to go with dignity.

And he did.

He patiently accepted the vet shaving his leg and just as patiently, without the slightest struggle, let her insert the needle into his vein. Because his veins had contracted it took a second injection in the other leg before he finally slipped away. I stroked him and spoke to him throughout and finally kissed him goodbye. 

I hadn't had him long, taking him in after his elderly owner, whom got him from us several years ago, went into a home. He spent all his time in my living room, mostly sitting on the arms of the settee or chairs, often next to where I was sitting so I could stroke him and sometimes he'd step down and settle on my knee.

Now there's a Max-shaped space in my living room and I miss him.

JUST ANOTHER THREE DAYS

CAUTION: (and I'm being serious here), this post contains photos of and a story about a seriously ill cat. If sick animals upset you, then you may want to think about passing on this. I'm leaving it till the end. The first two stories are pretty standard for this blog.

Today I went to King's Road vets to pick up a cat to take to the re-homing centre. She'd already been to one family but they didn't get on. She's a nice cat with people which I could tell from just the short amount of time I spent with her. She's a confident little thing and wasn't bothered at all about being put in the pen at Ferry Farm. The catch is that she isn't good with other cats. Otherwise she's an attractive, unusually marked, and likeable cat around a year old. She is, however, one of those annoying animals which won't stay still when you try to get a photograph of them for a website and after nearly ten shot I still never got a decent portrait shot. The two on display here are the best I was able to take.

I'll be back there again tomorrow to pick up a couple of cats which have had diarrhea for a few days and take them to the vets. Then I'll be back again on Tuesday to collect long-haired Doris who needs de-tatting.

Next up, just another couple of photos of Aoife and her three older kittens. I was sitting watching tv yesterday evening when I felt a paw on my arm. Aoife had just jumped on the settee and was wanting my attention. Another evening she was sitting there with, Tiny (the smallest kitten, in case you hadn't guessed) was snuggling into the crook of my arm, and the other two were just climbing over me. They'll be available for homing (subject to a rigorous home check -they're my babies) in a week's time. The grey kitten (who is called either Brian or Zara depending on whether Colin or Audrey get their way) will be going to her new home then where she'll be spoiled rotten.

Aoife's real kittens are coming along nicely and both have their eyes open now.

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Okay, Wednesday night around 8.15 and I got a phone call from a lady who had just found a very distressed cat in the grounds of a nearby public school. Fortunately I was in a position to help by having a cage which was already set up that had been used briefly by Aoife and her two babies. I got there in less than ten minutes and found two ladies with the sick cat. Apparently it had been in the vicinity for a few weeks but this was the first time they'd been able to catch it.

And the cat was very ill being nothing more than skin and bone. I took it home, put it in the cage and gave it a sachet of Felix and some cat milk. I stroked it a little but only a little as I didn't want to distress it even more than it already was. It ate the food slowly and drank the milk. I could have given it more but it's stomach would be contracted through lack of food and thought it best not. Here are two photos.

In the morning I gave it another sachet which it picked at and some water. I had to pick up Daisy (the cat I'd been fostering and had re-homed a week early and which turned out not to have been neutered by its previous owner) to take to the vet's. When I got there Wendy the vet hadn't arrived so I told the nurse the story and left them both there. Just after lunch time, Wendy rang to say that the cat was severely jaundiced and that it's liver was failing. The kindest thing to do for it was also the hardest and I couldn't do anything but agree.

At least, and thanks to those kind ladies, I was able to give it a final comfortable night in my house where it was warm, fed, and safe.

It would be nice if all aspects of animal rescuing had happy ends but alas that isn't so. All you can hope to do is do your best for the animals that come into your care and sometimes that's...

R.I.P. LEO

I sneaked Leo into the house behind Susan's back about 10 years ago. She was away on holiday for a week with her brother and his family and he was a kitten at Carol's which kept asking me to take him home. So I did. I told Susan he came from Hendon and was just going to be dumped. She wasn't happy but put up with him and, of course, came to love him.

Leo was a friendly and mostly gentle cat except when food was around in which case he'd barge his way through the other cats to pick whichever bowl he preferred. He always loved being made a fuss of and would often come and sit on my knee.

Sadly, when Susan and I split up I had to leave him behind though, as our lives are still entangled, I still saw a lot of him. Recently he'd begun developing breathing problems which got so bad he had to stay at Wendy's vets on a drip for the weekend over which period Wendy told us he'd seem to pick up. He even managed to escape from his cage. Alas this morning, he deteriorated and Wendy drew pink and bloody fluid from his lungs. It was time to go and I stroked him and talked to him as she did the deed and he went in seconds.

Goodbye Leo, you enhanced our lives and I think, I know, you were happy with us.

LOTUS

Lotus is the cat on the right.

One of two cats which came with me when I moved, Lotus was both our oldest and newest cat. She'd been owned by the son of a friend of Susan's late father. He booked her into Westhall Kennels and then himself into a hospice. Susan only found out about Lotus after his death, we went to the kennels and brought her home where she quickly settled in. It soon became obvious that she preferred me -Susan thinks it's because I approximately physically resemble her late owner- so it became natural for her to come with me.

Lotus has had arthritis since we got her and I believed it had been getting much worse of late and verified by Louise the vet who gave her a steroid injection. I suspected she wouldn't last out the year.

Yesterday evening she was sitting next to me on the settee when she began to cough, throw back her head and cry out before slumping down. Her breathing increased rapidly then slowed down again. This went on for a couple of hours during which she soiled herself. I stroked and comforted her the whole time. Her pupils had dilated to fill her eyes. I thought at one point that she'd gone blind, though I was wrong about that. I was also convinced that she was having a stroke as had Lucy, the first cat Susan and adopted together.

To say it was distressing to watch is an understatement and I kept whispering to her to go to sleep (and not wake up). After some internal debate, I rang Susan to tell her because I knew that, alive or dead, she want to come with me to the vets next morning.

Eventually and to my surprise, Lotus began to calm down. She slid off the settee so I put a blanket on the floor and made her as comfortable as I could. I also gave her a couple of syringes of water.

I woke up at four, went downstairs and found Lotus actually standing up, albeit very wobbly. She managed to make her way to the water dish, falling over a couple of times in the process. Then I picked her up and nursed her for over half an hour, with her purring the whole time, before I went back to bed. When I got up again a couple of hours later, Lotus had recovered enough strength to go into the kitchen and eat food I put down for her. she'd been sick during the night but not much had come up. Eventually the time came round to put her in the car, collect Susan and go and see Wendy the vet.

I was wrong about the stroke. Wendy believed it was a blood clot which was affecting the nerves in her back end. She cried whenever her hind legs were moved. Lotus was not going to get better and to take her home would just be cruel. Her head slumped down even before the full amount of fluid in the needle got into her system.

Lotus was around sixteen and she'd been with us for the last two years of her life. We think they'd been happy ones for her.

MORAL DILEMMAS

There are a couple of issues I've been pondering on recently with regard to cats. While seemingly different, they are related as you'll see.

1. Is it ever right to put to sleep a healthy cat? 

Now the obvious answer to that is a resounding NO! But sometimes it isn't always that simple. A couple of weeks ago I got a call from a lady who, for very reasons (which I forget, sorry) needed to re-home her two 16-year old cats. 

Apart from the fact that that we were full anyway, it is extremely difficult to re-home older cats and sixteen is quite old for a cat anyway. Unless a friend or neighbour is willing. it's almost impossible. They are coming to the end of their lives and the likelihood of incurring vets bills is quite high. I told her this and also what would happen to them if a local rescue did take them in. The odds were that they'd be stuck in a small cage together for the rest of their short lives, surrounded by other strange cats in cages. 

I suggested that the kindest thing to do in this case would be to put them to sleep. They'd had good comfortable lives and had been loved. If that couldn't continue then it should end. I thought that discussing it with a vet would also help.

I haven't heard anything since. So, did I say the right thing or not?

2. Should a kitten be homed with an elderly person?

I'll define elderly as being in their late 70's or older.

And I'm not going to answer the question directly either. Instead I'll go off on a tangent and tell you what our personal plans are.

We have nine cats and we'll both be 64 this year. The cats are aged from just under 2 to 15 (the eldest being Lotus our newest cat). Despite our family backgrounds suggesting that we could be lucky enough to live to a healthy old age, nothing in this world is certain. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. So we aren't ever going to have another kitten. Neither are we going to replace any of the nine cats as they die off until maybe we just have three or four left. Then we'll begin to take in cats which we're fairly sure either won't outlast us or not by much if they do. I'm thinking of cats aged 14 or over. 

Something that worries us greatly is that we die leaving young healthy cats to an uncertain fate. This is one, not uncommon reason, for cats coming into our care and it's a very sad one and something which we'd rather avoid.

I mentioned Lotus earlier. Her story is a sad one. She was owned by an elderly mother with the onset of dementia and her son, not yet 50, who was dying of cancer. She had to go into care, he booked the cat into Westhall kennels, then put himself into a hospice. They'd been friends of Susan's family but Susan only found about these matters months later. We went to visit Lotus and found her to be withdrawn and in poor physical condition. She was never likely to be re-homed and it would have been kinder to put her to sleep. But luckily for her, we took her home and she now enjoys a good quality of life. But Lotus is the lucky exception.

Lotus at Westhall Kennels

And in our garden a couple of months later.

THE FATE OF ED

At the end of the previous post, I mentioned Ed, the very loveable one year old fluffy black and white cat who needed an exploratory operation because of an enlarged liver.

When the vet operated this morning he found that poor Ed was in quite a mess. Apart from the liver, he had several enlarged glands, almost certainly feline leukemia, and probably several other things wrong with him. Carole was phoned while Ed was still on the operating table and it was agreed, as I had suggested to the vet yesterday, with the only other alternative being a slow and painful death, he was put to sleep while still under the anaesthetic.

That's two cats we've lost recently, one old, one young. It happens, I know, it happens. But it's still sad.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed by the time of the next post with stories of re-homed cats and lots of pictures of rescued cats and cute kittens.

SUMMER: A BAD TIME FOR CATS

I'm not talking about cats which have nice secure homes who can enjoy the sunshine (on the rare occasions we get any) and the warm days. I'm talking about the ones in need of new homes, or at least a place in a rescue. Summer seems to be a bad time for them. All the rescues are full; not that they aren't full all the time. But there seems to be more cats in need. And we, and this we is all the cat rescues not just ours, can't take them all. In fact we can hardly take any. It's a bad time for re-homing too because people are going on holiday and aren't really thinking about taking on a new cat. Cats just aren't being re-homed much  from mid-July to mid-August.

This week I seem to be averaging 2-3 calls a day and having to turn down all of them. I try to make suggestions, usually that they log on to catchat.org to try other rescues in the area even as I know they're in just as bad a state as we are. But I can't bring myself to slam the door in the caller's face. I try to offer the slender chance of hope.

Today a lady called on behalf of a woman going into a refuge. She needed homes for the woman's three cats, dog, and a rabbit. The RSPCA had already told her they would destroy the cats. We couldn't take the cats but I gave her Phil's number and said he may be able to help with the dog and rabbit. The rabbit at least could go in the hutch at the back of our Grangetown shop. (It feels strange to have to specify which of our shops -our shops! We are a chain!)

Earlier this week I got a call from a lady whose elderly (mid-80's) parents had been feeding a stray cat but theirs was fighting with it and they couldn't deal with it. On impulse, I said I'd call round at teatime as I'd be on my way home from the vets and it wasn't much out of the way. So I went and looked at the cat. It was old with very bad teeth, thin, and with what I thought (correctly as it turned out) was a cancerous lump on its stomach. I told them that I thought the best thing would be to put it to sleep. They agreed to this and offered to pay the costs (which they did, plus a donation for us, and some cat food). Before I could sort this out, they rang me again to say that Pawz For Thought had put an ad in the lost column of the Sunderland Echo. That was a good thing but unsurprisingly it came to nothing. I suspected the cat had been deliberately abandoned as the family had tried to find its owner. So today I took it to Roker Park Vets where Wendy agreed with me that the best thing was to put it to sleep.

This was the third time we'd done that this week. On Monday an elderly cat of Carol's which had quickly started going downhill went the journey. Then on Thursday, Baby, the Lanchester kitten I'd rescued, which had been deteriorating for several weeks despite numerous trips to the vets, had to have an end to her suffering. Such a shame as she was a lovely natured little cat. I'd never expected her to have a long life but I didn't expect it would be only just over a year.

Yesterday I got a call from Carol. A woman had phoned her from Wallsend on the other side of the Tyne, east of Newcastle. She had a seven month old female to re-home because tomorrow she was leaving the area and Carol was concerned about it. I called the local branch of Cats Protection. Actually I made a mistake and rang the Gateshead branch not the north Tyneside one. By the time they rang back after I'd left a message I'd already sorted something out but did have a mutually sympathetic chat about the terrible situation we cat rescuers were in. I called the owner and explained I couldn't go through as I didn't know Wallsend at all and just couldn't do it at rush hour. I'd had a busy day as it was. However if she brought it through on the Metro... I got a few things sorted, went to pick up Carol and take her to the vets with Baby, and then to Seaburn Metro station where the woman (and two small children) arrived with the cat. I then took it to the vets to leave overnight and be neutered the following day (today).

Shortly after I got back home and as a result of the photo in the Sunderland Echo (which I can't reprint here as the scanner drivers are missing), a nice family came to see Josie. Now I'd gotten to know Josie a little better over the last few days and she isn't an easy cat. Try and pick her up when she's not in the mood and she'll attack. She's terrified of other cats and even when I leave the living room door open she'll stay where she is. Much as I want to re-home her, she wouldn't have been suitable for them. I contacted Carol who had a young cat in mind and they went over to hers straight away. They took the recently neutered young cat and the mother went back again today to take an older cat to live in the old people's home where she works. Result!

A bit of a mixed week, more down than ups. Next week I expect more of the same.

And you know what the real problem is? It isn't lack of money. While our charity isn't rolling in it by a long long way, we could afford to take in more than we do. What we don't have is enough people to look after the cats which need rescuing. Carol takes most of our cats. I'll foster the odd one. We have two other fosterers. Now and again StrayAid and  Tracy at Burnhope will take a couple. But it's not enough. It's nowhere near enough. Too many people take in cats (and dogs and rabbits and guinea pigs and bird and...and...and..) without really thinking what they're doing. Susan and I will not take on any more cats even though we're only in our early 60's because we don't know what's going to happen in the future. People just don't think and it's up to committed animal lovers like us to help out. But it's not enough.

It's never enough.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Right, now that's over it's back to cats.

On Christmas Eve, Susan had to take our Lily to the vets and she just managed to get in. The cat had an abscess on her tail which had burst and was in a mess. The vet sedated her, cleaned and stitched the wound and out a bandage on. The bandage lasted until the following Wednesday evening by which time it was apparent that the wound was healing well.

On Thursday I called in at Carol's with a pile of food and looked at the new kittens. There were three, just at rehomable age in a cat carrier and a black 5 month old female whose mood alternated between very friendly and somewhat bitey. I think it's just how she's approached but would benefit from someone used to cats. Not a starter cat in other words. Her legs seem a bit on the short side, don't they?

One of the other cats -Meg aka Psycho cat- wasn't in a good way so I took her to Roker Park vets. I was also carrying an old cat which had died in her sleep for them to take care of. Sadly, Meg was in a worse state than we thought and it was decided to put her to sleep. I wasn't happy about this as I was rather fond of the moody old soul but felt it was the right thing to do. Not to do so would only have prolonged her suffering. Apart from not being well, she wasn't a happy cat, didn't like the other cats she shared space with, and was too old and temperamental to re-home. Here she is in better days.

TIRED AND A LITTLE BIT DOWN IN THE DUMPS

Yesterday was supposed to mark the beginning of 5 days away from cat rescuing and anything else Animal Krackers-related. It's been a long and busy week on topof other busy weeks and I'm stressed and just emotionally and physically washed out by it all which seems to be taking up more and more of my time and I need a break to recharge my batteries. Saturday turned out to be anything but and I'll get back to that shortly.

My memory is playing up as usual so I can't remember what I did at the beginning of the week, probably the usual stuff. Thursday morning, however, I went off to Asda at 7.30 to pick up some cat food for my own 8 cats, then back home to move Samson from the cage in the garage to a cat carrier. (Samson has been a right pain to feed and he's hardly eaten anything since he was neutered on Tuesday. Wednesday night I gave him half a tin of Feline Fayre tuna and he wolfed it down and, before I went to Asda, happily tucked into the rest of the tin.) I then filled a couple of boxes with donated cat food and put them in the van as well.

8.40 and I was waiting outside Sandra's house (a nurse who fosters cats) for her to come out with two cats she'd been looking after. I didn't wait long and then I was off to Tracy's rescue at Burnhope as she was taking in the three of them and the food was for her. Here are some photos of the cats at Burnhope along with some kittens she has available for re-homing. Here's Samson in my garage and then at Tracy's with his two new friends.

The following massive monster is one of Tracy's own pets.

I had to take a different route home via Chester-le-Street instead of the usual Durham as I had to go to Bournmoor just outside the boundary of Sunderland. This involved a lot country driving and was a very nice run. However, when I got to Bournmoor and eventually found the house there was no-one there because I'd got me details wrong and I had to go back that afternoon.

Which I did and picked up the cat and took it Carole's. While at Carole's she got a phone call from a guy who'd rescued a cat from some teenage morons whom he found kicking it in Roker Park where he was walking his dog. Carol got the impression that this had just happened and I was duly sent over to pick up the cat. As it turned out, the guy who Asian and a real animal lover (he also kept doves, had a dog which looked like a Staffie with long legs and a soft nature, another cat, child and partner) had actually rescued it a week ago and would have kept it but his other cat hated it.

Friday. My usual early morning swim followed by a trip to Asda to buy cat food for Carol and empty the donated food bin. I think I did other stuff but I can't remember. when I took the food to Carol she did tell me that a cat I'd brought in for re-homing never even left the cat carrier before someone came and took it. Nice one. Wish that happened all the time. A little later Deb who'd fostered a lovely cat a couple of weeks ago (see previous post) had to bring it back as her daughter... well, that's personal, suffice to say she couldn't keep him. So back he went in the cage that Samson had luckily vacated the day before. And it looks like I have a home for him tomorrow.

Late Friday afternoon and I popped over to Ryhope to pick up a cat. 

Now I just want to interrupt the flow of cats for a grumble about Durham County Council. Ryhope used to be part of the county but came under Sunderland in 1973 (or 4?), whatever. Durham has a habit of doing odd things with regards to building council estates and naming street. On Wednesday morning I set off for Murton at 7.30 to pick up a cat and, while I'd found the street on Google maps and printed out a copy, I still had to ask someone exactly where the street was. Turned out I'd driven past the house because each side of the street had a different name and I'd only noticed the wrong one. The council also seems to delight in creating estates which are mazes so you have to go left, follow the bend to the right, turn right then left, go round the oval, and park up your own backside because No.29 is next door to 47. The addresses in Bournmoor and Ryhope were both like that.

They'd got the cat from us eight months ago and it hadn't settled, I'd been told, fighting with their existing cat, urinating all over the place, being temperamental and frightening visiting children (and I'm not making that up). So I collected it and took it to Carole's. While she was doing something else, I opened the carrier door and stroked the cat which seemed quite friendly. The people who'd had her also had two dogs and I suspect the poor thing was stressed and probably would be a nice pet in quieter surroundings. After a quick check, Carole then told me to take it back over the river to Sandra's as she was going to foster it and calm it down. (Ian grits teeth at what he sees as an unneccessary trip as he could have dropped it there in the first place and saved the journey over to Ryhope.)

And then it was Saturday, the start of my five day break from all things Animal Krackers.

Like very rude word it was. (Note: unlike my other blog, Freethinking, I'm trying to keep this as a PG -parental guidance- rated blog, i.e. some mild swearing but otherwise suitable for younger readers or those of a sensitive nature.)

It was raining hard and Susan told me to go to the shop and load up the van with unsold stuff to donate to Barnardo's in town. I also had to drop some cat litter off at Silksworth with Lilian who took in a cat from us and she can't carry anything too heavy. An hour later, I got home all wet and irritated, had a coffee and watched something I'd copied from tv before having a lie down. The phone woke me from a doze at one point but I ignored it. Shortly after that Susan arrived and told me that carole had an emergency with a cat and, as all the vets were close, I had to take it to the PSDA emergency vet service at Heworth.

I went over and Carole was quite worked up, saying she'd never seen anything like it and got me to touch the side of the cat's head.

"It's an abscess," I said, a burst and very large abscess. Carole said the cat was only two years old and had been told that by it's former owner. 

Half an hour later and I was with the vet and it was apparent that there was more wrong with it than just the abscess. The abscess itself was enormous and hadn't just appeared overnight. The vet said it was also affecting its inner ear. The ears themselves were speckled dark black. The long haired ginger cat's coat was heavily matted, a sign of stress, and the cat itself was very thin. And, far from being two years old, the vet told me it was a geriatric cat in which case the weight loss was a sure sign of a cat on the way out.

"Am I being horrible if I ask you to put him to sleep?" I asked the vet.

She said, "No, I think it's the best thing."

He didn't react at all when part of his leg was shaved or when the needle was inserted and his breathing stopped before even the last drop had been injected into him.

I called in at the shop on the way back to tell Susan and Andrea what had happened and then went home thinking that was that for the day. Sadly, not. Teatime and Susan had gone to visit her mother in the home when Little Bob started crying. I thought it was just him psyching himself up to do a poo but the crying went on. I picked him up and saw that his right eye had swollen up and his lower inner eyelid had also swollen and covered his eyeball. Little Bob was distressed and in pain. I rang Susan and told her to come home as we needed to take him to the emergency vets. 

In the end, Susan was too stressed so I just took Little Bob on my own. Just as well as there were a number of idiotic drivers driving far too fast in the dark on wet dual carriageways which meant trying to change lanes was a nightmare. Poor Little Bob was screaming his head off the whole time, though he calmed down once we got there. The same receptionist was on duty and we had a bit of a problem because they couldn't find Animal Krackers account, head office was closed, and her boss was off . This had happened earlier as well but this time they needed a deposit from me to cover both sessions -luckily I had my wallet with me as I had to pay £110.00 on my Visa card. The cost of the poor ginger cat alone was over £200.00.

The vet was reassuring when she checked the kitten over. It was probably caused by a cat scratch on the eye and the swelling can go down quite quickly. Unless it was an abscess behind the eye in which case the eye itself would have to be removed. Given the way Little Bob and Daisy play fight then a scratch is definitely the most likely. I hope. The vet gave him an antibiotic injection and an anti-inflammatory to reduce the pain and swelling. Then back down wet dual carriageways with lunatics driving far too fast and home.

Twenty-four hours later and Bob isn't complaining, though his eye is still swollen and tomorrow I'll get him to our vets.

Here's another couple of recent cat photos.

THE THREE-CAT MORNING

So:

First, 7.40am, swimming -24 lengths in 42 minutes which is a good one for me as I'm happy with 20 in 40. Second, Asda -to buy the week's cat food, pick up odd bits for the house, and check the recently reinstated pet food donation bin which turns out to contain a fair amount of catfood. After a half hour break during which I read The Times and fortify myself with pate on two toasted crumpets and I'm off to Carol's with the cat food.

I picked up the first cat there, Shaft, an old and rather ill male, for what was to be his third trip to vets this week. On Monday's visit, where I gave him his name by simply picking a pronounceable one from the diagram of a feline skeleton on the surgery wall, he was given a couple of injections to try and boost his metabolism. He'd been drooling ropes of saliva, his eyes and nose had mucus around them, and he was barely eating. On Wednesday morning they kept him in for the day and put him on a drip. Today, the vet suggested that there was nothing really they could do, a conclusion I'd come to myself when I picked him up but was glad when he tried to lead me in that direction. 

I stayed with Shaft and took a few photographs of him while the vet went to get the drugs. When I showed the photos to Carol and told her I was going to put one on my blog she was completely aghast. But this is what happens. Sometimes cats, particularly elderly cats, in our care fall ill and there's nothing we can do except not let them suffer. It's not down to something we haven't done; old cats get ill and that's it. And this what we -what I- have to do. I make the decision to put the cat to sleep and there's not once, no matter how obvious it is that it is the right thing to do, that I don't agonise over it and wonder if it was the right thing. Here's the photograph. I'm sorry it's not a nice one, if it upsets you, but imagine how I felt being there. I stayed with the cat, stroking him, as he went to sleep for the last time.

But I took another one back to Carol's, a 13 week old notionally feral kitten. I say notionally because it had been handled often by people feeding it and the others of its family so it accepted being stroked and picked up. Carol popped it into a cage and left it. A couple of minutes later it had squeezed through the bars, jumped down from the table and sauntered into her living room.

 

From Carol's I went to pick up a 9 month old unneutered male called Samson which its owner, who'd inherited it from someone else, couldn't keep because her jack russell was prone to go for it. I took it home and popped him into a cage in my garage where he'll stay for a few days. I booked him in to be neutered on Tuesday and after that I'm hoping he'll go to be fostered with the cat who vacated the cage yesterday.

And that's the three-cat morning. However, backtracking, on Sunday I took in a friendly cat which had been found at Hendon and put him in the cage. Next morning I put a poster in Animal Krackers shop window asking its owner to get in touch. Nothing so far. Yesterday morning, while driving home one of the shop's staff who taken poorly, Andrea, who had come with me, mention a new volunteer fosterer. The cat was in its new temporary home within an hour and I couldn't be happier as it loves people and took to the mother and daughter immediately. Here he is.

Then there was the jack russell I transported in the van and I will never drive alone with an unsecured dog ever again.

A few cats have been rehomed this week including the almost tame feral from the disused Hendon factory and one which I'd taken to Roker Park vets to have some matted fur shaved off and where one of the receptionists fell in love with her. The lady's husband wasn't too keen but who cares, he'll come round.

Lastly, here's a photo of Little Bob and Big Ted.

ON CALL

Being involved with cat rescue is a bit like a doctor being on call -you never know when the phone's going to ring and you're called out.

1.

On Saturday Carol rang me about a lady who lives in a nearby town and takes in some of our older rescued cats (usually when one of hers has died). Incidentally, I'm being vague about details because, while I want to tell this story, I also want to respect her privacy. 

She lives on her own in a flat in a nice looking council estate area but has not very nice neighbours. She'd come home to find one of her cats, which never goes out, to be missing and got a bee in her bonnet that someone had a key to her flat and she was upset. I hopped in the van and drove round to see her. While I was there I think I convinced her that no-one had got in. If they had they'd have done a lot more than take one cat. However, despite moving every piece of furniture, the fridge-freezer, cooker, washing machine, bed (also inside the wooden frame), etc, I couldn't find the cat and during that time the cat's best friend also disappeared. I was convinced that neither had got out but completely baffled as where they might be. After 45 minutes I gave up and went home. Not long after that Carol rang me to say the first cat had been found buried in a box on top of the wardrobe though his best friend was still missing. I'm sure it's since turned up.

 2.

Monday lunchtime and one of Carol's rescued cats was poorly with the 'sniffles' and very dehydrated. I said I'd take her whenever Carol could get an appointment which basically was as soon as I could get there so off I went.

I didn't have a chance to look at the cat until I was sitting in the surgery, though he'd cried most of the way there. A youngish tabby, he lay on his right side in the carrier, crying in pain and breathing heavily. He tried to get up but fell over and I thought this was far more than a dose of cat flu. I'd been talking to an elderly lady who'd brought her cat in and she saw the vet before I did. When she came out her carrier was empty and she was visibly upset. I sympathised but also said that, while I didn't want to appear insensitive, if she ever wanted another cat Animal Krackers was always desperate for good owners.

I took the cat in and the vet, Louise a young Scot, took the top off the carrier and gently lifted the cat out. After checking it over thoroughly she said that it was clear to her that there were large masses in the chest cavity and probably the lungs and, as it was obvious to both of us that the cat was in great pain, there remained only the hardest and kindest thing to do. And so it was done. I didn't stay because the cat didn't really know what was happening and I didn't have any relationship with it and felt it would be ghoulish.

Carol got a shock as she just expected it to be put on a drip and she took it badly. But these things happen.

BOXCAT

Arriving at Carol's just before  8 on Tuesday morning to pick up a cat for neutering, I found this box on her front step. Noting the small airholes, I picked it up and shook it gently with hearing any cry or detecting any movement and immediately feared the worst. Inside was this frail little thing.

Later that day I took it to Roker Park Vets for a checkup. It's a neutered male, barely about ten, skinny with fur in tats, poor teeth, and didn't like being picked up though was happy to be stroked. It had messed itself in the carrier but that might have been because of stress. So, take it back, give it some TLC and see what happens.

What happens is that he hasn't eaten or drank anything since yesterday and appears to be quietly dying. Carol feels she has let it go on long enough and in half an hour we're taking him to be put to sleep.

We don't know who put him on Carol's doorstep or anything about him as there was no note. Were they just getting rid of a problem, or couldn't afford to pay for treatment, or just couldn't face seeing him slowly dying? Never know.

But there's been more than Boxcat. After dropping off the cat for neutering, I picked up Andrea and a rabbit, then a lady and her dog and took them all over to Vets4Pets at Fulwell. After taking them home a couple of hours later I was back sorting out my study which has had new windows put in and been redecorated which meant all my books, CDs, DVDs, and graphic novels were piled in boxes and dumped in my bedroom and now it was time to start getting things back together, a process which taken until today to nearly complete.

Anyway, mid afternoon and after picking up bedding from the shop, I went to see if the owners had managed to get the cat which savaged my hand into the carrier I left. They had and here she is.

So, with her in the van, I picked up the now neutered young male from Williams & Cummings, dropped him off at Carol's where I collected another cat to go to Roker Park Vets. That done, I picked up Andrea, went to a house to collect an 8-week old fostered out bulldog cross -all cuddly, lickey, and bitey, and sorry no pics- to take to Vets4Pets for his first injections. After dropping off Andrea and her sister at their home, I took the puppy back to its home and then went to my home where I had twenty minutes to get changed to go out for a 60th birthday meal for Big Ian  one of the shop's mainstays (as opposed to me who is known as Susan's Ian; there used to be another Ian whom I thought of as Driver Ian but others as Chip On His Shoulder Ian). The pub -the Seaton Lane Inn-  is about four miles away and used to be about one step up from a spit and sawdust place when I used to go about 35 years back for the real ale. Now it's a top class small hotel and restaurant and the food was very good indeed.

I'm only about an hour and a half back from taking Boxcat to the vets to be put to sleep. All the way there he came out with a quiet sound like a miaow without the 'm'. He lasted barely seconds after the injection and never even reacted when the fur on his leg was shaved and the needle inserted. Poor thing.