TwistedWhiskers
Bringing you all the latest mews from 8 Lives Cat Rescue
Spring 2015
Welcome to our second 8 Lives newsletter. We had a lovely lovely Christmas, filled with messages and photos from our previous guests, showing off their Christmas trees and presents, kittens proudly showing off how much they’d grown and what gorgeous big cats they were becoming. All very happy and delighting in their furever homes. You’ll notice our second newsletter is a different format from the first. Sadly the smart and apparently free app we did the first one in said we’d exceeded our free limit, so we’re sending this as a special edition of our blog.
A flurry of re homings in the snow
You’ll be delighted to know that the two cats featured as needing homes in our previous newsletter found their furever humans between Christmas and New Year – aided by a naughty ginger kit who came to us shortly before Xmas.
Yoda
Yoda came into rescue when he couldn’t cope with the dogs who lived in his current home. He wasn’t too impressed with cats either when he first arrived, but eventually made friends with Dizzie. One lovely lady contacted us about adopting him …. and then realised that Domino was the right cat for her. Three months on she’s proved to be exactly right … they’re very very happy together.
Another super family contacted us to adopt Yoda, and since he was mates with Dizzie by then, they adopted the pair of them. I’m sure you’ll agree they appear very happy with this arrangement.
Dizzie & Yoda chilling in new home
Ralph and David are another story of friendship and re homing over the Christmas period. Ralph was a kit dumped on the streets in Rotherham, Dave was born on the street in Chesterfield. In rescue they teamed up to create mayhem … and a brave
family has agreed for them to move in and trash their own home 🙂
Wiccan ……. the 150th cat to stay with us arrived in January
Wiccan’s story is a sad one: his human found him as a stray kitten and took him in. Then her circumstances changed, and she had to move house. Despite frantic efforts she was unable to find rented accommodation in her area that would accept cats, and the only solution was for Wiccan to come into rescue. Thankfully, he found a lovely new home very quickly. A young woman had enquired about adopting Dizzie, just as he was packing his bags to leave with Yoda, so Wiccan jumped into his place 🙂
Pet friendly accommodation is a big issue though., and pets are one of the hidden tragedies of the recession. Of course there are people who will use house moves as an excuse to dump no longer wanted pets in rescue …… but there is a heartbreaking reality to the difficulty this causes. People can be forced into rented accommodation for a whole variety of reasons … many of them never previously anticipated – mortgaged homes repossessed following unemployment, need to move area to find employment, leaving abusive relationships, moving to care for relatives. Letting agencies normally advise landlords to not accept pets. Independent landlords mostly see animals as an unnecessary complication to the lettings. Pets …. and the humans who love them are left in impossible and heart breaking situations. There must be a better way forward ………
Our big story this quarter is “Jack”
It’s a big story for several reasons. Jack is a large and very local stray who has caused concern for some years but we’ve been unable to help previously. He’s also caused a lot of dilemmas, and been a huge surprise. For years it felt dreadful that as a rescue we were unable to help the grubby un-neutered tom cat on our own doorstep …… though only occasionally and unpredictably. The best we could do was give him some food when we spotted him and let him go his way.
Then one weekend in February we returned from taking a kit to her new home, started cleaning her room ready for whomever was to arrive next, looked out the window and there was Jack on the patio! Having not seen him for months I’d feared he’d not survived another winter outdoors. He’s normally allowed me to stroke him a little whilst he eats but then backed off. Long story short, that day was different and half an hour later to my amazement he was in the recently vacated room – quite hissy and grumbly, with a filthy, greasy and soaking wet coat.
He went off to be neutered as soon as possible and we kept him here a couple of days after while he got over his op. He sat fixed on the windowsill watching his allotment, stank the house out (it takes several weeks after neutering for hormones to settle and lose that tom cat aroma), hissed a greeting when we went in to feed him (though never lashed out) and would agree to some efforts to brush his horrid greasy dirty coat. Nevertheless it seemed that we were agreed that he should return to his nomadic life as soon as possible. Having waiting for a fine day when it wasn’t too cold and wet to release him I went into his room and sat down to judge his mood and decide whether it would be better to try to put him in a carrier and take him back over to the allotments, or easier to just open his bedroom door and the front door and usher him out. Of course with cats things never quite go to plan, but this ran spectacularly counter to everything we’d expected. ………..
Jack leapt down from the windowsill and onto my lap, throwing his grubby smelly body against me, purring and snuggling to Olympic standard.
…………Plan B was quickly formulated. Jack cleaned himself up and began sporting a smart collar. He reminded me more than a little of a thick-set thug wearting a shirt and tie. But he kept his collar on, and day by day his coat became more silky and handsome.
He was determined he was going to be a regular family cat, so we started the process of getting him vaccinated and ready for adoption. He had to be tested for FIV but apart from blunting the vet’s needle with his ridiculously thick skin, he co operated
completely with the process. Thankfully the test was negative.
Jack has become one of the most adorable affectionate cats ever. He can hardly wait for me to sit down before he climbs on my lap. He loves everyone, and shares his love equally between however many people are in his bedroom at any one time. He’s going to make some one/family very very happy one day soon. His adoption advert is here: https://8livescatrescue.wordpress.com/jack/
Also available for adoption
Please check out our Cat Chat listings for all cats currently available for adoption: http://www.catchat.org/eightlives
8 Lives: Sheffield 8 Cat Rescue 
Thanks for caring Aine, entertaining read as always xxx
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Great newsletter. Good to read about other rescue cats 🙂
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