Hope you and your furry ones are enjoying this lovely hot sunshine.  The cats here are pretty much flaked out and flopped a lot of the time.   It’s a bit of a challenge keeping them all cool when there’s so many of them, especially as there are several groups who need to be kept separate, and most need to be kept indoors.

our lovely Amber

Progress

There have been some exciting developments since our Spring Newsletter.  Our plea in that for additional committee members led to two of our lovely adoptive parents coming onboard: Betty’s mum and Mowgli & Lyra’s dad.

betty

mowgli & lyra

Following some tedious paperwork, and some excellent support from our hero Keith at Voluntary Action Sheffield we’ve finally submitted our application to be registered as a charity.   Fingers crossed that it all goes through ok.

Fundraising

We’ve had some very kind donations and support from a number of people and our amazing fundraiser Jenny (or “Anty Jennnny” as our Flipper calls her) has been apparently tireless in her efforts and imagination to make us money to support our cats.  She and Fiona organised another brilliant event at Strip the Willow in June …… huge thanks to “Strip” for letting use the venue for free.   Lots of fun quizzes and a brilliant music input from the up and coming  Max ….. he’s a brilliant musician and we’re waiting for him to be really famous so we can dine out on the story of him playing for our 8 Lives cats.

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Full

That’s probably the biggest news right now.  We’re absolutely chockablock full.   The lovely Tabbytha & Mowse we talked about in the Spring newsletter, having their babies together and all snuggling in a little box together …. well they now have 7 strapping kittens ready to go to new homes, plus Simon whom they adopted after he was found alone in a garden age about 5 weeks.

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Since they were all so happy together and we had a spare room …… we’d initially intended separate rooms for Tab & Mowse … we offered to take in two older lads who had been living on the street for a while.  They’d been fed by someone who was allowing them to shelter in her shed but was unable to let them into the house, and was about to be unable to feed them due to hospital treatment.   Jasper & Puddy arrived in a bit of a mess ….. greasy coats and poorly teeth.  It was lovely to have a bit of extra money through Jenny’s fundraising to be able to offer more needy cats a space.

puddy arrives

jasper arrives

It took hours and hours of grooming to sort their coats out.    Our vets were wonderful, especially the nurses,  who got the last of the awful matts out whilst they were having other treatment.    They’re both handsome loving boys now.  Just waiting for the right home …. not together though …. they’ve clearly had enough of each other whilst sharing the shed and now want to go their separate ways 😉

puddy settled

jasper settled

So then we were full …. but another mum and tiny kittens needed a place to go.

We initially said “no … sorry we’re full” …. but an hour or so later caved in .  Puddy and Jasper moved out the back bedroom to make space to them, I moved out of my bedroom to make space for Puddy and Jasper ……and Jenny loaned me an inflatable bed to put in the lounge.  Those kits have grown too now:

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We’re in the difficult situation of having a house full of cats and kittens, its the height of the kitten season so lots of little ones looking for new homes.   It’s summer holiday time so most people are thinking of going away rather than of adopting ….. and ….. most of our cats are black or black and white.   Sadly people don’t want that colour 😦   However lovely their purrsonalities are …. people don’t want to know because their jackets are “the wrong colour”.

Please, if you’re not colour prejudiced about furry jackets, share these guys …. they need to get settled into homes of their own so that we can take in more desperate bits of fur.

“The unpredictability of the weather, either no winds or potential hurricanes, made the Doldrums one of the least favorite sailing lanes back when all that ships had to power them across the ocean was their sails.”
Read more from WFMZ.com at: http://www.wfmz.com/weather/What-are-the-doldrums/186892

I’ve been a bit down these last few weeks, and this phrase suddenly came to mind.   It kind of sums up what I’m feeling at the moment in terms of 8 Lives.    We had a real whirlwind of adoptions February to April, and then over May and June the storm of getting our charity application submitted, and preparation for our new website.   Here we are in July, waiting a response from the Charity Commission and waiting for the IT guys in a far away room to shuffle our domain name across a bit of cyberspace at the other side of the world.

Meanwhile there’s a gathering storm a) of cats and kittens being found abandoned and needing rescue space …its the height of kitten season and b) a tornado of growing kittens around here who are rampaging through the house.  The Doldrum aspect of it is, I think, partly about it being holiday season …. people are focussed more on going away and having a well earned break than on adopting cats at this time of year.  Sadly I also suspect a lot is about our kittens being mainly black or black and white 😦  Ginger and tabby kittens attract much more attention ….whilst equally lovely kittens who happen to have jackets that are out of fashion are left behind.    So there have been a few enquiries about Tobias ……so long as he goes to a new home alone and doesn’t take along any of his monochrome mates 😦

Tobias

We’ve had some pretty disgruntled people who just wanted a tabby kitten and can’t see why they can’t simply adopt Tobias.  I guess you need to be on this side of the adoptions for a while to understand it.  It’s heartbreaking to see people rush to adopt the ‘pretty’ colours whilst ignoring equally lovely kittens …. or even more lovely ones….. just because they’re black or black and white.   I’ve seen people desperately trying to befriend a ginger kitten, whilst pushing away the little black one who is sitting in their lap ready to adore them for the rest of his little life.

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The black and white kits are adorable too but they’ve not had a look in either

timothy

xavier

timothy

tomas & timothy

minnie simon & tomas

minnie

mocha

So we sleep on our blow up bed in the lounge ……. and wait.  It’s a definite improvement on last year when we slept on the lounge floor and later on a deeply uncomfortable bed/chair, but it looks like its going to be a long haul.  The house is filled with some of the most lovely cats but in terms of adoption they appear to be too old, too timid, just too black.

puddy – too old

jasper – too old

mowse & tabbytha – too shy

xin – too black

kittens- too black

It’s becoming clear to me that there’s something about inverse proportions when it comes to cat rescue and blogging.  The more that’s happening in the rescue the less time there is to blog about it.

It’s the height of kitten season and is complete mayhem around here.  There’s been a lovely video clip doing the rounds on facebook that I’ve thought about often over the last couple of weeks. It shows a cleaner / nursery worker with  4 young  Pandas (watch it … its cute).  She valiantly but rather hopelessly attempts to sweep up leaves in the panda’s house whilst they relentlessly ‘help’ her with the task.   Translate this into rather less exotic circumstances and it could be us …. sweeping up cat litter with not 4 but 8 delinquent kittens.

Tobias likes to sit in the dustpan whilst Simon Timothy and Tomas play with the brush.  The younger kits like to play with the plastic bag I’m putting the rubbish into.  They randomly take it in turns to dive into the litter trays while I’m cleaning, kicking more litter around like they were playing in a sandpit.  If you put the litter trays into the context of the rest of the rescue its a little like the Forth Bridge ….. no sooner have I finished cleaning than someone has another wee …. and we’re off again.

Apart from exotic, and white wellies instead of socks, the big difference I see between me and Panda Woman, is that that appears to be her job.   I have a day job in the NHS which is nothing to do with cats … well not officially anyway …..

So 7am this morning sees me with the brush and dustpan scenario in the T and M kittens room, and then repeating it in the X Teams room.  Then try to get showered, dressed and ready for work.  As I’m sorting things out in the bathroom, two of them are wrestling in the bath, and another is playing with his shadow in the bath side.  Another is rolling up the bath mat and kicking it to death.  I climb in, rescuing both kittens and spiders from the water.  One kitten runs off with the body puff whilst another wraps herself in the towel.   I climb out the bath, trying not to step on kittens or their numerous toys, retrieve towel from miffed kitten,  and dry myself as various of them try to shin up my legs and onto my back.  Some of them make it onto the window sill and start throwing candles, clock and tea lights off and into the wash basin.  Stage left ….. other kittens sail their pirate ship down the stairs and crash it into the door.

All the time …. eye on the clock ….. how on earth am I going to negotiate this obstacle course and get to work on time.   There’s a couple of hooks on the back of the bathroom door and at the moment they’re more or less the only place on the house where you can put things and be reasonably confident no one will pee on them or cover them in cat hair.  So we juggle between work clothes, pyjamas and wet towels hanging up there. The clean underwear sits vulnerably on the floor or top of toilet cistern.  I come to get dressed and there’s a gang of kittens trying to kick my clean pair of socks to death whilst another drags my pants down the stairs.

I scramble to get ready and go to work with cat hair in my knickers and an annoying piece of cat litter inside my left sock.

No ….  its not a maths puzzle.

The little family we took in on Saturday afternoon are statistically significant to 8 Lives though ….. as well as being important and precious in their own right.

They take us past the 150 mark of the number of cats who have passed through here since we’ve been 8 Lives.   Of course there are many excellent larger rescues who would manage that in a few weeks.  It’s taken two and a half years for us … but in one small house, with resident cats and a full time job, I think an average of one cat rescued and rehomed per week is something worth celebrating.    And its an endless delight to hear from them in their new homes, chilling out, being pampered and adored. Here’s just a few of them:

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And 21?  Um …. I think we just topped the record for the number of cats in the house!  When Tabbytha & Mowse arrived we had spaces and were anxious to make use of them.  So off we went up to Richmond to collect two pregnant farm cats who’s feeder was very very poorly and unable to keep caring for them.

We anticipated that they’d each want a single room and that would be our two rescue rooms filled.   However they turned out to be very attached to each other – you can read more about this in previous posts …. so we still had a room available.   So when someone messaged us about little Sage up in Pudsey … out all alone and ripping her fur out … we went to collect her.

She continued to pull her fur out and our vet wondered if it was due to stress.  She went off to a lovely foster home, away from the other cats, and persuaded her foster parents to adopt her.  So the second room was available again.

When we heard the story of poor older lads Jasper and Puddy up in Sherburn in Elmet we agreed to offer them the space.   They’d both been living outdoors for at least a year, being fed by a kind neighbour and sheltering in her shed … but starting to look a bit worse for wear.

Puddy arrives

Jasper arrives

We’d just got them nicely settled when Wordsworth turned up …. another older lad and not ever so well … but this time in S8 so we needed to give him some priority.

Thankfully Morgan’s mummy offered him a foster home and we were able to move him straight there as we were completely full here.

Full …. except ….. well …. when someone messaged us about a tiny kitten who had been found in a garden not far away from us …..

simon arrives

Simon settled himself in very purrily and once we were happy that he was healthy, and we listened to the views of the resident cats, and since he was the same sort of age as Tabbytha & Mowse’s kittens, he gradually moved himself in with them.

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Yep …. absolutely totally full. Four resident cats, two older lads in back bedroom, Tab & Mowse families (9 in all) in front bedroom (plus adopted Simon) makes 16 ….. makes FULL! So when another post popped up about a little family in Sheffield being given away on Gumtree on Saturday morning I posted “sorry full … but could help with transport” and tried to think about something else. A rescue place was found down but a long way down south. Another more personal message popped up …. please could I take as it was too far for them to travel. Cue lots of scuffling around settling up crate … and arrival of Xin and her babies.

Of course the crate in the middle of the lounge didn’t really work.  The residents went to look, Xin growled and hissed,, residents put in complaints.  So this afternoon I got home from work.  Moved Puddy and  Jasper into my bedroom, Xin and her kits into Puddy and Jasper’s bedroom … and my bedding onto the lounge floor.  It looks like this is going to be the pattern for summer / kitten season here.   It’s saving grace is that its not so far in a morning to roll out of bed and get to the kettle for coffee.

We’re having a lot of fun at 8 Lives at the moment.    Our IT wizard  Alan has installed a web cam in the kitten’s bedroom.

The photo I’m uploading from it right now as I write this post looks pretty boring.  It’s going dark in the room and I think Tab & Mowse are off screen sitting on the windowsill,  the older lads are closer to the door playing football (I can hear them) and the younger ones are asleep in the nest.    It’s a bit experimental … and I don’t if the photo you’ll see when I publish this will be the same as I see now, or whether it will update.

Despite the dull grey scene I can see right now, this is really exciting.  I sooooo wish we’d had it before the ladies gave birth …. it would have been brilliant to have been able to check on them without bursting in on them every half hour.   The view I can get within the house is a constant stream of what’s happening up there.  It’s helped Simon to start to integrate with them which I think he needs in order to learn social skills.  If I just leave him in there though, I’m anxious about whether he’s ok.  If I stay in the room he often just sits on my lap … watching …. whilst I try to persuade him to go and play.  If I leave him and go back into the room he’ll come running to me because he’s attached to me.  Like thousands of ‘parents’ with a child at nursery I want to know how he is when I’m not there, whether he settles when I’ve gone or just stands waiting at the door for me to return.

simon in the nest

This shows us that Simon goes in the nest with the others and has been ok in there.   Tabs & Mowse have been lovely with him, and he seems to like to play with Timothy.   The tricky bit has been Simon, being possessive with the food bowl.  I and the other kittens looked on in horror as he spread his arms across the dish, eating and growling at the mummies as they tried to eat!

The stream also shows the family relaxed and playing

We’re working on getting a link to the website.    The web link will upload a photo every minute.  Apparently if you allow streaming  it opens up to hackers …. I think.  I’m slowly learning more about IT than I ever thought I would … but enjoying it.  During the day time the photos will be in colour … I’ve just taken stills in there this evening to   demonstrate.   The next thing I’ll need to learn is to either switch the camera off when I go in there, or not shuffle in in my crazy old cat lady dressing gown and slippers in a morning and have my image beamed around the world 😉

This week saw Tabbytha’s kittens becoming 4 weeks old and Mowse’s 3 weeks.  The age gap is closing rapidly.  When the little Ts opened their eyes at 2 weeks, the little Ms followed the next day at just 8 days old.

cot is very full

standing room only for tabs

The cot is becoming very very full, and although most of the time they still squash into there, I’ve also found Tabbytha taking the odd break and having some space.  Often during those times Mowse is patiently dealing with the little Ts smacking her in the face.  Mowse does appear to be the more maternal of the pair.  Tab rushes to the food at mealtimes while Mowse stays in the cot feeding the little ones.  Tabs does come back and help with cleaning and getting them into their pyjamas and ready for bed, but she’s not as much of a slave to them as Mowse.

tabbytha with kits

mowse with kits

A few days ago we had the first adventurings of Timothy…. first kit out the nest and looks like he’s going to be trouble.  He toddled out, up the ladder on the scratch post, and then wailed until Aunty Mowse came to get him down.

Timothy leaving the nest

starting to climb …

… and getting stuck

Notice that its Mowse who rescues him.  Tabs, his mum, joined in the conversation about what to do to sort the problem out … but ultimately it was Mowse who came and sorted it.   He she is smacking his bottom and sending him back to bed

The rescue is full, but when we got an email on Wednesday about a tiny kitten found alone in a garden …… well ….

Simon arrives

Simon is probably a wee bit older than Tabbytha’s kits – he’s able to feed himself and use the litter tray – though he’s a little smaller than them. He has a big purrsonality though.

He’s hoping to be an IT consultant when he grows up.   Apart from being a wizz at Candy Crush, he’s so far managed to copy and paste my messenger conversation with one person and send it to someone else, and reorganise my drop box files.   Uncle Alan came on Friday to do some work on our new website ….. so Simon discussed apprenticeship options with him

As he’s about the same age as Tab & Mowse’s kittens I thought it might be good for him to spend a bit of time playing with them.   It felt very much like going to playgroup ….. being eyed up by the other mummies and not quite fitting in. Simon looked like he wanted to play but sat anxiously on my lap for a while.   I persuaded him that Timothy looked like a nice little boy and maybe they could play together, and he toddled off, occasionally returning to my lap for reassurance.

Simon showed Tim what fun it was to play in the litter tray, while Tim showed Simon how to play with Tab’s tail (no photos of that … focused on being ready to grab Si if Tab took exception to it).  Huge respect to both Tabs and Mowse who took another kitten completely within their stride.  Mowse gave him a wash because she had her flannel out and was generally grabbing kittens to clean them. They sit there patiently whilst the kits smack them in the face, play with their tails and ears.

simon invited for tea

Timothy invited Simon back for tea ….but Si was a bit unsure about it and after going into the nest ran back to me. He wants Timothy to come and play on the computer with him tomorrow.

…… it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.”

Little  did  Charles Dickens suspect he’d give words to express where 8  Lives is right now 😉   We set up 3 years ago as a very small cat rescue (the rescue that is that’s small … not the cats … though some of them are).    With help from Voluntary Action Sheffield we established ourselves an an unincorporated charitable body.  We couldn’t register to be a ‘proper’ charity as we had less than £5k per annum income … and didn’t expect that to change.    We hadn’t bargained for our amazing fundraising team . .. who have now taken us over that registration threshold.

So now we need to register … like it or not.  Which we do … and we don’t.    It’s amazing to have this amount of funds …. though just to be clear: although we’ve had more than £5K come in this year, most of it has gone straight back out on food /litter and vet bills.   It’s wonderful though to be able to offer a rescue space to a cat without too much fear of the financial implications of any health issues s/he has.   It meant we could take in people like poor old Molly Mable who was found hiding in the bed a week after her human had died, Puddy a long term ‘stray’ who had been living in someone’s shed for years, fed by a kindly neighbour, and little Sage a stray who was ripping her fur out for reasons initially unknown.    Between them …  they’ve cost us about £800 at the vet.  They’re worth it of course, more than worth it.

molly

puddy

sage

Armed with coffee and cake three of us got together a couple of weekends ago to try to make sense of the charity registration process.  There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Sage would have felt well at home as we tore our hair out  trying to work out which forms we needed to fill in and plough our way through the legaleze.   Sage however was living the life in her lovely foster home and couldn’t give a cat’s whisker.

This week its starting to come together.    We’ve had a meeting with Keith at Voluntary Action Sheffield who was just as amazing and helpful as he was 3 years ago when we were first setting up.   There’s still a way go to, forms to be filled, meetings to be had, stuff to be signed … and signatures to be witnessed.  The good news is that we now have some idea what we’re doing.  I can’t praise organisations like VAS highly enough …. it actually feels like we might be able to do this now.

The story of our (semi) feral cats from Richmond, Tabbytha & Mowse, is proving quite popular.  They both arrived here a few weeks ago, both pregnant.    When Tabbytha gave birth last  week, we were stunned to see Mowse helping her.

I couldn’t  help but wonder how long that supportive bliss was going to last.  It’s been a birth like no other here.   The last one, Elsa, mum was very devoted for a day or so but then began to take more and more time out of the nest

Elsa & the ETeam

Prior to Elsa, Betty had her kits and within hours was thinking about what next and how soon they’d grow up and go off to school.

Betty & the B Team

Tabbytha & Mowse, however, have scarcely shifted from the nest since the baby Ts were born.  I know that they do come out because food is eaten and litter trays used,  but mostly they’re in there with kittens.

Of course one of the questions everyone was asking was whether Tabbytha would do the same for Mowse when her kits were born.   Just a week after the little Ts were born, we had the answer.  I went in to check them before bed, and Tabbytha was licking Mowse.   When I went back in the morning the cats were cuddled next to each other, with an extra collection of small heads between them.

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And then the other question everyone was asking was “how many kittens has she had?”.    That’s not an easy one to answer.   I think its 4 …but a combination of the fact that they’re mainly black/black & white,  and carefully hidden between two very protective semi feral cats still leaves a degree of uncertainly even 3 days on.   I think this may be all of them, but there could be an other/s not in this heap.

I’m mainly just trusting that all is well in there.   I value my fingers, and don’t want to need to hand rear rejected kittens.  I’m curious though as to whether there’s any recognition/preference  regarding which kittens belong to whom.    It’s difficult to observe very closely as the adults are so wary of humans.   However it seems the two are just caring for all the kittens as a group.    I’ve noticed at supper time that there seems to be some segregation of tasks with one mum feeding, and the other washing them and getting their pyjamas on.  Mostly though, they’re huddled together protecting  their little ones.  Heart breaking to think how many previous babies they will have lost, born outdoors and vulnerable to so many threats.

Writing this newsletter is a lovely opportunity to step back from the day to day trials of running the rescue and reflect on the highlights of the last few months – its been an interesting time.

Fundraising 

In March we had what we hope may be the first of many fundraising events at Stip the Willow .    It’s a lovely and rather quirky venue just off Abbeydale Road.    Our amazing fundraising organisers Jenny and Fiona planned and managed it all with help from various friends, family and Strip the Willow regulars.   Many of our wonderful friends and supporters attended and we had a fabulous evening.

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Our June event will be slightly different, but equally fabulous.    All the usual fun and quizzes . .. but also a live music session with Max Restaino .   I’d been a little to busy with cats to have heard of him before this year …. but he really is rather good 🙂

Arrivals & Departures

We’ve had quite a few comings and goings with feline visitors since Xmas.  Having a little bit of money in the bank has meant that we’re been able to offer help to some more needy cats than previously.   Whereas previously we’d had to be wary of taking in old or poorly cats because we couldn’t fund their care, now we have fundraisers and supporters we’re able to help cats in more desperate situations.   Cats like Molly Mable – a teenager who had hidden inside the bed base when her human died and was only found a couple of weeks later.

on arrival

settling in

in her furrrrever home

Molly was quite traumatised when she arrived and refused to eat.   Once she’d had a dental (£300) and worms and fleas sorted she began to feel better.  She’s gone to a lovely new home now, still quite shy and jumpy, but very loved and in time will recover.

And Sage who was found as a stray, busy ripping all her fur out.  Poor puss was bald on her tummy and insides of her legs, and continued ripping until she’d made bald patches on her shoulders and head.   She’s a little sweetheart but clearly itchy and stressed.  We’ve managed to get her into a lovely pet free foster home, and she’s currently being treated by our vets.

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I’ll not show photos of the next cats I’ll tell you about because of confidentially … but we were able to take in a couple of cats from a domestic violence situation, so that their human could be moved to safer accommodation, and another couple of cats who had been abandoned in a filthy house when their family moved out.    All of them now have super new homes … and were able to stay in the pairs they arrived in.    The other brilliant news for regular readers is that Wispa and Wynter (the more timid sisters of Winnie) have found themselves the purrrfect home.   A wonderful woman who is happy to care for them, and let them grow in confidence at their own pace.

The gorgeous Snowy mentioned in our Xmas news letter also found a fabulous home.  An older couple who wanted a feline companion, but needed someone in their own age group rather than a crazy kitten.  Snowy is delighted to be sharing his retirement days with them.

Our ‘big story’ this quarter

We took in a couple of pregnant cats a few weeks ago.   A kind man, living on the edge of a village in North Yorkshire had been feeding strays on his land for some time.   Sadly he’d become too poorly to continue to care for them .. and about 10 un neutered cats needed to come into rescue.  We only had space for two (the others have found care in other rescues) …. and on the morning we drove up there, they randomly caught two pregnant females for us to take.   

They were terrified when they arrived.   They’ve probably never been indoors before.   Gradually they settled and although not really handleable we’ve had the odd stroke and they’ll accept treats from my hands.    Whilst the original plan was to put them in separate rooms so they could have space having their babies, they were clearly close so we left them together, assuming that when kittens were born they’d find separate parts of the the room and give each other some space.

What actually happened was incredible.  I could hardly believe what I was seeing.  When Tabbytha was ready to give birth they both huddled in to the ‘cot’ that we’d prepared, snuggling and purring.   Mowse put her arms round her labouring friend, licked her head and tummy and under her tail, and stayed with her throughout the birth, helping to clean new born kittens (and Tabbytha and their bedding).   As I write, the kittens are 3 days old and the two adults have scarcely left the nest … laying together with the kittens between them all the time.

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We’re waiting to see what happens when Mowse has her kittens …. hoping that Tabbytha will be as good a friend as Mowse was to her.

Other felines in happy new homes

I think this is most of the other cats who have gone to purrfect new homes over the last few months – apologies if we’ve missed anyone

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Committee Vacancy

We’re looking for an additional one or two people to join our small, friendly team.   We’ve been recognised as a charity for tax purposes, and are on the edge of being able to apply to be a registered charity.   We need someone who is reasonably organised and not daunted by HMRC paperwork to help move us forward with this.   We meet 3/4 times per year and otherwise get on with things when we have time and communicate through email / facebook etc.    Payment is by cake at meetings, and the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve made a difference to many cats’ lives.   If you think you might be able to help please contact us at eightlives@outlook.com

It’s been a curious sort of week here. There was a post on the Cats in Danger group about a couple of older lads … living in a shed and one of them not very well. The story of this elderly mainly black tom cat who may have thyroid issues pulled all the strings about my precious Sooty … and on Tuesday evening I sped up to North Yorkshire to collect them.

Jasper

Puddy

They were at our vets the following morning.  Jasper is about 8 and is in good health … Puddy is in his teens and has bad teeth.  He had a blood test taken prior to a dental op … and that has revealed some issues …. we’re don’t know yet what’s going on and are awaiting results of further tests.   They’re very sweet lads who are settling in and scrubbing up well ….. so hoping for the best for them.

Then on Wednesday …. Tabbytha … one of the Richmond 2 gave birth.   The original plan had been to have Tabbytha and her friend Mowse in separate rooms, but since they’ve been very scared, and close to each other, we’ve kept them together.   We anxiously trusted that they’d be ok sharing a room when the babies arrived.   Our guess was that when the time came for one of them to give birth they would move away from each other and have some privacy.

What actually happened was something we weren’t prepared for at all.    They moved into the labour room together

Tabbytha gave birth 3 kittens whilst Mowse held her in her arms and purred loudly.  Mowse licked Tab’s head and tummy and under her tail.   She helped clean the kittens when they were born, and held the first borns whilst the others arrived.   The third kitten was a bit of a struggle …. Mowse laid next to Tabs …. hand on tummy …. checking under tail …… I swear she was a midwife in her previous life ……

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I feel out of this world privileged to witness this …… they’ve laid in the bed together for over 24 hours ….. kittens between them ……

Completely in awe of them ….. out of my experience ….. waiting to see what happens next.