Autumn Newsletter 2016

As Summer fades and we slip into the season of mist and mellow fruitfulness, the cats here abandon the sunny patio in favour of warm radiators.  The nightly arguments about coming in as the summer light fades give way to a welcome committee, already home and waiting for their tea when I get in from work.  Much as I love the long summer days, snuggling down and getting cosy with them is a delight too.

Still full  but with fewer cats!

I think the main thing about the Summer was that it was “Full” as we said in the previous newsletter.   We had Tabbytha & Mowse with their kits, plus little Simon whom they adopted,  and Xin and her kits.  Despite there being a lot of black and black & white kittens we were reasonably confident most of them would get lovely homes …….. and they have!

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Phew!  The ones we were most concerned about though were Tabbytha & Mowse – the farm cat mummies.  For a little while there was some hope that they may settle enough to become house cats.   Mowse accepted some strokes, Tabbytha was happy to take chicken from my hands.  It wasn’t enough though for them to move into the realm of ‘pets’ though.  The other option was to look for a safe outdoor home.  There are some fab people who help with feral cats: they’re rescued from dangerous inner city areas, transport is arranged and they’re taken across the country to farm homes where people offer some shelter and food as a wage for rodent control duties.   For an anonymous feral – trapped, neutered and released into  a safe space with some ongoing care its wonderful.  Not quite so easy to accept this as the best option for Tabbytha & Mowse who were named and known …. and loved …… despite their fears around people.

We looked at a few possibilities but they fell through, and then a miracle happened.  Quite by chance we found the perfect option for them.  A lovely caring woman and her father …. up in North Yorkshire, their home county ….. offered a space.  It’s not a big anonymous farm ….. but a small stable with rescue horses and where the animals are very well cared for.  I could weep for joy and relief when I see the updates from them.   They’re loved and fed, but free to do as they please.

Hand rears

These little ones didn’t take up much room ….. but oh boy did they take up time!! They arrived over August bank holiday … apparently two weeks old but only a little bigger than the size of newborns and full of fleas.

The little boy quickly became the model hand rear kitten … he guzzled his bottle down, burped when I winded him, wee’ed when I washed his bottom and started to grow at the pace kittens should. His little sister Rosy flicked her head back and forth when trying to get the nipple in her mouth, and scampered off if not held tightly. It would take 10 times as long to feed her as her brother, but the milk went in and she wee’d and poohed and was active so we were hopeful.

rosy & rufus: little & large

rosy ready to resist her feed

rufus …. the model patient

One awful Wednesday night just over a week after she arrived, Rosy stopped fighting her bottle. I dripped the milk into her mouth and it ran back out again. Over the next few hours she became floppier until she passed away.  I was heartbroken, though if I’m honest I didn’t think she’d make it. It was awful to watch little Rufus trying to pat her back into life.   It looked like he was trying CPR at one point.  Poor little man.

rufus trying

We wrapped her gently ready for a funeral once it was light. She’s buried in a little patch of garden that holds baby Max and his still born sister Minim.

Max’s memorial

I’d have cried all day, but there was Rufus to take care of.   I’d arranged to go out to a weekly lunch date / craft group.  It had seemed ok when I planned it to just nip out and leave the pair of them between feeds for a couple of hours. Now Rufy was on his own it all seemed wrong. I’m not sure quite how I decided on the compromise …. but ended up packing Rufy up in his carrier with a bottle, lots of baby wipes and spare blankets and taking him off to Rileys & Co for lunch with me. I hoped they wouldn’t mind too much since he was so tiny and in a carrier.   To my amazement, not only did they not mind, they really welcomed us and took care of us.  It helped a lot with the pain of losing Rosy.

in the parlour at rileys … feeding rufy

That began the weekly tradition of Rufus going to Rileys for lunch and having cuddles with everyone there.   He doesn’t need to come with me any longer, he was weaned weeks ago  ….. but ……. well ….. he has friends to catch up with.

His besties are aunty Jenny and uncle Rog though …… without them having him (and his sister) whilst I was at work and over some long hard nights early on we’d never have made it.

jenny with rufus

jenny with rosy

roger with rufus

Still full?

Yes …. though in a different way ….   We have two adult cats taking up single occupancy of the two rescue rooms which previously held 3 adult cats and 12 kittens between them:

Puddy arrived 6 months ago now: an older lad who should have been big given his frame, but was well underweight, matted jacket and a very very sore mouth.  His teeth are sorted out now, his jacket is glossy and lovely, and he’s put on nearly 2kg since he arrived.   He’s got on fine with some of the cats here … but not others ….. so we think he’d be best being the king of his own domain.

Nellie holds the other room.  She’s about 4-5 years old and played the “possibly pregnant” card to get her rescue space.  She wasn’t . … but we don’t begrudge her doing what she needed to do to get to safety.   She’s a sweet little cat, but anxious if she leaves her bedroom and starts to hear and smell the other cats.

We’re keen to get them both into homes as they’re fed up and lonely locked away in separate rooms here … and while ever they’re here we’re unable to admit any more cats.   Please if you have a minute and a place you can share their adverts … facebook, work noticeboard / intranet  we’d really appreciate it.  Their ads are under the “looking for new homes” tab here on the blog or on our cat chat page: http://www.catchat.org/eightlives

Fundraising

We had a fabulous night last Saturday at Rileys & Co .   Scrumptious Rileys pizza and other tasty bites.  The amazing Break a Leg played for us.   We had quizzes and the legendary stand up sit down bingo.   The best bit of it was seeing so many lovely lovely 8 Lives supporters there, lots of friends we’ve made along the way.   The worst bit was when Jenny our amazing fundraiser (yes its the same Jenny that’s Rufus’ aunty Jenny) said what a brilliant job I do and thrust the microphone at me for comment.  People who know me through rescue often think I’m confident as I’m happy to chat at length …. serious length! …. about cats.   People who know me well know I’m desperately shy.  I closed my eyes and waited for the floor to open up and swallow me.  It didn’t.  I waited a while longer, eyes closed, trying to just keep breathing.   All things will pass.  I’m hoping we’re now agreed that when it comes to rescue work  I’ll just do the cats 🙂

Break a Leg at Rileys & Co

 We have our Christmas event on Saturday 3 December.  Only about 50 tickets will be available so please book early for a fab evening.

At least that is, its the end of the tails in terms of 8 Lives input to these stories …….. its just the start of several other tails to be told by loving new families.

It’s a tail that for us started almost exactly 6 months ago with a long drive up to North Yorkshire to collect two terrified farm cats, both heavily pregnant.   They and multiple other cats had been cared for by someone who sadly was no longer well enough to keep feeding them.

The Richmond 2

I can’t pretend there wasn’t a period of shock and anxiety when we realised how feral they were. Some communication issues had led to us believing they were friendly house cats when we offered the rescue space. When we learned they were in fact farm cats who had never been indoors we didn’t want to lose face by saying no. When we learned that one of them (I never clarified which) had bitten through the hand of the young man who caught her on the morning I collected them I worked hard to compose my face into an expression of someone who knew what they were doing.

For a while the three of us stared at each other in horror whilst we tried to weigh up who was more afraid of whom.   After a little while we settled into an relatively easy truce …… I fed them, they didn’t bite me.    What happened next was one of the most lovely experiences I’ve had in cat rescue.   They gave birth within a week of each other, cared for each other during the births and then looked after both litters of kittens together.

Tabbytha & Mowse with kits

Whilst remaining very wary of me, they didn’t stand in the way of their kittens making friends and having cuddles. I think they appreciated the care that they got and the safe space they had for raising their babies. In return, when we took in Simon, a very young kitten who had been found wandering outdoors on his own, they agreed to adopt him into their little family.

that’s simon, chewing mowse’s ear

There was something quite heartbreakingly beautiful about their vulnerability and caution with humans, their bond with each other, yet their willingness to let their kittens socialise with the humans.

The time came to look for homes: Tomas and Tobias went off first

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Amazingly the mummies were the next to find a home. By chance it was back up in North Yorkshire though some distance from where they’d come from.

Then the rest of the kittens paired themselves off and left for pastures new. Simon & Minnie got themselves a lovely home in S6. Curiously, Simon, the most confident of the whole lot hid behind the sofa whilst Minnie – feisty but more shy normally – scoped the place out. Happily it wasn’t long before they were having cuddles together.

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It was a bit of a while before the remaining four found homes, but when they did it all happened at the same time. Two home checks on the same day, followed by two families coming to visit afterwards, and two rehomings the same day the following week.

Mickey & Millie went first …… and despite their arrival coinciding with hedge trimming outdoors …. they soon settled in

day one

and then started stealing the human’s seat

day 6

and last but not least …… Timothy & Mocha went to their furever home

day one

They’ve all got lovely homes. I’ve had little doubt that the kits would settle happily but I was anxious about Tabbytha & Mowse. Absolutely no doubt that they’d found one of the most lovely caring outdoor homes it could be possible to find … but what if they didn’t see it that way and took off as soon as they were given their freedom? It’s an anxiety I shared with their new humans, and my heart was in my mouth a couple of weeks ago when I was told that the stable door would be opened.

tabbytha

tab & mowse

Clearly we needn’t have worried.

I’ve played this video over and over again …….. can’t quite put into words what it means to have seen them through this journey and know they’re happy and settled now.

Just starting to come up for air in the hand rear episode.   It started, as you read in the previous blog, as anxious and stressful, and quickly got worse.  After the kittens survived their first nights and vets re-opened after bank holiday so no huge costs for out of hours care… their previous family tried to go back on their decision to give them into rescue.  Our vets, having seen the state they were in, the fact that at supposedly 2 weeks old they were only normal birth weight, and  they were full of fleas, advised that we shouldn’t return them.   The family responded to the care we’d given them by sending the police round and claiming on social media that we’d stolen a little boy’s kittens.   A rather bemused police officer quickly understood that we’d saved the kittens’ lives.

In the greater scheme of things its not a big deal ……. but after nights of no sleep, working full time, struggling with kittens at work ….. it added to the distress

Thankfully Aunty Jenny stepped in and had them whilst I was at work

Little boy Rufus responded well and was eager to feed.  Sadly his  tiny sister Rosy found it harder … it was a struggle to get milk down her and she refused to put on weight.

While Rufy put on 10g+  each day … Rosy resolutely remained at 150g for over a week.  She was still active and feisty but just didn’t grow.  One heart breaking evening a couple of weeks ago, she wasn’t active any more …… her brother nudged her and cuddled her and tried to get her going again … but to no avail …

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I cried and cried and cried ………….. and then cried some more when it was light and time to bury her.

It would have been easy to fall apart, curl up in a little ball and cry for the rest of the week.   However Rufus was alive and needed feeding.  So we ploughed on.

Next day we took refuge in Rileys & Co ….. a kitten without his sister, and a heartbroken foster mum.    Most cafes would quickly eject animals of any kind, but Rileys aren’t that kind of cafe.  We settled down in the parlour, ordered tea and a mug of hot water to warm his bottle.

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Since then he’s been out for afternoon tea every week at Rileys.  He’s been one of the most passed around and cuddled kittens ever.

It feels like a minute to minute affair:

Sunday:

16;20 I receive an anxious message about a 10 day old kitten who is struggling with feeding, though his sister is doing fine.

17:30  I visit the kittens, who I’m now told are 14 days old ….. but only look the size of 5 day olds or less.  Manage to get the struggling kitten to start to feed.  Offer rescue space for both of them  but the owner happy to keep trying with them

18:38  A post on a uk wide cat rescue site flags up a poor pregnant cat desperately needing rescue space   I agree to take her and fix a time to collect her tomorrow as she’s held safe overnight but can’t stay where she is.

19:00 I start frantically shifting things around to make a space we don’t really have for pregnant girl.

20:29 Another anxious email ….. this time with worries that the little girl kitten isn’t feeding.  I’ve already opened a beer …. so the kittens arrive shortly after in a taxi

21;15  Despite fears that they had died on the journey they arrive alive and agree to a feed.   I settle them down to sleep

21:45 I touch them … just to check they’re breathing still

22:15   I touch them again …. just in case

22:45 Ditto ……. and repeat at random intervals

23:15  I check again before getting the next feed ready and then set to trying to sort out how we’re going to manage the pregnant puss on top of everything else.

23:59 They’re both fed, toileted and in bed again ….. ready for next feed.  Hoping and praying all ok and that we’ll cope with feeds through the night.

………………..

The night passes …. a blur of two hourly alarms, kitten formula and kettle boiling.   The kittens experience the life of a long haul flight passenger as they’re woken at regular intervals to be served breakfast yet again.

him

her

The day begins to take shape around what I can fit in between which feed.    The other cat and kittens don’t stop needing care just because these tinies are taking up a huge chunk of time.    As it begins to look more like they’ll still be with us when I go back to work I start to try to figure out how best to manage it.

It always seems a bit sad and mercenary to check that the kits are alive before preparing their next feed – but its what I do.  I think more than anything its about managing emotions.   I’m sure I’m not alone in this pain.  That putting everything you have day and night into a tiny being, trying to keep it alive but knowing that the huge effort could hit a wall any moment  …… leaving only a quiet burial, then throwing away remaining kitten formula and putting away the masses of bedding ready for the next time.  It hasn’t happened yet but its the spectre that lurks behind every alarm call.  Somehow looking it in the face by checking on the kits first saves me from the horror of it jumping out at me when I bring them their bottles.

They’re desperately small for their age.  We were told 2 weeks old yesterday …  but they look less than a week in size to me.   A kind of average newborn kitten size would be about 100g.    In that first week they usually just sleep and eat and if all goes well will double their weight in a week.  So by one week old they’re probably around 200g give or take.  These two are 2 weeks old and around 125g.  Their eyes are pretty much open so the age sounds about right …

They’ve been quite lively today though ….. ginge has been on an adventure across his cot and quite noisy when its coming up to feed times.

Please send love and prayers / positive thoughts to these little ones as they make their way through the crucial next few weeks.

It’s easy to get caught up in the drama of Tabs and Mowse moving to their new home… and we might slip into it again in a minute ….. but lets just enjoy a slightly calmer rehoming story for a minute.  A few days before the mummies went off to their new home, we took Tomas and Tobias (2 of Tab’s kittens) to theirs.   Despite their “farm cat” origins these guys have grown up very confident and happy with humans, and their arrival in  new home was pretty much ‘normal’.

on the way to new home

Ok …. I say “normal” ….. though I’m not entirely sure how you define “normal” with a couple of growing kittens. Digging up cobwebs in an apparently very clean and tidy house is pretty much average I think. Slightly out of the ordinary was Tomas finding the one gap under the kitchen units that hadn’t been carefully blocked, worming his way in there, and being unable to find his way out. Just how ‘abnormal’ is it to find yourself lying on the kitchen floor on your first visit to a house, next to someone you’ve only met once before? I guess plumbers and the like find themselves in this position all the time and think nothing of it.

Once out, they settled themselves on the little blanket they’d brought from home … and went to sleep. This isn’t entirely ‘normal’ …. I’ve had lots of kittens run and hide, a few start to get into playing but not a pair who just go to sleep in the middle of the kitchen floor. Then again .. they’re two little tom cats so maybe they’re starting as they mean to go on 😉

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A few days later they’d sussed out pretty much the whole of the house … and thankfully not yet broken too much

Finally ….. the numbers were starting to do down … especially once the mummies went a few days later. Starting to think of happy days where I had a bit of space, my bedroom back even – especially since some of the others were also reserved to go to to new homes after holidays

Then we got a message from a young woman who lived in an area that wasn’t very safe for cats. She’d taken in a cat a few weeks ago because lads were kicking her around on the street. She’d been pregnant but most of the kittens had died and she’d been unable to feed the remaining ones. Although a refuge from the cruel lads, her home wasn’t safe because of a dog who went after cats and a toddler who opened doors. Best laid plans of not taking in any more cats fell apart … and Kranji arrived.;

It was ok though because a couple of Xin’s kittens were off to their new home shortly after. Kranji shared my bedroom with Jasper and all was well. Kind of …. I hate to be sexist about this …… but the majority of our cats at the moment are male …. and the majority of our cats at the moment are purry and placid and get along with the others. You can see where I’m going with this. …. these two groups map almost perfectly onto each other. Kranji is very loving with humans but poor Jasper has retreated into his basket having been smacked around the head a few times. Xin is adorable can frequently be heard behind her bedroom door yelling at the kids and clipping them round their ears. Minnie Mowse has taken it upon herself to be the sole guardian of the T&M teams (and Simon) space and growls menacingly if any of the little Xs want to come and join their games. Just as Jasper makes little marks in the wardrobe door to count off the days until his family return from holiday and he can escape, so I count off the days until Minnie’s family come to claim her 😉

Anyway …… Xi & Xosé went off to their new home …

Xi & Xosé in new home

Two down …. so it should be easier. As fate would have it though …. we went straight from there to pick up two of Kranji’s kittens. They’d been hand reared from age 2 weeks, their siblings had died and Kranji just couldn’t cope and someone had taken them on and cared for them. However they were now 7 weeks, weaned and needing someone to find them a safe furever home. Two up

Kranji’s kits

They’re very sweet little boys … but Kranji had grieved and moved on ….. and didn’t want to know. The residents mostly were fine about them being downstairs but Mr Puddy put up a seriously protest … so they went back upstairs. Minnie objects .. but mostly we’re managing. They’re rather conspicuous among the monochrome theme though

…..the day we went to [Scarborough].   I appreciate that the title will be lost on our younger listeners …. but it was the song playing through my head as we drove up to take Tabbytha & Mowse to their new home.   Since their kittens have been old enough to be independent (if you discount them trying it on still breastfeeding from Mowse when they’re almost as big as her) we’ve been looking for a suitable home for them.  At one stage I’d hoped that they might settle and become house cats, but although they gained quite a lot of confidence whilst they were here having their babies it would have taken a very very special home to give them a chance as ‘pets’.

Mowse rather overwhelmed by kittens

I was anxious about getting it right for them, especially as I’m much more used to doing homechecks than barn/stable checks. A few people voiced an interest in employing them as rodent control experts but for various reasons it wasn’t quite right. Then a woman with a stable near Scarborough messaged us. It was clear from the start that this was the right thing. Whilst we appreciate that there are desperate numbers of feral cats needing safer outdoor homes and many kind people offering such, these girls have been special to us, we wanted something special for them, and we found it.  The fact that they were going back to their roots in North Yorkshire (you might remember they came from Richmond North Yorks) was even better.

our precious vulnerable girls

I laid awake Saturday night worrying about how to get them into their carriers. I felt confident I could get Mowse into the queen cage ……. but we only had one queen cage …and Tabbytha likely to be more difficult to ‘catch’ so maybe we should usethe queen cage for her ….. but then which other carrier to use to get Mowse?  And which one to try to catch first?   The logistics of it all ran round and round my head on nights when I couldn’t sleep.   The reality on Sunday morning was that I put a piece of chicken into an ordinary cat carrier, Tabbytha walked in to eat it, I closed the door.  Job done.  Mowse and the Queen cage on the other hand, took quite a while.   Maybe she’d been spooked by Tabs being caught.   Thankfully a facebook message conversation with their adopter, thinking about acting as though you had all the time in the world with animals, even when you didn’t, helped quite a bit.    Mowse was eventually in her carrier and good to go.

in the car .. good to go

Here they are on the back seat of the car, carriers strapped in with seat belts, facing each other so they know they’re still together, feliway sprayed over them before being covered with a blanket.   It amused my work colleagues that my plan for the weekend was to take a couple of feral cats to the seaside.   It was less amusing when they began their rendition of a medley of North Yorkshire feline laments ….. sung in two part disharmony as we approached the A1.

Further disharmony developed as Seamus the SatNav and I fell out.   I’d been thinking that for Scarbro we’d go A1, A64, but just by chance my lorry driver friend popped up on facebook messages on Saturday night and advised about traffic, roadworks and suggested a different route.  So we set off to follow her route, despite Seamus being convinced that A64 was the best plan.  At each junction, just above the noise of the feline serenade came the voice of Seamus grumbling “turrrrn around when possible”.  Somewhere just beyond Bridlington I swear I heard him slam his map book shut and pour himself a large whiskey.

Finally we arrived at the stables.   The woman who had offered them a home was every bit as lovely as I’d hoped, and more so.  The stable was purrfect,  several times as much space as the girls had had whilst here with us.   It had been secured so that they couldn’t get out until they’re properly settled – her dad had been round and made sure of that.

arriving at stable

We let them out the carriers, and Mowse ran up the walls just as she had done when they arrived here. As they settled a little and found the hiding places they called to each other and rubbed their heads together once they found each other.

I’d been hoping it would be ok just to stop for a little while, make sure they were ok …. and …er … maybe use a loo somewhere since we were in the middle of nowhere (city person’s perspective). It turned out so much better than that. I got introduced to the horses and sheep that the girls will share their space with.

And then back to the house for lunch!   What a lovely kind invitation.  I got to meet the rest of the family who would be caring for our mummies, to meet their lovely chickens and more sheep, and to see the amazing gypsy caravans and carts they’d built.

Such a lovely family …. they completely understood that as far as we’re concerned there’s aren’t “just ferals” …they’re our precious girls. So before I set off on return journey we went back to the stables to check on them again.

mowse moves in

Mowse was around but soon disappeared when she heard us. Tabbytha kept a very low profile.   I was confident that they would be fine with these lovely kind people, and started the journey home, with an angry Seamus who was even less happy when I ignored his suggestions and detoured via Filey for a walk on the beach.

Filey

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.