Sheffield

When the little W Team came to us in November last year, although they’d needed to be caught in a cat trap, we hoped they were just anxious and would settle soon enough.

After a few weeks it became apparent that mummy Wilma was no way no how going to settle to an indoor cat life, and you might remember that she went off to a lovely outdoor rural home in Derbyshire.  Little Winnie went the opposite way, broke ranks with her hissy sisters, and became a big snuggle bug.  Here she is helping us with one of our younger kittens, just before she went off to her new home.

So that’s the two extremes covered.  Now what to do with little Wispa and Wynter, the other two less confident kits?  Are they to follow their mum or their sister?

wynter & wispa

Over the weeks / months  the pendulum has swung back and forth …. and continues to swing.   It’s seemed hopeful, impossible, just maybe, probably that they will settle to a life with humans, and we keep changing their adoption advert to match the current predictions.  It was hopeful when Wispa started to come out to play, and then a brief surge of hope when Wynter joined her.  Only to despair when Wynter’s foray into games appeared to be a one off.

Wispa continued to play out, but wouldn’t be touched.   Wynter resolutely hissed when we spoke to her … though it’s become kind of a cute habit as she’ll hiss, take a treat from my fingers, munch away happily, and then hiss again when offered the next treat.

Just over a week ago, Winnie went to her new home and on the same day her sisters went off to be spayed.  We’d pretty much resigned ourselves to the idea that once the girls were over their ops we should start looking for an outdoor home for them.   They came back from their ops not surprisingly even more anxious than they were previously … and for various reasons were moved into our other rescue room.

It’s a smaller room, with fewer places to hide, but with lots of shelves on the walls so you can climb up to the ceiling … which the girls very quickly did!   Things changed then though.  Whether it was the change of room, the adjustment of hormones, being brought home from the scary place at the vets, not having a much more confident and bossy sister around …. who knows? Things were different though.   For one thing …. Wispa has started to purr …. loudly …. and her body language changed … so she’ll greet me with a head on look, tail up …. just like Winnie did.  She won’t be stroked easily … but will take treats from my hands and loves to play.  Wynter has also changed …. she’s more ready to come out to play.   She still hisses when I offer her a treat … but will take it happily from my hands, and of late has been fine with having her head stroked a little whilst she’s eating it.  She’ll still hiss again before the next treat though 🙂

The body language of these two is so different from what it was a couple of weeks ago, arms outstretched, rolling over, playing etc … makes me think again that there is hope for them living in a patient home rather than needing to go to live as outdoor cats.

Following our recent happy rehomings, we’ve had some new arrivals in the last couple of days.  If there was ever anything you couldn’t be sure of, and can’t plan for ….. it has to be cats!

So first there was Kiri.    We first got to know of her last weekend when someone contacted us saying she was stray and living outside for several weeks.  The person had tried to find who she belonged to … with no success,  but planned to take  her to the vet on Monday to check for a microchip.   Of course, Monday arrives and the cat who has always been at the window wanting to come in is nowhere to be seen.

Thankfully she was caught unawares on Wednesday and checked, and not surprisingly wasn’t chipped.  So plans were made for us to take her in on Thursday at 4:30pm.   She stayed indoors with the finder quite happily all day, until 3:50 when she managed to slip outside and disappear, leaving finder frantically between trying to message me and find the cat. Fortunately whilst we sat and drank tea and complained about the awkwardness of cats, Kiri bounced back up to the window … and is now safely with us here.

Friday’s arrivals were a different kind of challenge.   There’s a group that many rescues belong to where pleas for placements are posted if local rescues have no space and cats are vulnerable where they are.  We offered a space to a couple from the West Midlands who had been abandoned when their ‘owners’ moved out and left them.    It looked like a good plan as I had a meeting in Derby on Friday afternoon and that was sort of half way.    So in theory we were meeting at the service station near East Midlands airport at 5pm.  I slid out of my meeting into the horrid Derby City Centre traffic and headed south.  Breathed a sigh of relief as I parked up at 4:53 and had time to nip into the services.   Came out, messaged the cats we were meeting only to find they’d taken a wrong turn  and landed themselves in the Derby traffic I’d so recently escaped.

There’s something a little bit odd isn’t there, about meeting someone you don’t know … in a very busy place.   Whilst it was still light the associations that came to mind were of wearing a red carnation, or carrying a copy of the Guardian.  As it went dark, and I got colder and colder sitting in the car, my thoughts turned more to drug deals and arms trafficking.   Seriously who else meets a stranger on a service station car park to pass something on?   Reflecting on the easiest way to do this, I texted the cats to say that I would be parked by the billboard advertising soft drinks.   Being on the remote edges of the car park meant that there weren’t many coming and goings.  One or two cars pulled up …. flickers of light associated with either a nicotine or ipad fix .. and drove off again.  Finally a car pulled in that looked more likely.    Hmmm .. so now what?   Wave to what may be a random stranger?  Knock on the driver window to enquire whether he had any feline passengers looking for a ride up north?   What clinched it was the look on the other driver’s face which appeared to be asking the same questions 🙂

Anxious fur was transferred from one vehicle to another, plus a rather large parcel of things to help them onto this next chapter of their lives.   Given the earlier part of the story I should have known better than to trust them with the map reading.  We did 3 circuits of the service station before we got out of there, and by the time the Cat Nav kicked in we’d landed ourselves on M1(S) rather than (N).  So reluctantly down to Loughborough we go, seeing that northbound traffic is horrendous, so when we get to the first junction we decide to go cross country rather than U Turn and join the traffic jam.  Hence the West Mids fur has tour not only of Derby but of Loughborough too!   Finally rejoining the M1 at Nottingham I attempt to reassure them that South Yorks is a better county all together.  Sadly bouncing along the Sheffield potholes they remained unconvinced.

kitty

knut

knut

It was late by the time we got home, so I got them into their bedroom, gave them some supper, made up their beds and apart from checking in a few times just left them to unpack and settle in.    Today we’ve had more time together to start to talk and get to know each other.

Kitty is a little bit shy … but very sweet when you start to get to know her ….

Knut was a little hissy ….. but also very purry … and reluctantly agreed to make an appointment with Dr Tim to discuss his family planning options.

There’s a real Valentine’s romance waiting to blossom …. but unless appropriately chaperoned Kiri and Knut will not be spending time together until after their vet appointments on Friday.

Kiri & Knut .. a brief encounter

The obvious usual sort of stuff of course is taking care of the cats we have with us.   The main challenge with that has been the little Ws, Wilma’s girls.   They’re a curious collection because they span a wide gap in confidence levels.  Little Winnie is comparatively very confident: she purrs the minute I look at her, loves being picked up and cuddled, wants to play all the time.  She’s been a little shy once out of her own bedroom, or meeting strangers … though to my delight was happy and friendly with a lovely young woman I homechecked this week and now has her furever home secured.

Winnie

Wispa is next in line … she’ll come out and play quite happily, but dash away the moment I move or try to touch her.  Wynter (I have to confess a little favouritism) is the least confident, hisses whenever I speak to her, but had a certain attitude that is very appealing.   I’ve spent so many hours over the last few weeks trying to get them all engaged in playing and taking treats from me.  It’s wonderful and amazing when one of them makes a slight move forward with confidence … but at lot of the time between those moments, its pretty boring if I’m honest.

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More of the usual stuff is food/litter ordering, and keeping accounts. We order a lot of stuff online, but some of the challenges come with thinking up replies to supermarket checkout assistants who can’t help but comment on the fact that we have 30 boxes of cat food pouches and a 4 pack of beer in the trolley 🙂

There are always lots of emails and messages to answer both about cats who need to come into rescue, and from people who want to adopt. We’ve been fortunate to find some amazingly lovely adoptive families over the years, but not all enquiries are good homes, Just for the record: “ah mutch do u wont 4 it luv” ” i wont that un” and “av u got any cheep uns” are not regarded as appropriate adoption enquires. Likewise people who contact us needing a rescue place saying “can we just drop it off or do we need to make an appointment?” require deep breaths to be taken before replying.

Then of course we have to fit in all the vet runs. If we go to the vets very much more often we’ll be getting our own dedicated parking space and be obliged to take part in the surgery’s secret santa. They’re amazingly lovely vets (and nurses and admin) but of course it all takes up time. So many photos taken there:

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There’s lots of washing and dish washing going on too

You know what though? Despite all the stress and inconvenience …. I absolutely love it.

I’ve just been thinking about updating the blog … but then thinking that there’s no particular focus … “its just the usual sort of stuff”.  Then thought that maybe some readers don’t know what the “usual sort of stuff” is.

Quite a bit of it has been checking in with the progress of cats and kittens in new homes.  We had a bit of a marathon rehoming, with two pairs of kittens and two separate adults all going to their new homes within the space of a week.  All of them anxious to different degrees, so the general initial theme has been “hiding”. Variations on this theme have been “under sofa” (Goliath & Giselle), “behind sacks of potatoes”(Griffin & Gabriella) “under crate” (Wilma) and “behind piano” (Snowy).

First to go to their new homes were Goliath & Giselle.  Goliath is checking out one of his new beds here, but mostly for the first few days he and his sister hid under the sofa.

goliath settling in new home

 It was lovely to have some video footage of them emerging from their hiding place and playing.   I’m  a little concerned that they’ve drunk that bottle of wine between them .. but it seems to have helped them to chill out and start to enjoy their new home.

Their brother and sister, Griffin & Gabriella went to their new home a few days later.  Gabby is the most timid of the family and scuttled off into the kitchen to hide behind a sack of potatoes.   Griffin spent his first few days torn between wanting to come out and cuddle and play with his new family, and wanting to sit behind the potatoes and re assure his sister.   To our delight … but also kind of as expected …. Gabriella quickly started to gain confidence and her most recent message to us said that she’d tried sitting on her new mummy’s lap for a while.   Is it just me, or is there something in that look that says she’s going to be a little madam once she finds her feet (paws)

Griffin & Gabriella

Gabriella

The less happy story is that of Wilma.   It was never going to be easy with her.  She came out of her carrier hissing and spitting and hid underneath the cosy hutch that had been prepared for her.

However, aided by lovely new humans … and a little smoked salmon later in the day … she found her way to her cosy hutch. She even managed to not hiss when they put her heated pad in at bedtime … and accidentally touched her because it was dark …. and she’s black.  Just for a while it looked really quite hopeful.   Sadly a few days later she’d managed to tunnel her way out of her enclosure, and despite her humans’ best efforts she’s not been sighted since.  We try to remain hopeful that she’ll return.

Snowy rocked up at his new pad on Sunday, looked at the possibilities of hiding under the desk by the wine rack but then opted for the space behind the piano. He’s gradually emerged from there over the week and sent us some lovely updates about his explorations.    He’s particularly enjoying having found a lap to sit on …. a lot of the time …… bless him … it’s lovely to see him settled and happy again.

We do our best here, but we’re no heroes when it comes to feisty cats.  Lack of time, a nervous disposition and paper thin skin from years of eczema leave me wary of taking in cats who show challenging behaviour.  So it’s only by accident that we end up with these felines.   Some people call this “cherry picking” …. I call it “knowing my limits”.     Why am I talking about this now?  Well, today was very special because we took our first cat to an outdoor home – but more of that later.

Our first “mistakes” were Jak & Jenny a couple of years ago.  We responded to an urgent request from another rescue to offer a space to two cats they’d taken in as emergencies but didn’t have room to hold on to.  I knew it was bad news when they needed to use a catch pole to get them into the carriers.

They settled a bit when they got here, though we seriously considered whether Jak might need an outdoor home.  That’s him in the photo above … absolutely terrified.    A lovely couple with nerves of steel and hearts of gold took a chance on them.

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Somehow I don’t think the outdoor home is going to be needed 🙂

Our next ‘mistake’ was Maya.  We thought if the person who needed her to come into rescue was able to get hold of her in the shed she was living in, and put her in a carrier, she must be tame.  We didn’t reckon on the courage and determination of the woman we were dealing with who knew she just had to be got to safety!   Maya arrived very pregnant and very poorly …. and pretty much untouchable.  We thought she’d need to eventually find an outdoor home.

There’s a long long story around this that you’ll find in our archives.   The punchline is that my lovely friend Jenny fell in love with her and offered to foster her.   Maya never looked back … and of course ‘foster’ has become furever.

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Maya appears to have decided she’s not feral after all.

And then there’s Wilma.  She came to us with her 3 kittens a couple of months ago.  She’s very hissy and untouchable … and for the first time in the 8 Lives story, we’ve followed through on the thought that she needs an outdoor home, and taken her there today.

Here she is with one of her kits.   She’s hidden herself away for weeks, and rarely come out even to eat when we’ve been in her room.  We’re not used to having to find outdoor homes so were a bit stumped.   Quite by chance … you can read the story in our Happy 2016 post so I’ll not repeat it here …. she landed an offer of a home.  Several people got involved in creating the most amazing 5* outdoor accommodation for her: a pen with insulated house and cosy bed … plus garden bench inside.

Wilma is one very lucky kitty.  She has a safe and cosy outdoor home, with options to become just as ‘tame’ as she choses to be.

We feel very blessed to have known such lovely cats, and to have met the wonderful people who have thrown them such precious lifelines.

Wishing you and your furry ones the best of times in 2016!

It’s not been the easiest start to the year for us.  We have some quite needy felines with us at the moment, and because we want to do our absolute best for them, its meant we’ve been pretty stressed.  We love all the cats who come through our doors but can’t in all honesty pretend we love them all equally.  Our precious elderly resident Sooty has our emotions on a hairspring just now.  If he’s eating and happy then we’re happy, If he’s refusing food then our mood plummets lower than the deepest sea, and our anxieties rise above mountains.   Perhaps the happiest moment in the holiday was when he spotted we had a nice lump of double gloucester next to our Xmas cake.  It might be the only moment he’s asked for food without any prompting.  He had a bigger piece than either of us really want to confess to Dr Tim when we go back next week for a check up.

Much as it feels like it though, the world doesn’t stop at Sooty. for one thing there’s the little W Team to worry about. Wilma went off to be spayed just before Xmas and our vets felt she was feral and needed an outdoor home – how on earth to find one of those?   So we have her and her 3 little daughters who go down like stepping stones in terms of confidence. Little Winnie, much to my surprise, after a few days here stepped out from the crowd purring and wanting a fuss. She’s nervous around new people but a real snuggle bug here

Next in line is Wispa who is quite a bit more timid when it comes to cuddling … but is gaining lots of confidence with playing and grabbing treats.

Then there’s Wynter at the bottom of the heap. She gave the vets a run for their money when they came to microchip her. She’s gorrrrrgeous though. A little black kitten with a snowflake white spot on her chest.

The exciting … and surprising thing … though: As I was so distraught about Sooty just before Xmas, and didn’t know what to do with myself, his Aunty Jenny persuaded me to go to a local carol event at Strip the Willow They’re lovely people there so I agreed to go, despite the random and regular tears. To my surprise I spotted someone there whom I’d only met twice several years ago when she adopted a cat I was fostering for another rescue. I initially thought I’d not say anything because  I wasn’t sure I could have a conversation about cats (or anything else) without crying.  We ended up chatting though about Coco whom she adopted so many years ago – here she is with and without her kits

Oddly enough – before this meeting, Wilma and her 3 little black kits had reminded me very much of Coco and her 3 little black kits, and the challenge of remembering which ‘identical’ kit was which. So I mentioned Wilma and her predicament to Coco’s mum.   She said she’d ask around about finding Wilma an outdoor home.  Before we left the event we had a message from Coco’s mum saying she’d talked to her partner and they’d decided that they could offer Wilma the outdoor home she so much needed. It’s a slow process with lots of lovely people coming together to provide Wilma with a secure shelter until she knows where she’s going to be fed, and her having her vaccinations.  But watch this space!  I think we have a superb outdoor home for Wilma x

Let’s take a break from worrying about the W Team and have a think about the Gs.  They were very skittish when they arrived, and small for their age.   They gradually started to grow ….. and gain confidence ….. and then developed eye infections …. had eye drops …. lost confidence …. started to improve … gained confidence … gained weight.   They’re still small for their age … even the lowest age we could estimate them as having been when they arrived … but they’re healthy and full of mischief.

and cuteness

and love

Then of course there’s old Snowy.  He’s adorable, snuggle munchkin, but because he’s older no one has shown any interest in adopting him.  He’s missing his human who went into a care home over summer, and longing to find someone else he can snuggle on the couch with to watch TV.

He loves attention so much that he enjoys going to the vets.   He’s had quite a lot of teeth out, and the rest of them scaled and polished so they’ll not be bothering him for a long while.  He’s healthy and adorable.  Just needs someone to love him and a comfy sofa to live out his retirement years on.

A scary number of tears were shed last week, worrying about our Soot Boy.   Thankfully his bloods came back and showed nothing awful …. so we returned to the original hypothesis …. that it was his teeth causing the problems.    So ..  good news about his kidneys and thyroid, but bad news that he had to go through a dental op whilst he was underweight and quite frail.   Not quite sure how we got through last Tuesday at work, waiting for the vets to phone with news of how it had gone.  Poor old boy had another 4 teeth out.   Nothing quite like the joy of going to collect him though when I’d feared I wouldn’t see him (alive) again.  We got safely locked into the car and got out the carrier for a cuddle.  When we stopped at the lights on the way home I looked down and he was gazing up at me with his gorgeous white whiskers shining in the street lights.   When we pulled up on the drive at home, and I turned the engine off, he was purring.  When we got in the house he ate and ate … mainly hand fed chicken … but who cares?  …. he was eating.

He’s had no shortage of visitors whilst he’s been sick.  It’s not taken long for people to cotton on that the best food is served in his vicinity.   We all know the kind of visitors who turn up just to eat our grapes and fill in our puzzle books .. here’s the feline version of it.

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We’re not entirely out of the woods yet.   There was lots of upset that Dr Tim had kept his teeth so he couldn’t put them under his pillow for the tooth fairy.  However when we talked it through … there’s nothing the tooth fairy could bring that I wouldn’t happily provide x100 just to keep him happy.  The issue of the shaved knees was a little trickier …  We have our Flipper (who ought to know better) and some other giggly kittens, all too ready to tease him.   They’ve all been threatened … on pain of Dreamie withdrawal .. about commenting on this.

The next challenge is going to be getting him back to eating cat food along with the others, rather than discreetly loitering whilst they’re being fed, and then expecting mega posh food being spoon fed to him. Don’t tell him just yet, but if spoon feeding is the way to go to get him to put weight on … I’m up for it. I know his thyroid & kidneys aren’t great and this isn’t the end of it. Just for now though … just for now … I’m so grateful to have him home.

* mega thanks to Aunty Jenny for keeping picking me up when I fell apart, and to Millhouses Vets4Pets for looking after us both.