Sheffield

It’s been a good day here. It started with the birth of Lyra’s kittens.

Before Chi we didn’t really worry too much about pregnancies – but now its quite a scary time for us … and our bank account. Thankfully they were all born ok and seem to be doing well. No wonder Lyra was eating to Olympic standard … there’s 5 of them! The only problem so far is that we’d come up with pretty little L names – Lily, Lilac, Lavender etc and I think now that they’re mainly boys – so it’s back to the drawing board on that one. Otherwise Lyra is being a lovely attentive mum and they’re just fine.

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You might think that 5 gorgeous kittens is enough good news for one day. However, there’s more. Morris’ mum and dad came to meet Mowgli this afternoon. Despite Mowgli being a bit anxious and hiding under the chair, he’s hooked himself a new home. Morris was also very nervous when they came to meet him nearly a year ago now … and he had an eye infection. A less attractive kit would be difficult to imagine. But they fell for him and he’s now spoiled rotten, full of confidence and generally ruling the roost.

Morris

Mowgli hid under the chair most of the time they were there, and ignored them and the toys they brought him. I think once they’d gone it sank in that they’d offered him a lovely new home away from my hissy spitty residents … and he started asking lots of questions, getting excited, and playing with his new toys.

mowgli

mowgli

Today was the day that over a year’s worry and agonizing over Mog came to an end. Having found her with her face bitten whilst sorting out a shelter on the allotments for her, I hauled her home in the autumn of last year. I absolutely loved having her home and safe, and not worrying myself stupid about her when there was awful weather or fireworks. Mog’s face healed and she seemed to appreciate being inside and fed regularly, but it was clear she wasn’t really happy. She divided her time between being shut in my study on her own, and braving coming downstairs and running into the other cats. However much I tried to integrate them and get them settled it just wasn’t working and a terrified Mog would end up hammering at the cat flap to escape or having to run the gauntlet of the other residents to get back upstairs to her room.

loved having her home this xmas

I had to face the fact that it simply wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t keep her fastened in a room on her own for the rest of her life, and if she came downstairs she was going to be bullied …. and worst of all, if she went outside she was unlikely to be allowed back by the other cats … and my chances of catching her again on the allotments as I’d done before were pretty much zilch. I racked my brain for any possibility of putting a cat flap into the conservatory and making that Mog’s space, and a whole series of microchip flaps so that Mog had access to various rooms in the house and the other cats didn’t. However, I’d seen the other cats stop her and chase her away when she was across the road and several houses down the road. They wouldn’t have let her get near the house to be able to use the flaps. I frantically wondered about a cat flap in my bedroom window with a platform /bridge over the road and a ramp down into the allotments. That wasn’t going to work either 😦

we managed to have some fun times

So I did one of the hardest things I’ve had to do for my cats and set about trying to find her a new home. The person / people who adopted her would have to be just amazing in every way before I’d consider them adopting her … AND would have to have a home away from busy roads AND a safe garden to play in …. AND have the patience to help quite an anxious cat to settle in their home …. AND not have any other pets (or intend to have them) …. AND of course Mog would need to approve them.

I couldn’t imagine that ever happening, but then in January a lovely lovely couple got in touch. They’d just moved into their new home and wanted just one cat … and adult cat .. not a kitten. When they came to meet Mog she was all over them, loved both of them. So a few days later I took Mog to their home for a two month trial to check they were happy with her and I was confident that it was the right thing for Mog. They’ve been brilliant at keeping in touch, especially in those anxious early days, and sensitive to the fact that although it was exciting for them to have Mog go to live with them, it was painful for me to let go.

She was understandably anxious when she first arrived but within days it was becoming clear that she was feeling better without the other cats. She was climbing up on the bed and the sofa and having a cuddle – things my naughty bully cats had denied her.

One of my worries had been that Mog was simply a cat who preferred being outdoors, and that by re homing her I was taking her away from the allotments that she loved. And that when she went out at her new home she might clear off and be lost. Deep down though I felt that she was spending so much time outdoors because she just didn’t like the other cats. Mog has answered this by staying out at her new home for about an hour max and then back in again. She likes to go out and explore the garden, but is very happy to come back home. Compared with her record of being out for about 6 months whilst she was here – I think it speaks for itself that we’ve made the right choice.

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When I visited today with the adoption papers and her vet records etc to finally sign her over, she was sprawled out asleep in the conservatory – a very happy, chilled cat, adored by her new mummy and daddy. I’m sure we’ve done the right thing however that didn’t stop me from crying most of the way home.

Thankfully under the care of Aunty Wizz, the remaining two of Chi’s kittens are still hanging on in there. Poor Aunty Wizz is hanging in there too, though her risk of heart attack has multiplied by ten since they went to stay. They put on very little weight in week two. A healthy kitten would be expected to put on 8-10g on average each day at that age. The little girl put on 8g in the whole week. They are still only about half the weight you’d expect them to be if all was well and they were with mum, but at least now they are putting on some weight. And of course are absolutely gorgeous:

Meanwhile, Arwen is doing a wonderful job with her kittens. They’re exactly a week younger than Chi’s. Their eyes are open now and they’re just starting to take an interest in the world.

Arwen’s kits

We’ll be sorting out names for the little A Team soon. The little black lad is already named Albert – after the lovely old hyperthyroid boy I took down to Essex last summer. The others will be named just as soon as we can tell the difference between them 😉 Here they are on a brief outing from their nest for their first worm treatment.

Lyra’s kittens are still safe inside, being grown …

So far 8 Lives have scraped along on a shoe string. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to care for a couple of cats temporarily last year, whilst their human was moving house, and get paid for it.

paying guests for once

That gave us a little bit of a financial cushion.  Since then we’ve relied on adoption donations, a few generous food donations, and the fact that I sometimes forget to claim back what I’ve paid out of my own personal account on the cats, to break even.   Chi and Changi, adorable cats that they were, brought earmites to the house.  It cost over £100 in advocate, ear cleaner and ear drops to treat the pair of them.  It would have been a lot more if a lovely friend of 8 Lives hadn’t donated some spare advocate.  With something like earmites its not good enough to just treat the infected cats, we had to advocate all the residents as well … a personal rather than an 8 Lives bill but a big hit all the same.

Whilst we were wondering how to get back on track after that bill, we had a tragedy with Chi.  The bill for her emergency section was £570. Thankfully our lovely vets give us some discount as we’re frequent flyers, but it was still a serious bill, and it’s left us with just £9.98 in our account.   We’re praying that Arwen and her kits are going to be ok and not need any unexpected vet care, and currently have to be closed to taking any other cats in as we don’t have the funds to cover them.

So we’re asking now for help. Donations would be brilliant either directly to 8 Lives, or into our account at Millhouses Vets4Pets. Help with ongoing fund raising would be even more welcome. Working full time, looking after the cats, doing home checks, paperwork, accounts etc has been as much as we can manage. A few people who were able to give some time to fundraising would be amazing.

Please contact us either on facebook or email eightlives@outlook.com if you could help at all.

We’re trying hard to not let the nightmare of Chi and her babies cloud Arwen’s joy.  It was scary though on Wednesday night when Arwen started to show signs that her little ones were due any time now.  It felt like a re run of the previous week when it had been Wednesday night that Chi was looking ready to have hers.   We’d built a nest together, from the boxes that we got a food donation in a couple of weeks earlier.  Arwen had then lost interest in it, but suddenly it seemed as though it was her most important possession.

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On Thursday afternoon I dashed home straight after my last patient, bringing all the paperwork home with me, I just needed to know Arwen was ok and not in the state I found Chi in when I got home from work last Thursday.  Went into her room and she was just fine, no sign of kittens.  Fed her and came back downstairs to start on paperwork.  When I went up an hour or so later, she didn’t run to the door as usual, so I knew something was happening.  Arwen was in her box just finishing having her kits.  Not sure if it was unsettling or healing or both, that she had her kits almost exactly a week to the hour of Chi having hers.

Thankfully this time though, all was well.   Gorgeous little ones, lively, feeding well, everyone happy.  Arwen is doing a wonderful job.  She puts my kitty parenting to shame.   All bathed, fed, burped and off to bed and not a baby wipe in sight!

Well done lovely girl!

Chi and I had such fun chatting about what we’d call her babies.   It’s an 8 lives tradition to give the babies names starting with the same initial as mum.  So we bandied about lots of C names: Chico, Chica, Chopstick, Chigley, Cally, Carla, Coolie.   The heart wrenching reality is that its just been too painful to name them and they’ve stayed as “the little grey boy”, “the black and white girl” etc.

motherless kits – newborn

There’s a sense of unreality writing about this.  I guess I wish so badly that it wasn’t real.   They went home with the vet nurse and their mummy on the first night of their lives.    Our lovely vet called me first thing Friday morning ….  “not good news I’m afraid”.    I’d braced myself for the possibility that one or more the kits wouldn’t last the night, or even that Chi may not be able to feed them after her op.  Nothing had prepared me for the news that Chi was dead and I was now mum to 4 orphaned kittens.   How on earth I worked through the day without howling I don’t know.

At tea time I picked up 4 little pipsqueaks from the surgery and had a crash course in feeding and toileting them.   By 6am the following morning, I was hysterical.  No sleep on Thursday night with worrying about Chi, and no sleep Friday night with 2 hourly feeds.   We landed at my friend Wizz’s obscenely early for a Saturday morning.   I’ll be forever thankful for the way she  and her husband took care of me  as well as the kits.  We came home at tea time, more confident about caring for them and plunged into an endless round of feeding, cleaning, drying, washing, warming and worrying.  Who would have thought such tiny dots of fluff could create so much washing!  … and make so much noise … and turn our lives upside down.

The resident grown ups wondered what on earth had hit them.    Some rather grudging baby sitting time was offered, but mainly the girls sat around criticizing my parenting skills, and the lads grumbled that they’d not had the snip to then have to sit and listen to some other guys babies squawking.

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On Monday evening they went back to Wizz.   Having agonised about how on earth to manage them when I went back to work on Tuesday, I realised the answer was that I simply couldn’t!  Thank goodness for Wizz.   I absolutely know that they are in the best place with her but its been hard to let go.   And painful to hear that the little grey and white girl gave up her fight on Monday night, and the little grey boy who we thought was doing so well suddenly just quit and went to be with his mummy as well on Wednesday.

Nowadays we hold our breath every time we receive a text.   Please god let the remaining two be ok and let people hear the message about neutering from this tragedy.  It’s cost 8 Lives over £500 to sort out Chi’s ear mites and have an emergency C section.   That’s money we don’t have so our rescue is now in debt and unable to take on anymore cats.    Worse than our financial mess though – the original ‘owner’s’ negligence and selfishness  in not having Chi spayed has cost her her life, and the lives of at least two of her kits.

This is the most painful post we’ve shared so far and one its been almost too painful to bring ourselves to write.

Lovely Chi came to us at the beginning of February with her growing up daughter, Changi. We were lucky to very quickly have the offer of a great new home for the pair of them, once they’d been spayed, chipped and vaccinated. Their new family stuck with them when we realised that Chi was pregnant. Changi went off to live with them, and the plan was for Chi to have her kits here and then go to start her new life with Changi and her new humans once she’d brought her kittens up. It seemed a brilliant arrangement. The new family would get to watch the tiny ones grow up, the little ones would grow up being used to having visits from small children, and at the end of the day Chi would be free to start her new life with them. We were delighted that she would finally have a stable loving home, albeit a little later than we’d hoped.

The pregnancy progressed and Chi and I spent hours snuggled together, my hand on her tummy feeling the little ones wriggling around. We talked endlessly about when she would have them, where would be the best nesting place, what we might call them, and got excited together about who they would be. Then last Thursday I got home, thankfully earlier than expected, to find Chi had had a couple of babies. She seemed to think she’d finished, and was purring away, tucking into her supper and wanting a cuddle. Sadly it was evident that she was wrong and there was a problem. After a few frantic phone calls, we had what I think ranks as our most nightmare drive with cats so far. Off to the vets in the rush hour traffic, with a frantic cat half way through labour and two tiny tiny kittens being trampled in the carrier.

a brief moment for mum and two kits before the world fell apart

There was a long wait whilst Chi had an emergency section. Another kit was stillborn and then two more born alive … just. Hours later, Chi was struggling to come round from her op. She and her kits went home for the night with the vet nurse so that they could be monitored and cared for. Although she seemed to be coming round, Chi collapsed in the early hours of Friday morning, and died, leaving 4 newborn kittens without a mummy.

motherless kits – newborn

Chi was such a beautiful cat. Pretty on the outside, but beautiful inside too – a lovely loving girl. She had a rough start in life, having had her first litter of kits when she was only about 7 months old. It seemed that her luck was finally about to change and she had a wonderful life ahead of her. It was not to be. It’s hard to express how this feels. You’d need to meet her to know what a lovely cat she was, and to see her kittens floundering around without a mummy to understand the emptiness she leaves behind. One of the things that feels most unbearable to me is that this was entirely preventable. Had she been spayed when she should have been, none of this would have had to happen. She’d still be here to enjoy her new life and the desperate poor kits would never have been here to experience this abandonment.

There have been quite a few changes here in the last couple of weeks.   Changi went off to her new home last weekend, giving Chi a room to herself ready for having her babies.  Chi has waddled around getting biggerer and biggerer but no sign of her having the kits yet.   We’re both starting to hope it will be soon.  She can’t settle and get comfy anywhere, and her tummy leaps randomly at odd angles as the little ones wriggle around inside her.

Merlin got his big chance too last weekend.  He’s been offered a foster home with no other cats.   Absolutely lovely home with two brilliant women who are patient with him and kind to him, and are determined to try to do whatever it takes to help him towards being able to settle in a permanent home.    He was full of it when he first arrived, loving all the attention, but then the scared Merlin kicked in and reminded him how he’s been hurt in the past.  His new foster humans have stuck with him whilst he’s bounced around the house hissing, and then spent a day hiding inside the duvet.  We trust he’ll make it and eventually be happy in a permanent home, because his temporary home is fab, and underneath the hissing and hiding he’s a lovely lovely boy.

Meanwhile, we were asked if we could help transport a pregnant lady from Chesterfield to a rescue place …. in Portsmouth or Gateshead … the nearest two places who could offer her space.   She’d been left behind when her humans moved house and neighbours were trying to sort her out.  To cut a long story short, she ended up in Merlin’s old bedroom.   Unfortunately when we went to pick her up we found there was another cat as well – an older kitten, also unspayed, who had been left behind.    After a brief interlude wherein we tried to convince ourselves we were full and couldn’t take the second cat as well, we caved in one rainy night and went over to fetch her …. so here we are …. welcome Arwen and Etha!

We also had a really nice surprise this week: Last week we had an email asking if we could take in an older kitten who had been found living in a neighbour’s shed. It’s often not too difficult to squeeze in a kitten, and the guy who emailed sounded genuinely concerned to do his best for the cat, so we offered a place and asked for more details. A day or two went by and then we had an email saying that the kit had been offered a permanent home, which was great news. A few more days went by and there was a knock on the door …. the postman …. with an enormous parcel of cat food from the man who had found the kit. Such a lovely surprise and so welcome when the pregnant ladies are eating us out of house and home.

The happy story of the quick turn around in Chi and Changi’s lives has been complicated a little recently.  You may remember they were offered a lovely new home together within a week of arriving in rescue.    The only downside of it was that its within range of Magic and Benson’s new home 😉  Those of you who remember young Benson will understand  … bless him.  I can’t believe the little rogue is old enough to have been booked in for his snip next week.

So we planned a date for them to move to their new home after having been chipped and snipped and vaccinated.   However, as the day of the op approached something seemed not quite right.   Mum and daughter who had looked so similar in size and shape when they arrived began to look a little different …. only at certain angles ….. but ….. Chi seemed to be filling out around her middle.    They’d been wormed so it wasn’t that, and although they were eating well it wasn’t excessive.  Uh oh.  Their previous family hadn’t bothered to get them spayed because they were supposedly indoor cats, though they did tell me that Chi had got out once or twice.   Once is all it takes for hormone driven felines!

So now what to do?   Thinking that maybe Chi was pregnant but not sure.  What on earth to do about the new home?  Would they decide they would take Changi but couldn’t be bothered with coping with Chi and her unplanned pregnancy?  Even worse, would they decide they didn’t want either of them and go elsewhere to adopt?   We went off to our lovely vets and they also thought she was pregnant, and that Chi was about mid term.  Distressing conversation about the pros and cons of going ahead with “spay” …. it could be done but would be more major midline op, and would terminate quite well developed kittens.   In the wider context of over abundance of kittens this could have made sense.  In the narrower context of what I could bear and what it could put Chi through and what the vet felt was right ….. the answer was “no”.

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So a week ago I sent off an anxious email explaining the situation to the new family … and held my breath.   I didn’t have to wait long.  Hours later I got a very simple response: “it’s fine, how could we not still want them”.   Bless them.   So Changi has been off for her op and will be joining her new family next weekend.  Chi, meanwhile, is getting biggerer and biggerer.  She’ll have her babies here, bring them up, be spayed and then join Changi in their new home.   All being well we’ll have the very best of all worlds – the family will visit Chi and watch her kittens growing up, and at the same time help the kittens to get used to new people and children in particular -which  will help the kittens when it comes to them finding new homes.