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.

Is it seriously almost Christmas again?  Where did that time go?   Wishing you and your loved ones (furry and otherwise) the best of the season and all good wishes for the New Year.  We’re thinking back to last Christmas and all the lovely photos our former guests sent us, enjoying their trees and presents … and Xmas dinners. It’s super to see them happy and healthy and enjoying life, especially when we know where they came from and how different life might have been had they not found their way into rescue. Have a look at some of these lovely felines:

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Our older girls find lovely homes

It’s always wonderful to get cats settled into lovely homes, but I think the highlights of this quarter have to be Gertie and Maya … both older girls so more tricky to rehome. Gertie is a lovely friendly purry girl, who came to us having been found collapsed and blind in a field by some dogs out on a walk. When her high blood pressure was treated her sight was restored. She found a super home up in West Yorkshire with a lovely family.

Maya on the other hand was healthy but “untouchable” and needed humans with endless patience and nerves of steel to adopt her. We’d been advised to find her an outdoor home at a stables/farm but just felt there was something about her, if given the right opportunity, she would really make it as a house cat. We weren’t wrong! Since arriving in her new home she’s just gone from strength to strength. I still need to pinch myself to be sure I’m not dreaming when I see some of the photos of her.  She gets on well with her step sisters … though they’re from very different backgrounds (they’ve been indoor cats all their lives) and clearly loves her humans.  She’s not ready to be stroked yet, but makes contact with her family by sleeping hugging their clothes.

Of course there have been lots of other happy re homings of less challenging cats … here are some of our favourite pics

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And inevitably our new arrivals … looking for homes

Poor old Snowy has lost his elderly human into a care home and is grieving, but ready to open his furry heart to someone else if they’ll care for him. Wilma and her kits are very anxious, having lived on the streets for a while. The little G Team are very small for their age having lived under a shed all their lives until last week, but slowly getting used to home comforts.

Snowy

W Team

G Team

For sale – Calendars

Our superb 2016 Calendars are on sale … price £5 each.   Full of professional photos of our gorgeous rescue cats.  Perfect for your own wall … or for Christmas present for cat loving friends.

1.  They’re on sale at Millhouses Vets4Pets and at Pet Company pet shop just up the road from the vets, 974-976 Abbeydale Road, Sheffield, and also at Victoria J Smith Opticians, 26 Terminus Road, Sheffield.

2.  If you fancy coming round to my house and playing with kittens whilst buying calendars, they’re available here – just email me and arrange a time to call.

3.  If none of these options are convenient you can get them by mail order by emailing fiona@the-it-trainer.co.uk  .. It’s Fiona’s company who kindly put up the money to have the calendars printed.  P&P will be added to the cost.

4.  They will also be on sale a Tesco Abbeydale Road on Thursday 10 December.  Please come along and support us .. we’ll have other lovely goodies available to buy too.

Have a wonderful (and safe) Xmas

Please remember that some of the traditional Xmas foliage is poisonous to cats

I was horrified to see a post on facebook this evening of a kitten who had died having become tangled in fairy lights.    Thankfully its not something that happens often  … but I’m sure if it happened to me I’d never free my mind from the memory.  Having arrived home this week to find a kitten who had fetched a paper carrier out of a cupboard and got tangled in it … the handles getting tighter and tighter as they’d twirled round in his panic … I can see how these accidents happen.  Please keep your little ones safe.

Sending Season’s Greetings to you all … may you be happy, healthy and safe … all all good wishes for 2016