Rocky – the ‘co-operative cat’

No … not in that he’s collecting stamps and divi ….. just that it’s been a bit of a group effort sorting the lad out. One of my fellow foster carers picked the lad up as a stray in her garden last week. He wasn’t neutered, and was covered in ticks and his fur full of flea eggs. Beautiful timing as she was due to move house the following day! My good friend TC from Friends of Ferals http://www.facebook.com/LadyMischka?fref=ts loaned me her scanner to confirm that the boy wasn’t micro chipped. So we took him in – what else can you do?

After trawling every lost and found site, both to see if someone was missing him, and to post him as ‘found’ it looked like no one was going to come forward and claim him. So my lovely friends at Meers Cattery
http://www.meerscattery.co.uk/ offered him an exclusive space until he’d got rid of his passengers and sorted out his vaccinations. Friends of Ferals have sorted him an appointment discuss family planning. He opted for something permanent and irreversible since that came with the offer of a chicken supper afterwards.

Rocky

He’s a really nice guy … friendly, snuggly, purry. Just needs a new human to call his own.

Introducing …..

…. Amigo and Aminah. They arrived here last night, from living rough/abandoned in a garden a couple of days ago, via Karen’s and a swift dose of contraceptive advice at the vets.

amigo and aminah

I always find it exciting … and a little bit daunting …. welcoming new cats into my home. Never quite know if they’re going to be little spitfires and run up the walls, or “soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur”. Will they vomit on the rugs, trash my bookshelves, wage war on my resident cats? And not only “what will they be like?” but “how long might they stay?”. Little Dizzy has been here going on for a year now so length of stay is a very relevant question.

I needn’t have worried with these two. They’ve been adorable from the start. Both settled down in their carriers and slept most of the way home. And once in their new bedroom, they had something to eat, purred very loudly and started to chill out. The only concern was Aminah’s spay wound – though that has settled in the 24 hours since her op.

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They’re absolutely beautiful, very friendly and happy, and exquisitely alike and yet different. Alike to the point that they both have a tiny white edge on the right ear, different in their black and white nose. I hesitate to gender stereotype however they appear the perfect complement of male and female versions of the same thing. Aminah is smaller and more delicate, very friendly and gentle though perhaps a little more timid. Then again she’s also rather more intelligent and quick off the mark when it comes to treats and chasing things. Amigo is handsome, more solid, a little more outgoing and confident though more rough in his play.

They’ll be the purrfect pair for someone 🙂

Dizzy finds her paws

Other than Cassie and Murphy who are living in splendid isolation in their en suite rooms, the only foster puss here now is Dizzy. She’s been here since June last year and for a long while just blended in with the crowd. Apart from being head of the race for the red dot from the laser pen she’s kind of been average. Not confident and in your face like Fidget and Flipper but not ferry feral like Pumpkin and Dunlop. Not naughty like Stanley and Gizmo and not shy and snuggly like Marmalade. It’s only in the last few weeks she’s had real space to be noticed and show her character. And what a character she is!

She’s decided she rather likes Jango’s hammock so spends a fair amount of time in there. Jang has plenty of other favourite places to sleep and is a real gentleman so he’s let her get on with it. But the other night he really fancied getting in there, so I moved Dizz and let him get in. She wasn’t at all daunted by 6kg of sleeping orange fur and decided she was going to get in alongside him. His snoring turned to a loud hissing, but totally un bothered she sat there until he got up and strolled off to another bed.

Jango and Dzzy discussing who has the hammok

Dizzy in hammok

I half blame young Flipper for the next episode. We have a wall cupboard in the kitchen where we keep some cat treats. They managed to climb up, open the door and steal a plastic wrapped ‘meaty stick’ and between them rip it open and demolish it. I’d moved the treats from a ground level cupboard because it was clearly too easy to break in to that.

Clearly starting to find her paws, she decided on an adventure. Over the last month or so Flipper has been going out regularly and Dizzy has had the opportunity but never the courage. One evening this week I opened the door to call Flip in as it was going dark, and Dizzy went out. Dizzy’s usual plan is to go a couple of steps across the patio, turn round and rush inside again, so I didn’t worry too much. However that evening she decided she’d rush the other way and ran up the garden. Despite a lot of name calling and Dreamie packet rattling there was no way she was coming back. So the resident grown ups went out in force. Sooty who is elderly and not very well at the moment, and Flipper who is small and crazy were grounded, but Jango, Honey and Amber did an amazing job. They combed the area, found her, pointed out all the gaps in the hedge and fence so she could get back into the garden. It was just stunning to watch them chasing around the garden like sheep dogs trying to get her back to the door. One by one they came in shrugging their furry shoulders … Dizzy wasn’t lost or stuck anywhere, she was just being a little b@gger and refusing to come in and they’d lost patience. She finally bounced home about an hour later.

Looks like Dizzy is finding her paws and starting to be the person she’s been waiting to be. Still a bit timid but ready to be herself and find her way in the world.

Left Behind :(

Dizzy with Dunlop shortly after they arrived in foster care

Little Dizzy came into foster care in July last year when she was about 8 weeks old, along with her sister – Dunlop. Since then I’ve had about 18 other foster cats, and all of them other than Cassie (who’s kits aren’t quite ready for her to go) and Murphy (who has only been here a couple of weeks) have either gone to their new homes, or are busy packing to go to them in the next week or so. Poor Dizzy hasn’t even had a phone call to ask about her.

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I’ll be honest – she’s not going to be entirely easy. She spent her earliest weeks living rough with her mummy in a garden and that has affected her. She’s less confident with humans than most of the rest of the cats in the house, though she gets on well with the other cats. The sad thing is that she makes an effort to be more friendly and most often gets pushed out by the more confident kits. She rushed onto the bed for a love this morning. It was a lovely surprise to see her there wanting a fuss but by the time I’d extracted an arm from under the duvet, Flipper had dive bombed her, pushed her off the bed and was lining herself up for what should have been Dizzy’s cuddle. She’s made more progress since there have been fewer cats around here, and has come out of her shell much more, so I’m certain that in a home where she could have more individual attention things would greatly improve.

She’s very very pretty, with lovely long fur. Long enough to look beautiful and make her special, but not so long that it gets tangled and messy. It may help to also know that she doesn’t suffer from “pooh trousers”. Fluffy cats leaving the litter tray with parts of the trays contents attached to their fur isn’t an unusual issue, but its not one that Dizz struggles with. She loves to play, always head of the pack when playing the laser game and is keen on other sports too.

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She’s spayed, micro chipped, vaccinated and has a clean bill of health. Her experience of many other cats in foster care suggests she could fit quite happily into a multi cat household. [She’s been reluctant to go out when given the opportunity so could probably also be happy as a house cat – edit 28 April – Dizzy now loves going outside along with the other cats]

Murphy’s mug shot

So young Murphy went on Monday for his family planning appointment and was also declared to have a clean bill of health. That means it’s time to start seriously advertising him and getting him into a new home. Photography session planned for the weekend, and brought forward to this evening having come home early from work because of (yet more) snow. This is one of the challenges I didn’t necessarily anticipate as a foster carer …. I’d bargained for clawed carpets, curtains and skin, and a generous amount of bodily fluids in inappropriate places, and the heartache of letting them go. But camera skills is something I discovered later that I would need.

I got a few cute distance pics of Murph on my phone last week, but having got the camera out thought we should start with a close up of his lovely face. He’s got such a gorgeous face, a good sized tom cat head and a very adoptable expression. Having explained the plan and talked through the setting and lighting options we started clicking. It was at that point that Murphy went shy, and tried every which way to hide his face.

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After a while we managed to exploit the shyness into coyness:

being coy

And then as he started to relax we managed a few better photos

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We wonder which lucky person will be the one to adopt him 🙂

Please just adopt the little b@ggers!

Tired of trying out fancy ideas to encourage people to adopt my kits – they’re all small naughty cats who will cost you a fortune and most likely trash your house ….

here they are … some of them trying to look appealing …. some of them can’t even be bothered to do that!

gizmo

fidget

flipper

pirelli

panda

marmalade

dizzy

dunlop

Stanley

make us an offer 😉

Stan the man

Our Stanley arrived just about 2 weeks ago now. He was advertised as “free to good home” on an internet forum, and in a moment of weakness and insanity and having very recently read how unthinkable and anything but “good home” things can happen to “free to good home” furry people I offered to take him in.

trying to count how many new foster brothers and sisters

He’d not had the easiest of lives thus far. The young woman who brought him said she’d got him from someone who seemed to have carelessly allowed his cat to breed and then ended up with a box of kittens he didn’t want. “Take as many as you want love” doesn’t suggest he did a very rigorous home check for the lad. Anyway Stan was reasonably lucky – he was well cared for but his new mum’s husband turned out to be very allergic and young Stanley had to go.

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Poor Stan – he’d been an only child for a few months and was then faced with 8 other crazy kittens all excited about the new boy and wanting to play. Actually I’m not sure it was just playing they were interested in – some of the young ladies went into a bit of a hormonal swoon when he arrived. I can see where they’re coming from – he’s a very handsome young man and rather more mature than Gizmo and Panda.

Marmalade

Just when we thought we’d finished with medications for a while, Marmalade arrived last weekend. She’s finishing clearing the debris of having ear mites and needed ear drops. Actually she and I were very lucky last weekend when she arrived. We’d driven back from CAT’s with her serenading me all the way with a medley of traditional Doncaster feline folk songs. When we got out the car there was a long hissing sound. Even for my grouchy residents it seemed a little premature to be objecting to the new arrival. We then realised it was a tyre flattening itself. Whilst a flat tyre is never welcome, its much more welcome on my drive at home than on the M18 with a wailing cat and bonfire night/weekend starting to get a grip.

taking refuge near the ceiling

hiding under the shelf

finally found something she likes to eat

I’d hoped that as little more than a kitten herself, despite having had her own kittens, she’d be quite happy mucking in with my 8 little ones. Unfortunately Marmalade had different ideas – having just given up her kittens for adoption the last thing she seemed to want was other little monsters harassing her. The first evening was a little tricky: lots of fireworks outside, the poor girl must have thought she was being put up in a war zone. She took refuge on the highest shelf she could find, and for a while it looked as though she may never come down. The ear drops didn’t help her to settle any, and the nightmare worsened for her (and me ;( ) when we realised we had to re dose with wormer as well.

Had a stressy couple of days when she seemed to not want to eat anything, play with anything, or even take an interest in treats and catnip. She still doesn’t like the kittens but is very friendly with me – loves a good stroke, rolls over to have her tummy rubbed. Lovely friendly purry little thing. Previous experience of torties makes me fear her taking a swipe at me when she’s had enough cuddling but so far she’s not fitting the naughty tortie stereotype at all.

rather happier

lovely pretty girl

The Gizmo challenge … could you survive it?

Young Gizmo landed in foster care along with his mum some weeks ago. Mum did the wall of death around the spare bedroom walls, was spayed and returned to the garden that little Giz was born in. Gizzy stayed here in foster care. He’s more interested in the world of humans and how he could exploit them, and is now looking for a home he can dominate. He’d prefer to take his friend Pirelli along with him but would be pleased to take charge of a home alone if that was to his advantage. He’s taken up the option of a microchip courtesy of RSPCA so you’ll not be able to get rid of him easily, but he will still need to have the snip in order to foil his ambitions for total world domination.

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If you think you can cope with this little monkey and his demands for cuddles and games please contact either Karen on 07940792205 or Áine at ainegrace.ryan@yahoo.co.uk

Is your house too peaceful and tidy?

Everything calm and in the right place?

No domestic challenges any more?

Flipper and Fidget could be the answer for you! In return for a donation to CAT ACTION TRUST 1977 and the promise of a lifetime of love and care, these two tabby monsters would be pleased to come in and rough it up for you. They’re also guaranteed to give so much love and entertainment that you really will grow to not mind that they trash the toilet roll every time you forget to close the bathroom door.

They were born in foster care in May 2012, and have been vaccinated and micro chipped. They’re more or less ready to be spayed and will be able to go out of the house soon after that once they’re settled in a new home. They are currently in foster care in Norton Lees in Sheffield.

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If you think these two could be the ones to give your home (and your hearts) a bit of a make over please get in touch. You can either call Karen on 07940 792205 or email Áine at ainegrace.ryan@yahoo.co.uk to find out more.