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During September and October we lost two more of our rescue cats. Mr. Dickens had been with us since October 2017 and he died around ten pm Thursday 19/9/19. It was a terrible night because Mr. Dickens had turned a corner, was eating by himself and had put on 400 grams that week, graduating from the feeding tube to independence but in just one day he worsened and was gone. The vet visit that day revealed nothing untoward but he had earlier vomited once and was hyperventilating when we came home from the shops. We rushed him to the surgery but by that time he displayed little of what we had witnessed. 'Bring him back tomorrow if he's no better' said our vet. A few hours later I recognised the glazed eyes and the coma like unconsciousness. Mr. Dickens was dying and all we could do was make him comfortable and accept it. All night I saw his face in my dreams, the regret and sorrow we experienced was acute. His death was not without warning. He had been a patient for weeks, at first in hospital with the usual diagnostic blood tests, fluids and syringe feeding, antibiotics, two broken teeth removed (his last). and most recently at home with us in our lounge room where he was quite happy. This Dickensian boy was urchin enough from his life on the streets back then in 2017. The stress of fighting other cats for territory and rights, finding enough food to survive on, hiding from humans in drains and lying under cars in the dark of night had taken its toll. Mr. Dickens was scrawny, dirty and one of the unfriendliest cats we had so far known. His fear of humans was paramount. Once caught he was taken to our vet for a blood test, desexing and vaccination. He was very malnourished, and FIV+ He could not go back there to that life so we brought him home and concentrated on building up his immune system. A year ago he had most of his teeth out, sailed through that and was back to his usual self. Although he accepted me brushing him with the wand we never came close to touching him until his last illness. Mr. Dickens was admitted to hospital this time with a temperature of 33 degrees, he was cold, lethargic, dying. I did not expect him to survive that day. A drip, antibiotics, a heat pad, syringe feeding, pain relief and pre-emptive strikes to any vet nurse who thought she could make him more comfortable! until a few days later when his whole demeanour changed and our vet said Mr. Dickens is friendly now!! He stayed in hospital for nine days. We visited him as often as possible and he listened quietly as we spoke to him. He wasn't eating much but we asked if he could come home. He settled into a crate in our lounge room where he ate voluntarily at first but soon had difficulty with a mouth infection and so we opted for a feeding tube. Back home it was one constant round of feeding until he turned the corner and began to eat on his own. We could pat him, we could nurse him, we could even bathe him. We miss you so much Mr. Dickens.  The above photo was taken around a year after he came to us. When Sandy (below) came in late last year they shared an enclosure and became mates.  Sandy lived in the street, slept under cars, lay in the middle of the road refusing to move for traffic. He had a lot in common with Mr. Dickens. . Luckily it was a quiet street with a dead end and he had some ladies looking out for him. They gave him food which he ate once they were a safe distance away. He sired quite a few families and we wondered where he found the strength! Sandy was infested with fleas and worms, his teeth were the worst our vet had ever seen and every broken blackened remnant was removed. He was anaemic, FIV+ and in a debilitated state. So he came back to us at Catmint Cottage. Sandy is still living with us but misses Mr. Dickens.  Sandy has fattened up and his coat is thick. He has beautiful eyes and always a mucky face from putting his snout in his food. He has an enclosure of his own and an aerial tunnel that he frequents as shown above. Moves are afoot to integrate him with some of the other cats.  Dash (above) came to us almost three years ago.. He died 11th October 2019. When he came in to care he was roughly two years of age and extremely timid. He was already FIV+ and never hurt a soul yet he was the focus of some nasty people who threatened to kill him. He resided in the garden and on the porch of the lady who was looking out for him. She fed him and had him desexed and vaccinated but when she needed to move urgently Dash had nowhere to go. I had shared his plight on facebook for months in trying to help. We could not take more in, his carer begged me over and over until I relented and offered him a few months of safety until she could work something out. He was such a good and humble boy that he was never a minute's trouble.
Dash could not be touched at the time so his education started here. He was such a shy, timid gentle boy, a thinker, a companion to other quiet cats and came to seek my lap too. During the time of looking after Mr. Dickens I became aware that Dash did not look well. One morning I watched him drinking a long draught of water. We took him to our vet that same day. I thought perhaps a urinary tract infection as he had been urinating in places I was not happy about. His kidneys were very enlarged. He was admitted for tests and found to have a condition he was born with., Polycystic Kidney Disease. He was FIV+ which did not help his immune system and also had a heart murmer. Some treatments were recommended, Renal food, daily fluids but this was after he came home from hospital and several days on the drip. After Mr. Dickens died I thought Dash needed some kind of intervention as his kidneys seemed badly swollen. He was not eating much, did not like me giving him sub cutaneous fluids. Our vet was shocked when she saw him and said it was a case of euthanasia. I could not accept it that day. I cried when she left the room to get something. She did some things to make him more comfortable and gave us pain relief to give him. Two days later we took him back and I held his head in my hands and told him what a good boy he had always been. The glass may never have been full for these cats and others that we have saved but it was never half empty once they came here. I know that much. Assistance to carry on this work is badly needed. Please donate if you can. https://www.catmintcottagestreetcatrescue.com.au/donate.html
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 What does a rescue organisation do when faced with insurmountable odds? The answer is that you go at the problem from every angle you can think of. And if you can't succeed then you can definitely improve the life of that particular cat. Queen was a senior boy of around eight years when he arrived in care with Linda. He was fortunate indeed, as was I, to have Linda join the fight with us on the rescue of the street cats. We mainly work in the South Western suburbs of Sydney. And that is where Queen came from. Named after Freddie Mercury by Uncle, Queen had multiple problems compounding in all directions. In Linda's own words: Queen was considered unadoptable by most due to his list of health issues ranging from ulcerated bleeding paws (pts was originally suggested), skin cancer, asthma, stomatitis, urinary crystals, weepy eye, FIV+ and being a senior boy, but his character was so charming and cheeky.
We took on the long road to get his health issues addressed and managed, staying hopeful that one day a special family would make him a part of theirs but remained realistic that it was a big ask.  Our mantra is 'making the impossible possible' By the time an adoption inquiry came in on Sarah and Sasha, two very shy and timid sisters rescued also from the streets, Queen and the girls had formed a close bond. In Linda's words once more: 'Sasha and Sarah were two rescued sisters who were very timid and needed a lot of time to come out of their shell, especially with new people. They loved and snuggled with Queen all the time. Julia and Steve were originally only looking to adopt 2 but couldn't bring themselves to separate this bonded trio. They gave Sarah and especially Sasha all the time and love needed for them to feel this was home. I am forever grateful ❤ Thank you to our supporters and sponsors who made it possible to give them, and in particular Queen the treatment and care needed. Thank you for believing in what we do .... making the 'impossible', possible.' Linda xo Please consider donating to help us continue this vital work. https://www.catmintcottagestreetcatrescue.com.au/donate.html
 On a sunlit winter's day in August 2016, we picked up a trapped cat from a feeder to drop off to our vet for her. Such a magical day that day, I remember it so well. The warmth, the sunlight, the ambience of everything but sadly for Faith she was given a death sentence. She had been trapped at an abandoned house in Cabramatta, N.S.W and we agreed to pick her up and drop her off for desexing. After leaving the surgery a phone call from our vet asked if I had noticed her distressed breathing. An xray revealed Cancer had spread to her lungs from a mammary tumor. All I could think of was that it was too beautiful a day to die. Expecting euthanasia to be the only course of action, I was surprised to hear 'take her home for a few days of palliative care.' And that was how Faith gained her other name...'that palliative care cat.' At the surgery she was given an injection of steroid to stimulate her appetite but on my first visit I saw how flat she was. I wasn't sure how she would go at all. The above photo is of her in hospital on that first night. We took Faith home and set her up in a little wooden rabbit hutch in the lounge room. In the hutch part I made a soft warm bed for her to rest in private and in the front part put her litter tray and food. Faith began to eat and rest alternatively. After a while she stopped sleeping in her private hutch and spent more time out in the other area watching us and the other cats. A month later she asked to be released. 'No' I said, 'you don't understand. You are dying.' 'No' she replied 'you don't understand, I want to get out!' So I thought about this and decided it would be nicer if she could spend some time on the verandah with the others before she died.  Faith put on weight so quickly that we feared she was pregnant. A visit to surgery negated that idea thankfully. It was observed that she looked surprisingly well. Faith was, FIV+ and her age estimated to be ten years old. She was a very friendly cat so where had she been for so long? And how many kittens had she had in her life?  As time went on Faith seemed to improve so much that I began to doubt there was anything wrong! John was fond of repeating the quote 'rumours of my impending death are greatly exaggerated.' With each month she gained momentum so much that she came on heat and we rushed her back in for surgery. Desexing and removal of the mammary cancer were performed and Faith sailed through it. She had such a pretty face, was so affectionate but also revealed her 'other' side of Alpha female. Poor timid Tinkerbell became picked on unmercifully. Screaming matches and attacks became frequent. Finally when things became too serious we took Tink out to the new enclosure and her happiness with her new home was obvious until another prefect came along in the persona of Bryn. He ate her food just because he could, he stalked her so that she hid, a prisoner in her own quarters that we had to provide. Eventually though, after her initiation period Bryn accepted that poor girl and she was finally allowed to mingle and eat with the others. Inside, peace reigned once more.  Last year Faith had the rest of her teeth out and chest xrays to monitor the extent of the Cancer. Apparently her lungs did not look much worse and my comment to the vet nurse that we had not expected her to live this long extracted this response: 'Neither did we when we saw the xrays of her lungs. Last Sunday, just a few weeks shy of her third year with us, Faith, 'that palliative care cat' slipped quietly away. During the early afternoon I went outside to sit in the sun to think. The day was warm and there was ambience and magic in the air, just the way it was that very first day that a girl called Faith crossed our path. Your donations will allow us to help others like Faith. https://www.catmintcottagestreetcatrescue.com.au/donate.html  Photo is of the first cats desexed and housed. Stormy is back rhs.  The sultry day moved on into evening. Darkness fell. Another element crept in to the blackness, unnoticed. A storm had been building in the west and the first ominous rumble of thunder was sudden, loud and close. The kittens! 'They have shelter.' 'they will be alright.' Tempting fate. Before we could respond further the storm hit with a ferocious bang. Lightening lit up the darkness, thunder crashed and the rain came down with a roar, swept by the wind, into hammering relentless sheets of weaponry, great forces against the windows, doors and roof.. From outside squeals erupted from the kittens, high pitched screams easily heard over the sound of the lashing rain. We tried to open the front door to get out to them but were driven back by the fury of the deluge sweeping into us, the door wrenched from our hands. Outside the squealing continued, Blindly facing the fury, we met it head on with our second desperate attempt, fighting all the way to get outside. In the darkness, Socks huddled in the 'shelter'. Alone. Yoda, pure white,visible and small enough to fit through the wire was caught halfway on his way out of the enclosure. Even in those desperate moments, being pummeled with heavy rain, Socks wore what seemed to me to be an inscrutable expression of blame. 'You did this' 'Now look.' The larger kittens were at the other end which puzzled me. They were fully exposed to the elements and looked half drowned, confused. . I pulled Yoda from the wire and then started collecting the others into a carrier. I counted only six. I went back to Socks, opened another carrier in front of her and was amazed that she jumped in to it. Remember she was an untouchable cat. We looked everywhere for the seventh kitten until we had to give up. Once inside we took the kittens to the bathroom and bathed them quickly in warm water, dried them and put them in front of the heater in the carrier. Back outside we went in a fruitless attempt to find the little grey one. We came back inside, disbelieving that we could have lost her. I vividly recall sitting on the lounge and saying 'That poor little thing., that poor little thing.' John stood up and said 'come on!' He grabbed the car keys and outside he turned the car headlights on to light up the driveway and encouraged we began to search once more. but there was nothing. Why did we never have a torch when we needed one? I looked into the shadows, near the enclosure, I put my hand under it somehow quelling my fear of spiders or other bitey things but could feel nothing. I ran around the fence into next doors driveway to see if she had been washed under the fence. I came back around and noticed the solar garden light.. I pulled it out of the ground and ran up the driveway to the enclosure holding it like a giant torch and started to look around the ground when soon I noticed something moving. I saw a tiny form crawling out from underneath the pallet toward the light, soundless, silent, moving toward the light, the size of a mouse. She's here! I found her! she's alive!! Below, left to right, Giselle, Stormy, Felix, Janie, Yoda and Toya. in front. Stormy was adopted by an art teacher who I sadly lost contact with.   Thinking back to that time, it is easy to realize that certain decisions I made were wrong. Having the benefit of hindsight gives great clarity to the errors of what was, after all, a learning experience, Having Socks and her now six kittens in a rabbit hutch was not kind but the best we could do. We were at work all day and when home, the older kittens were released for play. We could not release Socks, she still needed desexing and we would have had difficulty in trapping her again. Even so she did not appear greatly affected. The catrun had at last been delivered and stood waiting for us to erect it. In its original location this catrun was inspiring. The house was at Stanmore and there was an exit in the back of the house for the cats, who then had a walk tunnel around the corner attached to the wall, then upwards to the roof where the catnip cage was erected and overlooking the rooftops of neighbors and the trees of other backyards, The erection of the run at our house was not that simple. Nothing seemed to fit. Every part of the extension was at odds with what we wanted it for. There was no roof on the main enclosure, therefor there was no shelter from the weather. I managed to convince John that we should go and collect an old cupboard I had seen abandoned on the footpath at Newbridge Raod, Liverpool. I had been watching this cupboard for weeks as I walked to work from the station. So we drove to Liverpool to collect it. The day was very hot and humid. We were cranky and sweating profusely. The car was old and had no air conditioning making us weary at each problem that presented itself. When we arrived the cupboard didn't fit in the car and a certain man got crankier. I was not going to give up. I really wanted that cupboard!! I was going to make it fit and I was going to convince John that it could. So what if I rode home in the passenger seat with two inches of space from my nose to the dashboard? it was my nose! Worse was to come. When we arrived back home the cupboard wouldn't fit through the door of the catnip cage. Our son called in and watched the debacle not to mention the arguing! I looked at the wire roof and suggested it might be removable. Thankfully it was, so the cupboard was lowered in via the top. Feeling much happier, we arranged bedding, litter trays and water. Socks and her six kittens were brought out to their new spacious quarters and we felt a little smug at the progress. The kittens were impressed, those of them who were running and jumping. Socks looked less convinced but at that stage had not realized that the shelves above her would enable her to separate herself from them. After hours of struggling with so many complications we were fairly worn out. A Midsummer heatwave sapped our energy but we had overcome many obstacles. Persistence was the key!! By late afternoon we were back inside and I stood in the now spacious lounge room where I proceeded to tempt fate and said those awful words. With a wave of my arm, like an actor in a Shakespearean play I said out loud.... "I don't care what happens now, I am just so pleased to have them out of the lounge room at last." Fate cupped her ear to listen more closely. What could I have been thinking? Within hours they were back in there. (to be continued) Below, we later had another cat enclosure built (left) and used the extensions as a bridge across.   I first heard about Stormy and Yoda not long after things had settled down with Socks and her four kittens. Earlier that day I had been vacuuming the lounge room when I saw our eleven year old neighbour hovering over the cage with Socks and the kittens out in the garden. Admittedly I was out of patience with everything and yelled for her to leave them alone. Later that day, still in some kind of black mood, I was checking the kittens with Socks when I heard the voice at the fence. 'Excuse me, excuse me.....we've found some more kittens...' A kind of helpful sing song happy voice to impart such important news. I was overwhelmed. Not with joy either. The kittens on inspeciton, were not even a week old. Their eyes were just beginning to open. One was white and one blue/grey tabby. 'Put them back for the mother!' 'No, she doesn't want them' 'My neighbor found them outside the laundry. He nearly trod on them.' ' Then put them inside again.' 'No, we did and she put them back out! she doesn't want them.' 'Well, let your neighbor look after them then, why do I have to do it all!!!' 'He said he can't take them. He doesn't want them either.' Sunday afternoon and a second challenge. Their mother did not want them. The neighbor did not want them. I did not want them. I also knew that a mother cat will put kittens out of the 'nest' when they were going to die. I took them and showed them to Socks. She hissed at them. I rang a local vet to ask for help. I was advised to bathe them to remove the other mother's smell. Muttering dire threats to all and sundry (not least the neigbors) I set about bathing them, dried them, represented them to Socks. Although not too happy she did allow them to suckle but afterwards tossed them aside and indicated the end of her responsibility by scraping imaginary soil over them. They squealed a bit so I removed them. I sat and thought. Recalling that a mother cat will accept another's kitten if you could somehow get her urine on it I began rolling the kittens in the used litter (without solids ) and rubbed some on them. Socks did some serious forensic sniffing before accepting them. Her own kittens were around the four and a half week mark at this stage and pretty much getting to be rough little critters. They took the new fellows on by half strangling them to get them to play and all we heard were squeals of protest. They had them in headlocks, scaring the daylights out of us and making us wonder what on earth we could expect when we got home from work next day. Dead kittens? We were amazed to find them alive! They could not go on for much longer living in such small quarters. I had been ringing everywhere to beg for help but could not find any. We made a trip to a Sydney shelter to present our problem. No they could not help. Would not? It seemed to me that we received little interest in our situation. Exiting the shop we saw an ad for a catrun in the window. I rang the number expecting it to be gone. The description of it and the price they had paid caused me to lose all hope. It was 'big' and had cost over $3,000 to set up. We had very little money to spare. 'We have no cats here now. It was my first partner who had the cats and she left it here. Basically, all I want is for someone to take it away and give it a good home. I only want a couple of hundred for it' said the owner. ON our way to view it our car broke down. Waiting in the heat for some time before assistance arrived, I began to wonder why everything was so hard for us. We sent my brother on ahead who gave him our money and sealed the deal. The catrun eventually became ours but first we had to hire a man to dismantle it and deliver on his truck. It would take some time to configure the bits and pieces but we were so excited to have something at last. .On that first night of moving in, Stormy, previously an anonymous extra kitten would have a new name after she became lost in a massive storm in the black night. Below are photos of Stormy and Yoda. to be continued...    For a few awful moments I had stood there ready to give in. Socks was in a carrier on the counter. She looked from one to the other of us at eye level and at that moment I realised I could not face her if I left her kittens there. To be killed. Euthanised. Put down. Whatever you like to call it.
So I picked up her carrier and that of the kittens and walked out. It felt like wading in to the ocean when you can't swim. It was not possible to take time off work and now I was doomed. We all were because I would have to watch them sicken, suffer and die. A full time job and a Sunday taken up by these dramas, leaving many chores undone for the week. Returning home with a tragic situation to face, predicted to end in the severe illness and deaths of the kittens. Should I take them to our vet? what if he supported what I had been told? and where was the money coming from? I vented all the way home with intermittent silences filled with dark thoughts. John had further upset my equilibrium by responding to my raving by saying that he thought the fellow was quite good in how he handled the situation, that he tried to be fair in what he said, that he could see I was very upset and there was no easy answer and that he must know what he is talking about. So then I felt as if I had behaved unfairly and had revealed myself to be 'difficult.' There seemed to be nothing going right that day. We stopped at the chemist to buy some infant Pentavite. A desperate measure if ever there was one. The chemist woman questioned me on who I was using it for and I said 'kittens..' Ha ha what kind of nut case was I? Oh no, she said, I don't think you can give this to kittens. Yes I said, I have used it before. A doubtful expression and some kind of self preservation intervened and she let me have it. At home we emptied the family into the rabbit hutch. I bathed the muck from their eyes and gave them a dose of Pentavite and waited for the end to come.; waited for the sneezing, the lethargy, the temperature. It did not come that day. Nor the next or the one after that. I still did not know what to expect but within a week their eyes were clear and they seemed happy and dared I believe? healthy? The only method I had was to bathe their eyes two to three times a day and dose them with Pentavite in that first week. Being summer when this occurred, we used to take the hutch out into the garden in the afternoon and all day on the weekends so they could have fresh air and a change of scenery. All was going well until two more kittens turned up, not quite a week old, having been abandoned by their mother. And of course it was a Sunday afternoon once more. I can still hear that little eleven year old girls voice.... 'Excuse me, excuse me, we found two more kittens.' To be continued....  The birth of Catmint Cottage began in 2004 after coming home from a night out with a friend. Four kittens scampered across the dark road in front of our car as we turned into our street.
That was the beginning but of course we did not know it then. Our story began to write itself. Those four kittens eventually became ours after the neighbors stopped feeding them. Nobody owned them. There were three females and a male. Celia, Missie, Mia and Cod. Missie died last year and Cod the year before that. Mia and Celia are still with us, both fifteen this year. At the height of the problem there were thirty cats and kittens colonising the yards of nearby houses and the street. Not an auspicious beginning at all. The four kittens gravitated to neighbors who were home all day. For some months the situation seemed to stabilise but it could not last. They were not fully visible while being fed by them until in his wisdom, the patriarch decreed that his wife had to stop. Our lives were busy with full time work and my elderly parents needs on weekends, that being circus enough. I really did not want this on my radar. Now they were half grown and starving and their breeding capacity was soon to be an issue. The females were over represented at three to one. Conversations with our granny flat neighbor advised that a rental house behind them was the origin when the residents left a mother cat and four kittens behind after moving out. The mother cat took her family to Jungle Jim's yard, an elderly recluse whose premises were filled with trees and bushes. He felt sorry for them and threw them some food. 'But you couldn't catch them' he later told us I had a soft spot for Missie who used to follow me about the garden. When she ate a bowl of cooked lentils it became obvious she was not getting food anywhere else so I began to feed all of them with designs to somehow catch and desex them. That was when another four cats turned up. So now there were eight and I heard a voice in my own head that had a tinge of terror in it. There is no learning curve in rescue, rather it is a steep incline. They could not be caught, we knew nothing of traps. We didn’t have much money, finances being quite constrained. We were working from behind right at the start. Ignorance, they say, is always bliss. We began to ‘educate’ the kittens to come in to the house while I cooked aromatic food that would make them drool . We booked two of them in to surgery for desexing. Arriving home on the designated day we proceeded to rehearse our usual routine, two or more entered the house but proved to be uncatchable. One disappeared into John’s library, a room with wall to wall bookshelves and vanished. The other became invisible. Our son Andrew took his magnifying glass and began to put it behind the books to reveal anyone breathing on it. I think I laughed with a trace of hysteria. The hidden cat made a run for it before he could prove his theory and charged up the hallway into the lounge room whereupon she ran straight up a book case to land on top. John began to hyperventilate at the idea of his books being damaged and we began to think opening the front door a better idea. We discussed theories on how to go from there. Actually we didn’t really have any. In the absence of any sound ideas to work on we fell back on the ‘try the carrier’ idea. John stood on a chair and opened the lid, put the carrier on its side and proceeded to cat whisper her in to it to our shocked disbelief. Obviously a man of hidden talents! I found the other cat hiding in a box at the end of the hallway. When she bolted we let her out. Sometimes you need to quit when you are ahead. The first cat was Missie, the escapee was Celia. Arriving at the surgery with Missie, I failed to impart the true meaning of the situation very well. The vet looked extremely tired so I assumed that was why he misunderstood. He opened the carrier, took her out by the scruff and proceeded to examine her whilst we stood gaping. Since she did not immediately react, a thought came into my head that he knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t. She bolted off the table and ran crazily through to the waiting room and up the window as if it were merely a tree! I took a towel and tried to grab her, she bit my finger hard, I let go. The vet and nurse ran in with a bird net and managed to recapture her while I bled everywhere. Safely back in the carrier and the carrier inside a cage we went home, not exactly thrilled at our ineptitude. My finger began to throb painfully and by next day it had swollen to twice its size. I had difficulty working and colleagues on hearing the story had the bad manners to laugh. A visit to the Dr. resulted in strong antibiotics and a series of tetanus injections. In light of recent information and experiences with bites it turned out I I was very lucky. Margaret. Stay tuned for further instalments. We could not keep up with the way things were going. The cats were breeding faster than we could act. They preferred to live in Jungle Jim's place but arrived for dinner at ours They would jump the old paling fence and cut through next door's driveway to ours. Or some, like Dennis, would walk along the fence to end up at our house, run up the driveway and arrive to take his spot at the table (read plate). Early on as a half grown kitten he would be at the front door asking for food several times a day. So he became....Dennis the Menace. Certainly there were more cats there and not too far away either. I had regular reports by the young girl next door. She would say Jungle Jim would ask her 'and where is this cat or that cat?' and she would reply back to him but failed to mention how insane we were starting to look. He would nod happily. We must have been a Godsend to him. Socks was one of this new generation, a very shy and timid black and white female, too frightened to push in for food with the others. So I coaxed her into having hers half way under the car while the others were busy eating. She seemed very young but was probably around eight months or more and it soon became obvious that she was actually pregnant. There was also Mona, a sad, dreary and hopeless looking girl that I found hiding in the shrubbery looking emaciated and sick. I was not at all pleased. I told her she should not be there and I was beginning to feel as desperate as she looked. Socks grew bigger and bigger and finally when she came for the food one day she was all of a sudden slim. The young girl next door came to tell me that she knew where Socks' kittens were, they were in the woodpile over their back fence in the jungle yard. I said leave them there but when the time is right we are going to have to catch them and I might need your help. At one stage she was talking about the kittens and mimed one shut eye. Her English was not great and so I did not understand. Then one Sunday, Socks kept appearing at the front door and I scolded her to go and look after her kittens. I soon discovered that the girl and her parents had visitors and both she and her cousins had these little kittens and were walking around with them in their hands and in their pockets. The kittens were around three weeks old. I was furious when I found out what was happening. The kids ran away from me and I was so upset and went knocking on the neighbor's door to babble that the kittens would die if the kids didn't put them back for the mother. The lady was busy asking me to sit and have a coffee and she smiled since she did not understand the import of the situation. The children were ordered to give the kittens to me and horrified, I saw they all had weepy eyes full of pus and mostly closed shut! So I took the kittens and then ordered them to go inside and wash their hands thoroughly. I put them in a cage we'd bought for Missie when she was desexed. We put the cage inside our front door with the lid to the hutch open and tried to entice Socks inside. Socks was distraught. She tried to swipe them out of the cage but it wasn't possible. She kept running out the door. Desperate to catch her I tied twine to the handle of the screen door and sat around the corner of the wall waiting for her to come back in. When she did I pulled it shut tight. John arrived just in time to grab the carrier. . Socks urinated in fright while hanging onto the wire, whilst I hung on to that twine as hard as I could to keep the door shut and we somehow scooped her into said carrier and managed to close it in time. then sat there panting and shaking. All three of us. Then off to to the shelter who would take the kittens, medicate and rehome them. They whined in their carrier looking at me with mucky glued shut eyes. My problems would soon be over. The shelter, not surprisingly in retrospect, were not that impressed however! They could take the kittens but would have to put them down as the attendant said the kittens had catflu and they could not take the risk of spreading it. No I said they don't have catflu, they are not sick, it is just conjunctivitis. No, he said, they are sick. Are you a vet? I asked. No but he had a certificate he said for something indeterminate to me. He said they could take the mother because she looked nice and healthy but would have to put her down because she wasn't friendly. That seemed to be a convoluted argument! None of this was going to plan. I wanted them to desex her, we take her back and they take the kittens and rehome them. No. So what will happen to them I asked. He predicted that they would start sneezing and get very sick and then die. I remember standing there, very upset, worried about making the right decision. He had qualifications. I did not. Was it time to listen to other voices? Then I looked at Socks who seemed to be looking at the kittens and back at us and knew something serious was going on so I picked up the carrier and said to all at large: 'Well I'm not going to leave them here if you are going to kill them" and we walked out. Not feeling as brave as we hoped we looked. we drove back home in silence under a black cloud of doubt, fear, panic and something akin to terror was beginning to set in. To be continued.   What's A Nice Girl LIke You Doing In A Place Like This?
Jedda, unlike some of the other timid/scared cats in care, would be the purr-fect companion to a quiet household. She's pretty, gentle, loves affection (if only she can get it when Josephine's back is turned.) Jedda has never been a problem. She's not a drama queen and manages to be a peaceful resident, staying out of catty squables and minding her own business. Jedda would make an ideal office companion for a person or couple who work from home. She would get on with older caring children. She's happy to live with other cats if needed. She would be an ideal apartment or flat dweller. She would be a companion to your elderly Mum if she lives with you. Or Dad? Jedda was rescued from Liverpool units with her four kittens. The units were on the Highway and many cats and kittens met dreadful fates. What isn't to like? https://www.catmintcottagestreetcatrescue.com.au/donate.html Ten dollars a month will help us feed, vet and care for cats like Jedda. |
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