Saving the O'Quinn Family

O'Quinn was a good example of the threads of fate that seem to entwine our lives.
One hot Sunday afternoon a call came up about an injured cat in Fairfield. When we finally found where the cat had disappeared to, a crowd was already in place and help at hand.

While there we saw a number of cats in the front of some units. One was heavily pregnant. We spoke to some residents who said there were lots of strays there, coming through the back of the driveway and other units, through a fence or over it. They came and went but this girl stayed close and was being fed. She had a sister too who looked very much like her. We offered to come by and collect the kittens and desex mum afterwards. Several weeks had elapsed before we did so.

On that morning we spoke to people we had not met earlier. They took us in to the courtyard of their front unit and showed us one of the kittens, lying against the fence, broken. Flies were buzzing about and the kitten clearly dead.

Between their language difficulties and our confusion as to what had happened we finally understood. It was with that confronting knowledge that we realized we had to remove the surviving two kittens as quickly as we could.

We would leave a trap for mum and desex her. She could return to them.

Mum was duly trapped, desexed and vaccinated. After recovery we returned her to them. The story was that mum cat had chosen their yard to have her babies in. They had looked after them all until we had come back that fateful day. They said the kittens used to climb the tree onto the fence. It had been bashed to death and thrown over in to their yard. There were other things, warnings, nastiness, things to induce fear and these people were indeed afraid.

Mum did not settle back there and cried loudly. So we brought her back home too.
Her kittens went to an adoption and mum stayed here. What a shy and grateful girl she became to have security, friends, regular nutritious food and above all safety.

There came a day when a young lady came to meet her. Quinn was so shy that she hid inside the cat house but responded to being patted and spoken to while facing the other way.

In due course we delivered her to this young lady. When we arrived she said breathlessly 'I'm so excited!!' We spent some time there that day giving advice, instructions, our young lady taking notes in a book.

Quinn adjusted wonderfully to this new life. We learned new techniques on how to settle a scared cat to a different environment.

O' quinn had her Happy Ever After.

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