Adoption Tails: Sarah, Beauty, Princess and Precious

 Sarah

Sarah 1 week

1 day: Sarah is doing well. She hasn’t used the litter tray or been eating very much. She’s hidden in her boxed area that was set up yesterday and has today migrated to underneath the owner’s bed.

2 days: She’s made a massive amount of progress since yesterday. She has come out of hiding and is very affectionate towards her owner. She seems very comfortable and slept next to her owner in bed last night.

1 week: Sarah is going great. She has been venturing out all around the house, especially at night. She seems very comfortable.

1 month: No response

Beauty

Beauty

1 day: She’s settling in slowly. She’s moved out of the cat carrier into a large box with a bed and blanket covering it. She also has 3 other cushioned enclosures. She has used the litter tray but hasn’t eaten much. They won’t be renaming her as she is a beautiful cat and her name suits her.

1 week: She is eating much better and is drinking water. She is definitely playing but still hiding. Her owner walked in when she was out of the hiding place and she walked back to her spot instead of running. She has continued to make progress.

1 month: They are giving her treats once a week. She eats and drinks well. She plays a lot around the house at night with her toys. She’s getting more adventurous all the time and lets her owner get closer too. “I'm so happy that she is here”.

 

Princess and Precious

 1 day: They have been eating and using their litter tray. They’re still hiding during the day but have been actively exploring and playing at night. They’ve been able to pat Precious and have even gotten her purring. Princess isn’t yet ready for cuddles. Their names are under discussion and Precious might change to Coco.

1 week: They are definitely exploring. Last night they woke their owners up with a surprise attack on their feet!

1 month: Precious has been renamed Coco, and Princess’ name has not been changed. Coco is very affectionate but they still can’t touch Princess.

Fresh air at last and Bye Bye Baby

 Somebody came on Sunday to install the ducting to force air into the AWL condos. It comes out of the gap around the glass fronts so the cats don't live under any extra air pressure. They just get good air circulation. The block of double condo's against the wall of Palace condos has been moved across the aisle to be beside the long double condo block. The block of single condos in Welfare will go into Incoming, eventually. They don't have the extra air yet. But the ones who do, look happier. Nada was sitting at the front of her downstairs this afternoon.

The stand alones which were behind the desk were moved across the aisle. I rearranged them so that Yoko and Linda are no longer in the major traffic way by the door. That space is taken by the cleaning trolley. They have been moved to beside the Palace condos where the double AWL condos used to be. And the other stand alone, which used to house Courtney but now has Dexter, is where the trolley used to be . . . opposite where Beauty was and where Macy is now. 

Macy

Opey was moved to Rosie and Callie's condo. (They were adopted!) As soon as I opened his door to feed him this morning he bolted out of the condo, ran around the room once and stopped in front of this old stand alone and cried to be let in. I could not entice him back to his new condo. So I moved all his stuff to his old stand alone where he grumbled and whinged but settled down by lunch time. There is a new ginger boy above where Rosie and Cally were whose name is Lobster. He is very friendly.

Lobster

 A kitten was delivered by a good Samaritan who rescued her from the middle of the road. She has 60 cats of her own at home so couldn't fit another. This kitten, Mary, is 3-4 months old, has flu, mucky eyes and the dirtiest feet that I have ever seen on a cat. She was rather overwhelmed but is friendly.

Mary

Then a nice lady came again. And chose Baby. She wants a cat who won't sit on her all the time. She was a little worried about the amount of hair that Baby was shedding. So I got a brush to see if Baby likes being brushed. Baby loves it. Sold! She had a cat carrier in the car but no litter so planned to stop at a shop on the way home. I gave her the opened bag of paper litter that we left for a vollie to take which has been on the shelf in the junk room for months. Bargain!

Whitney had a busy Sunday. She came in pregnant but her teats were not ready for kittens. Nevertheless kittens came. The smallest one, 60 gm, died but the 70 and 90 gram ones survived. But Whitney wasn't producing any milk or colostrum so it was decided that they should go to a fosterer willing to feed them every 2 hours. On Monday another mother cat in a foster home went into labour. It was obvious that she was struggling so she was taken to the vet. They discovered that she had a broken hip. Imagine the pain trying to give birth with that! Two kittens were born by Cesarean but the mother could not be help and was euthanised. These two kittens were added to the feeding foster mother. They are bigger than Whitney's. But we hope that by feeding Whitney like a lactating mum, we will be able to put all four into her capable paws soon.

Whitney

Adoptions picking up

The excellent news over the weekend is that there were adoptions:

Rhapsody. . . . no surprise there.

Beauty . . . . . you little beaut!

Sarah  . . .  hallelujah!! 

Maggie has moved into Rhapsody's stand alone

Truffle is where Beauty was. I straightened out her hammocks and covered the nasty wire shelves and she was much happier. Robyn gave her some toys and she played.

Truffle

And Star is where Sarah was. Out of Incoming at last. Her last kitten, Pluto, is still there though. She is in Syd's condo. He has gone to a foster home! Nancy is still with us.

And then a man come in looking for a pair of cats. Did he come to the right place! I showed him them all and he decided that he needed Princess and Precious because they are pet names at his place. I had a terrible time getting the computer to behave when adopting a pair of cats and buying miscellaneous mercandise. Poor Tim will have to sort it out tomorrow. But the buyer was very patient with my ineptitude. He was even more patient when Princess took off when I tried to put her into a carrier. She jumped off the back of my right hand with her back leg and took some of my skin with her. Of course, I dripped blood all over the place. Catsie had to use all her St John's skills to bandage me. Eventually we got her into a carrier. (Precious was no problem at all). The patient new owner happily took them both off. 

I had a cuddle with Maggie.

Maggie

Robyn had a cuddle with Ginger Megs.

Ginger Megs and Robyn

Geoff came to measure the movable play place for a flip up top. I am told that Sootie had a lovely play in it over the weekend. Sammy and Cypher gave themselves a fright this afternoon and went back into their condo.

Sammy

Cypher

Full Friday

 I swapped my Day Manager shift to day with Tim and Katie. I usually go in after tennis in the afternoon. By then most of the cleaning is done. This morning there were 6 vollies (one of whom brought her two young kids), Rosanna training 3 new recruits and Sandy in the afternoon. Everything got done. Including the best cleaning job by Jeff who arrives later in the morning. Because we have had lots of boarders the laundry shelves are looking quite bare. And the mould on walls behind the shelves was very visible. Especially when Jeff moved the shelves out of the way.

Jeff had already swept the floor at this stage

But look at the after photo!

Well done Jeff!

And he cleaned behind the shelves in the corner which were even worse.
"Ah, how I love the smell of bleach in the morning", he said.

Luigi had to walk further to get away from the smell. He visited Beauty although you can barely see her.

Fluffy cats

Luigi needs a good brush before he gets picked up, or they won't board him with us again. I did as much as he would tolerate.

Robyn had fun with Venus and Jupiter on Wednesday. They had made such a mess in their condo last night that I threw them in the play place as soon as the coffee shop kittens were out and it was fogged.

Robyn wrote:

I discovered the 2 boy kittens of Starr have boundless energy, love wrestling and rolling around, and are so sweet!

Does anyone know who is who? The grey one was much shyer but super cute!  

I added more toys which they tossed around before getting loads of pats. 

Finishing with ?Venus chewing my fingers.

Yesterday

 I wasn't at Safe yesterday but Robin and Catsie took some photos to share.

Beauty wasn't turffed out of her stand alone so that it could go to Westfield over the weekend. She has taken to the cat carrier that I installed for her.

Beauty

Maggie went to be desexed last week. Her kitten Lisa is much friendlier now.

Lisa

Myrtle waits for somebody to come by to talk to her.

Myrtle

Sydney was looking a bit sleepy. I hope he doesn't have what Adelaide had. No news of what has happened to Adelaide.

Sydney

There is a new Ginge in the play place as well as another Sabrina who was hiding.

Ginge

And a work experience teenager had a lovely time with Coco who is a snuggle bunny!

Coco upside down with delight

Wrong names

 I have been confused. I will go back and correct previous blogs.

Poe is the big boy who has been desexed. Peppa is the little girl who doesn't get her share of food.

Peppa (L) and Poe (R)

Plus, Simba is the 8 year old, tabby male and Khandi is the grey tabby, 2 year old girl

Simba, 8 yo boy

Khandi, 2 yo girl

I know this because Irene came by this afternoon with a kitten to be microchipped and vaccinated. She knows everything about every(cat)body.

Tommy and Mia's kittens, Bonnie (tortie girl) and Lemmy (white and grey boy) have been moved to above where Khandi and Simba were before they moved out and Peach moved in. They are both heavy enough to be desexed and are high up.

Bonnie and Lemmy

Peach seems to have recovered from her move or was she exhausted by her upstairs neighbours.

Peach

Beauty, yet another black cat in residence has the most amazing eyes. They are both amber and green now that she is relaxed enough to look at you.

Beauty

And Duke's eye operation seems to be successful. He can blink his right eye now. He is such a sweetie.

Duke

More boys

 Violet's kittens names have been chosen: Iris, Lilac, Mauve, Magenta, Lavender

The kittens are too small for us to tell their sex yet. And these all sound like girl's names to me. I suppose you could change Magenta to Magento, Lilac to Liluke and Lavender to Laven. Dr Google tells me that:

The overall sex ratio at birth was 100 males to 92 females. There was a significant seasonal effect on sex ratio with litters conceived during the wet season (September to February) producing more males than expected and litters conceived during the dry season producing more females than expected.

 They are to go to a foster home on Sunday. I managed to change their birth towel to a clean one by enticing Violet out of their area with chicken. I closed the swing door, changed the towel and opened the door again before she had gobbled it all down.

Wanda + 5

I managed to change Wanda's towel as well after I took this photo of the kittens all lined up except for the sticky beak ginger one which is her own kitten.

Wanda's kittens

And while I was distributing chicken I noticed that Megsy had turned himself around. Let's hope that this is the beginning of him loosing his fear of us.

Megsy

Blueberry's eye is still a little squinty but I didn't hear any sneezes today.

Blueberry

I had a lovely time hand feeding bits of chicken to Beauty, Amelia and Annie in turn. The only problem is that Amelia can put her paw into Beauty's stand alone to steal Beauty's food if the modesty sheet is not drawn around it. (Annie feels much better today, thank you. But Amy is not a happy cat in her condo on high.)

Lucky in love

 I moved Lucky and Finn away from the front door to next to Beauty (separated by layers of duvet covers on both stand alone cages). I looked up who is whom. Finn is the white male and Lucky is the grey and white, medium haired female. The easy way to remember who is whom is "lucky in love" because Lucky loves to be loved on. Anybody will do. Neither of them recognised chicken as food which makes you wonder how they got to be a plump as they are.

Miranda Purr was adopted on Thursday. . . . such a good looking cat.

Miranda Purr

. . . and Schnitty was moved into her condo after I cleaned off her pawprints. He was a bit disgruntled at the move until offered chicken.

Sarah (the burrito cat) was waiting for her share when I got to her condo ("at last!"). She accepted some finger strokes as well as the chicken.

Sarah

 

But the one who surprised me was Tiger, her next door neighbour. For weeks she has turned her back on any approach but today she stepped up for a pat, scratch, fondle. I didn't go so far as to pull on the matted tags by her left ear. She drooled great drops of crystalline saliva at the joy of being fondled until. . . . she snarled, without provocation or any further action, to show me her huge, solo, canine. Cats are strange. I wonder what she will do next week.

Tiger

And Bibi, who hid under her blankie on Wednesday couldn't get enough cuddles today. She wasn't even interested in the chicken. Just more pats please.

Bibi

Naughty corner

Diego has learned from Fawny how to trash his condo. It was covered in dirt this morning, and his two level scratchy pole was overturned.

Diego

 

 Fawny's was flooded, as usual. He is to go to an eye specialist next week. Beauty's kittens didn't survive the weekend. Izzy and Jetta went to the vet to be desexed and both are boys. Izzy will be short for Isaac and Jetta is an alternate spelling for Jeda! Unfortunately, the vet thinks that the skin lesions on Izzy may be ringworm. We will await the cultures. I moved him into a quarantine corner in Incoming.

Incoming is full. The latest arrival is another Oreo, black and white this time which makes more sense than tabby Oreo. He is a sweetie. He moved into Rufus' condo and Rufus went to the naughty corner by the feeding station. His narrow door is cable tied shut to avoid the possibility of him exploding through the ceiling tiles again.

Rufus

 

 

Kendra moved to the main cat room to make room for Rufus. The vet has decided that she is just fat (probably from all the expensive food we have been feeding her and from when she OD'd on Babycat when her kittens who were not feeding from her).

The other Oreo was frantic to get out of her condo today. She kept scrabbling at the glass. I tried putting a solid scratchy pole in there to give her something else to scratch. But eventually she started beating up on Lucky, her son. So I added various toys. They worked for a while. But as I was wandering around in the peaceful afternoon (no visitors today), suddenly there was Oreo making for the nearest door. The pot flew out of my hands and I grabbed her. She must have jiggled the door open. Bibi upstairs was not impressed.

Bibi

 

 Above Pete and Buddy is a handsome ginger called Maple who also has a cattitude sign. She doesn't spit but seems to get overexcited easily.

Maple

There are naughty corners all over Safe Haven.

 

Babies!!

 Robyn reports:

This morning was very exciting! Beauty had babies! Sofia called me over and said "I think Beauty has given birth". And she sure had! 

Beauty's first

Very hard to see with all the black fur but I did manage to get a pic later of the grey one. 

 

Beauty's second, perhaps

Lucky that Prue had put a hammock in on Wednesday! We didn’t want to disturb her too much. I think there were 3 when I left but Prue will know all the details by now. 

And Amy’s kittens wobbled out after a feed. I got the 3 of them second time around. 

Amy + 3

There is also Puss +Scrat sharing a hammock. Scrat’s face is priceless. 

Scrat (left) and Puss (right)

Prue, later:

Don't know how many babies Beauty had. Tim was concerned about their position in a hammock high above the floor of the wheely cage. I had put a low box with a blanket in it at ground level for her to carry her babies down to but he feared that the babies might bounce out of the hammock when she left it for dinner. So we carefully untied the bows that tie the hammock to the bars and lowered mum and bubs to the waiting box below. Beauty didn't even hiss.

As I arrived, many hours before this last task, the man who adopted Flynn and Toby rode up in the lift with me. He came to collect the pair of bowls on a stand for them. He says that they are marvelous. Nervous Toby chose to be best friends with his confident daughter and friendly Flynn has gravitated to his rather reticent son. Toby can open cupboard doors and close them with his tail. He has bought them a humongous cat tree. Everybody is very happy.

Then the women who came in August to adopt Charlie came back for a cat to keep him busy at 4am. . . . so that they can get some sleep. They chose Malabar (she being the only single, female cat available and suitable). I am sure that Malabar will keep him in line.

Foster fails hurrah

 Remember Lillian? She was in the far corner of Boarding when she first arrived with her two very handsome kittens. They got adopted, eventually, and she went to foster. Today her foster mother came to adopt her. Hurrah! She is not a lap cat yet but is very settled into her new home.

Lillian

And Daisy is back and will be adopted by her fosterer on the weekend. She is not a happy cat. Didn't eat anything all day. I think she was in Incoming briefly before having kittens.

Daisy

We are up to 75 cats in residence including Amy and her three grey tabby kittens. Doesn't her expression say "one step closer and I will rip your . . . . arm off!"

Amy + 3

So Safe Haven's kitten season has started. Irene tells me that there are at least 5 mothers and baby kittens in foster as well as several bottle baby fosterers. 

And we have more surrendered cats since last week including Finn and Lucky who are in mourning for their real home.

Finn and Lucky

Our earlier surrenders Puss and Scrat are settling in well and love any kind of attention (but not our chrunchies). The rabbits have gone to foster homes so I don't have a photo for last week's blog.

I decided that as Chris and Beauty are from the same colony and probably related, that their wheely cages could be a bit closer together. Chris played footsies with Beauty from his comfy hammock while she was on her wire shelf.

Chris and Beauty

So I strung a hammock below her shelf and tried to encourage her to get off it. Food didn't work. Time didn't work. So I had to apply the squeeze by raising one end of the shelf. 

Beauty

She got the message and moved. But by the time I left she hadn't climbed into the hammock.