Busy being Sandy

 Today I was supposed to be Sandy in the afternoon but Catsie needed a lift to Safe so we went together early. We arrived before the Garbos and schlepped out all the poo bags. Thanks, Catsie. There were lots of volunteers which was a good thing because there was lots of work.

Catsie was put to work decorating Better Row where Boarders will go. The Naughty Row cats have all been moved next door to Dr Kim's. They liked the change last year. It will be interesting to see if they like it this year. Some may remember the change of scenery/venue (eg Melody). Catsie thought that she would be on light duties until she had a good look at the condos. Many needed a proper scrub (eg Melody's). But they all look clean and stylish now . . . Better.

Better Row

I moved one huge carrier to on top of the play place and pushed another into the space behind so that there is space for the boarder's carriers above the condos. I also tidied up the food shelves, again.

Joy had a distraction when home rang to ask if she had taken out her Mum's rubbish to the garbos. Of course she had. Unfortunately, her mum had tossed out her bottom denture plate with the burned toast. Joy managed to get her a first appointment for a replacement tomorrow. But Vi will be eating pureed Christmas dinner as it takes 4 visits to get a new plate made. 

Margot with Joy

One of our vollie's gym coach arrived to adopt Margot. She is a strong looking woman. I also would have said "Of course, you can adopt her". But with Margot in her arms, she melted. She has a boy cat who roams all over her two storey house and two boy dogs who live downstairs. Margot will queen it over all of them.

Dexter was adopted over the weekend and Freya and Earl are in his stand alone. Beans has moved into Margot's condo next to Phantom who is getting to be a bossy boots. He cries until you let him run around.

Amber cries too. . . . for attention.

Amber

Juliette has been renamed Jane, just in case Romeo tracks her down when she gets posted again.

Jane

We do have a lot of dark cats who look good with bright toys.

Nada

Libby

Chi Chi

LATE BREAKING NEWS

The plate was in Vi's dressing gown pocket all the time! Joy had to cancel tomorrow's emergency appointment. Vi may still have to eat pureed turkey on Sunday.

Christmas thanks and mood

 Earlier in the week a 6 year old boy came with a donation. He asked his friends to give money to Safe rather than to buy him a present. He gave us $350. What an entrepreneur!

And the Eleanora Heights Vets had a donation drive for us over the weekend. I picked up their Safe money box and it held $202.85. 

And thanks to all the vollies who are pulling extra shifts over the holidays.

Joy brought in some deco/toys to get the cats in a festive mood for her photo shoot.

Phantom took it lying down.

Pumpkin and Midnight have heard that he is to go to the vet  tomorrow.

Margot was at the vet today. She is to go into Wanda's condo because somebody has taken Wanda home for foster care.

Kate and Helena were not impressed

Winnie/Demi was more interested in getting out of the condo for a little wander.

Tiger was not enthusiastic.

But he did like a little wander. While he sat on the chair that gave him access to his upper condo, Ying who lives below him, got up to see what was going on. He doesn't usually bother to unwrap himself until almost dinner time. I think he needs a buddy.

And Mariko bought one fluffy tail with a bell and a hook to attach to a stick for every cat. They are laced with catnip so there was frolicking.

Suki died on Saturday. She lived at least 27 lives . . . . at full volume. She will be much missed.

Suki

 

Yuki adopted this morning

 Which leaves Chi Chi all alone in the condo. And already she is out of the carry case and eating chicken out of Rosanna's fingers! Yuki must have been dominating her.

And Lumi has gone from his foster home. Being a rag doll, even though a short haired rag doll, he didn't last long on the list.

And Archie is at Safe Haven rather than being in a foster home. He looked glum this afternoon.

Archie

Ginger (George) had a couple of wanders this afternoon. 

Ginger's late wander

 Earlier Beans was in a collapsible carrier on his way back from the vet. He had an eye removed and was looking quite sorry for himself until Ginger George wandered over and introduced himself gently. Beans is now where Margot was . . . on top of Joni and her four boys. (I was wrong. She is Joni (Mitchell) not Tina (Turner). But Katie has claimed "Tina" for the next wild child who comes in.)

It is a pity that Dexter never seems to get a turn. Even Opie had a go. and he was easy to entice back into his stand alone with TD's.

Dexter

I asked after Nancy's Sid who went to a foster home. It seems that he left the building quite soon afterwards and hasn't been seen much since. Wonder if he compares escape stories with Romeo?

I  am sure that the morning vollies cleaned Tibby and Tabby's condo this morning. But I also cleaned it  this afternoon. . . . twice. Tabby sure knows how to wreck the joint! She is also equipped with 20 very sharp claws that go in all directions. Rosanna required bandaging when she picked up Tabby. I tried to wrap her in a cloth to trim her nails and got slashed as well. We have decided that the vet can trim her nails when she is under anaesthetic next week to be desexed. We will just have to keep them short.

The quiet before December

I hope we have a deluge of customers in December. Nobody got adopted over the weekend. But Taylor did die, unexpectedly. He has never looked a healthy cat but last week he happily played with his ping pong ball. 

There are more kittens in Incoming. Guess what colour. . . . black and white of course. The mum (Toni, I think) hides and hisses in a carrier in crate but the 4 kittens happily rush out to greet you. I bundled them into a carry cage (on top of Margot's crate) to clean their crate which is under Margot's crate. Margot, incidentally is just over 1 Kg. And Midnight is 0.95 Kg: not far behind although considerably younger. There will be kittens in Xmas stockings.

Midnight

Joy took some lovely photos:

Demi and Winnie are getting friendlier and more photogenic.

Demi and Winnie

Sydney is getting bold enough to come out in the morning to do his Diego imitation.

Sydney

Kate and Helena are getting to be grown up supermodels.

Helena and Kate

And Phantom is still everybody's bestie.

Phantom

Except for Pluto who has devoted slaves.

Pluto

Is there an elephant in the room?

Leo ate some chicken. He didn't eat much and he had ignored his breakfast. But I think he has enough storage to keep body and soul together until he gets whisked off to either foster or be adopted.

Leo

And Pluto ate her breakfast when I diluted it with chicken juice. Evidently the person who unadopted her is having second thoughts because they miss her purrs so much. I think we should record her purr and use it as background noise to seduce folk into adopting the nearest cat.

A couple came this afternoon to look at Yuki. And at everybody else. They like the idea of taking a difficult cat. Perhaps they will become fosterers as they already have two cats at home. All the cats liked them. They live on the other side of town but will be back.

Cocoa the sole remaining boarder has had his/her card changed to an our cat. Not happy Jan.

Cocoa

And Gia #2 has moved into the stand alone that Robyn scrubbed on Wednesday. She liked it much better in a foster home.

Gia #2

On the bright side: Mia is looking much calmer. She took chicken from my fingers.. . almost.

Mia

And Taylor looks almost clean. . . . .almost.

Taylor

Margot is almost heavy enough to be desexed. And Midnight is already 700gm at 5 weeks!

Margot above, Midnight below with Pumpkin

Nada nada

 Jacqui's cats have gone home so the play place is available for our cats as none of the boarders are inclined to move. I put Tiger in after Diego and Dora had a play. He liked it. Strolled about and did a big, smelly poo. Then Opie went back in overnight,

Tiger

There have been adoptions. Sampson and Kit Kat have "adopted" on their condos but are still with us. Luigi has gone. He didn't even make it to the "for adoption" list! One of Mia's and Cindy of the Supermodels have also gone. So has Betty White from foster.  And SOOTY has gone to a family whose previous cat hid for 9 years. They like a quiet cat. So Helena and Kate have moved into Sooty's condo. They were not happy but they will get used to it. 

Whitney and Mary will be next to go as soon as they recover from being desexed. Whitney tried the Top Cat this afternoon. She was not keen. And went back to bed.

Whitney

Later I set it up next to Nada. And she wasn't impressed (while I was watching). I hope she comes out overnight.

No Nada

But Yin did unroll himself this afternoon and posed for Robyn.

Yin

And I gently held Tibby still while he ate his dinner. He pecks at the food like a bird rather than hoovering it up as most kittens do.

Tibby

There is a new mum, Ruby in Incoming. She has 5 jewel named kittens about 2 weeks old. One of them has a eye that hasn't opened correctly. It needs to be bathed and anointed 3 times a day. This kitten will get very used to being handled. The mum is completely friendly. Don't know her story. 

We will have to inspect all volunteers who wear black tops as they leave to make sure that they are not trying to smuggle Margot out with them.

Margot gets first prize in the Cuteness Class

Meet Midnight

 There is another new kitten, Midnight in Incoming. This one came with his mum who is a young cat. He is only three weeks old but is enormous! As big as the four in the stand alone. It just shows what a difference it makes when you have a mum, Pumpkin to feed off continuously.

Midnight and Pumpkin

He is bigger than Margot who is still adorable and twice his age.

Margot

On Naughty Row are a pair of 6 month old kittens, Tabby and Tibby. Tabby has cerebellar hypoplasia which means that she wobbles. But she makes up for her defect by being super sweet and upstages her sister Tibby

Tibby

Tabby

Dr Chris came on Tuesday to vet check some cats. He wasn't very happy with Tiger who has bad teeth as well as his hypersensitivity to food and something hard in his tummy. But he looked tigerish this afternoon when Robyn took his photo and ate all the soft special food I gave him.

Tiger

And Kit Kat is looking much better. He got passed by Dr Chris. He let me pat him.

Kit Kat

And Ginger smiled at me. If you look closely you can see that he has only two canines: one on top and one below, on opposite sides of his smile.

Ginger

Catsie came to tidy our laundry shelves. They look splendid! Let's keep them that way. (She actually came to keep me company because Sandy has broken her wrist. Sandy moved quickly out of the way when a woman with two dogs passed her on the street, fell over a tree's roots and . . . ouch. We wish her a speedy recovery and know that her cats will love having her lazing around at home more. Purrs heal and she will get lots of those.)

Follow up on the humungous cat tree: It is huge. I moved it onto the space by the front door where we used to have large cat trees for sale. It fills that space to the ceiling: more so than the previous ones. Great job Ark to put it together.

Humungous cat trees

 We were given (perhaps) three boxes containing "cat trees". The boxes are reasonably sized: about knee high, thigh long, forearm wide. But the constructed cat tree is tall. Thank goodness for Arch who   in put together his own cat's tree and knows how to read instructions even thought those instructions were very meager. Thank you Arch. 

Not completely erected cat tree

We decided to charge $175 for the erected one and $150 for the two still in their boxes.

 Soon after we started to put it together a customer arrived. A very nice young woman who hasn't had a cat before but her brother got one from us (renamed Remi) and she wanted her own, friendly, cuddly cat. Macy went onto the adopted list today. She was perfect for this woman. They will be very happy together.

And Geoff, who always forgets to clock on has devised the following icon for logging into Shelter Buddy. It is at the upper left corner of the main cat room computer screen.

As soon as I walked in this afternoon I was told that we had a new, adorable kitten in Incoming. Eventually I got around to her:

Not that much cuter than her next door neighbours in the stand alone: 

Cosmo, Duke, Freya, Olivia

Katie will know who is who. They lived with her for a while.