Adoption tails: Peggy

 James asked me of news of Peggy yesterday.

Peggy was adopted on 28/7/21

Peggy poses for Christmas calendar

After 1 day, 29/7
Messages from Peggy's new owners  "Peggy is just gorgeous! We’ve set up lots of hiding spots for her - she seems to love sitting behind the curtain and in a box that had new blankets, beds etc for her. She’s very shy, although she has touched my hand a few times to sniff me, mainly when I’m bringing food. My only concern is I can’t see that she’s been to the toilet in the kitty litter or anywhere in the room. She’s been eating little bits, but hasn’t touched the water. I’ve read that other rescue cats have been the same, but let me know if you think that’s normal. I was thinking of taking her to the vet tomorrow if she hasn’t gone between now and then."
"That’s so good to know that it’s normal, thank you! I’ll keep monitoring her for the next few days. My fiancé and I are huge cat lovers - my last cat was left at a property I used to manage, so I took her in. She had a similar personality to Peggy. We will definitely be keeping Peggy and will be patient, no matter how long it takes until she feels comfortable. She is absolutely beautiful and I love the name because it was my late grandma’s."

After 1 week, 4/8
Peggy is doing amazingly well. According to the new owners she is a very sweet cat. She loves her pats, plays with her toys and loves scratching cardboard boxes instead of her scratchy pole.

Peggy fits into small beds

After 1 month, 25/8
Peggy's new Mum says: "Peggy is just gorgeous! She’s really warmed up to us. It’s been weeks since she’s scratched or hissed. She’s so loveable - she won’t even let me go to the bathroom now without running after me. She also loves watching the Bachelor. We just adore her. Thank you again for the wonderful work you do SAFE! We’re really happy to be Peggy’s forever home."

Irene's News of: Peggy

Peggy is adjusting really well to her new home. I am so glad I got her chipped and vaccinated otherwise she would still be sitting in her condo.

Soxy is struggling a bit but her new owner is hanging in there and I have a follow up coming up for Marmie. I will update you when I hear back from that one. New photo Billy and Sam:

Everything was under control and then. . . .

I came home to discover that our internet wasn't working. But I have fixed it by the tried and true method of turning it off, waiting 20 seconds, and turning it on again. 54 cats when I arrived. 51 when I left. It was a very well controlled morning with lots of vollies doing their work slowly and spending time with each cat. I put Maxwell our boarder in the play place because he is a kitten and was desperate for a run. He is one of ours, I think. They must have put a collar on him when they took him home and hadn't checked how tight it was. I took it off and found a matted piece of fur below the collar.

And I noticed that half his whiskers have been trimmed. Is there some myth that if you cut a new cat's whiskers it won't wander off?

Then a woman called ahead to alert me that she was bringing in her client who has issues to look for a cat. Suddenly there were too many people around. Lovely people, vanished to elsewhere. And the nice man decided that he liked lots of cats and would go away and think about it and prepare for it. I confess that I showed him Charlie who is a softie, Valentino who loves everybody and Blackie who is a couch potato. None of them are ready yet but neither is he. Then all the vollies finished the jobs and left and I had a call from a teacher who lined me up to adopt Jerry to her at 4pm when she finished school and got to us. What to do in the meantime? I cleaned the balcony windows! And then was wondering what to do when a woman arrived to adopt Gingey for her 14 year old's birthday. DONE. Then a young couple arrived with Mum to check out Peggy. And an older mother and daughter came to pick up Pawsey II's stuff. Unfortunately I saw a litter bag sitting beside a rubbish bin with some obvious rubbishy stuff in it this morning. I took it out and put it in a rubbish bin with the other trash. It contained the stuff that had been taken home to be washed before Pawsey was picked up, returned, and packaged in a trash bag! I think I managed to pacify them with gifts of bowls and bits of bed and a carrier. In the meantime, Peggy was charming her visitors. And they adopted her. During the process, Peggy swiped her new mum but I had warned her and she seemed fine with the occasional demarcation dispute. Then the teacher arrived to adopt Jerry for her fourteen year old son. "He is a bit shy" I said. "So is my son" she said.

And I think I may have solved the problem of Gracie's wandering litter tray. We were given a grey, flat, plastic sheet that might be silicone. I put it under her tray. See the pile that she had dug and the tray stayed put!

Begone the other Coco

We got our Covid tests on Thursday morning and by Friday morning our results came back negative. But at Safe today, everybody wore masks. Including Joy's friend Barbara who came to choose a cat. Irene and I twisted her arm and she chose Coco who has just become available over Miyuki who tolerated being held by me but skedaddled to her upper shelf when Barb tried to take over and Peggy who was prepared to be patted by Irene but gave Barbara THE KEEP AWAY LOOK. (Peggy is available now too). It was a no brainer and they will live happily every after. We will get regular updates from Joy and in the meantime Coco (of C & Mason) is happy to be the only Coco at last.

Sandy reports that Ashleigh finds all the narrowest, darkest places to hide in her room. She will take a long time to realise how lucky she is now. Belle is looking much better. She is almost plump. I gave her a tiny bit of chicken this afternoon because she usually misses out. Let's see if it upsets her tummy.

And Apricot is getting friendlier. After her bit of chicken I picked her up and felt stitches. It is ages since she was desexed. So Tim removed them and let's hope that she cleans up the scar which looked a bit scabby. Chilli and Murphy had a great play in the play place followed by Sabrina's two. We decided that she would be happier to have their condo all to herself. She actually enjoyed getting ALL THE CHICKEN.

Noses

I count noses when I arrive in the morning, just to make sure that everybody is where they should be and they all look pleased to see me (or whoever will give them breakfast). There were 80 today. And just one cat in boarding who may not be a boarder. She is Daisy. She is 13 years old according to her condo card. And she didn't eat dinner last night or breakfast this morning. Not happy Jan.

I am told that Sandy and Sammy are Lillian's kittens back from foster. They are a bit shy (as she is) and sort of like each other, at times.

I worked out how to tell the difference between Harry and Harley. Harley has black elbows.

Otherwise they both have white cheeks, a white area above their eyes, etc, etc. Joy is still on the search for a suitable cat for her friend. She wants an older, friendly, no fuss, healthy cat. Caesar?

Peggy?

Apricot?

After 4:30 we had a delivery from the cat catcher Clare. . . . . Honey and her tiny, plump kittens. I think there were only two in the carrier but wasn't prepared to explore too much.

Which means that we are now up to 83, or more, cats.

An L of an Day

Two lots of cat schleppers: Terry arrived first, at 7:30am to take Daphne, Lillian and Skylar to Mona Vale Vets. Daphne was easy to pop into a carrier. Lily needed some coordination. Terry tried with the gauntlets while I held the carrier over the door to her bed chamber. She went into the darker space. And Skylar, who is one of Steph's latest litters, the one girl of a litter of 5 who had a collar. But she is fluffy and the collar was not easy to see in the scramble of hungry kittens. So we microchipped everybody and found her last of all. Then Tim arrived to take the rest of the boys to Pet O. Then Mona Vale vets rang to say that Skylar didn't weight 1Kg (should have used a heavier collar!) so wouldn't be desexed today. And thus it continued. Tim came back and showed around/entertained a pair of women from Pet Love. They raise money for good charities, I gather. We qualify. The vollies tried to work around them. We wouldn't wnat to get their pretty, high healed shoes dirty. Eventually a nice lady from Bayview came to replace her beloved cat who died quite some time ago. She had spotted Mixa on our website and wanted a boy cat. I showed her all the availables. She liked Marmalade, because he is a red head like she is. Then I introduced her to Lily and Lily liked her, curled around her hand, purred loud enough to hear across the room and generally acted like a bit of a slut. It worked. The nice lady changed her mind and took Lily. Hurrah! She is an experienced cat owner. I told her all about Lily's frustration at not getting her share while she had kittens. She stays at home, plays music and wants a loving cat companion. Purfect. I took this photo of Lily just before moving her into the carry cage to get out from behind bars forever.

A little later another older couple came in. They have always had cats. She is allergic to rats so wants somebody who will deal with them. He is happy if she is happy. They both rather fancied Peggy who would probably have been perfect for them. But, they chose Luna who was very affectionate with them. (Irene tells me that she was loving to the previous folk who adopted her but then hid for a month when they took her home). I hope that this couple will have lots of patience with her. Or that she will realise that she is being given a second life at a spoiled, comfortable life outside a cage. We have another Luna, whom I have dubbed Luna II (after the lander). She came with a group of 3 other large kittens but doesn't get on well with them. So she is where Starmoon was. (Incidently, Starmoon has been trapped by her owners). And we have a new big boy, called Sprinkles who was found with a colony but does not behave like an urban stray.

And a man surrendered the cats of his deceased parent. They are Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra. They share the condo below Ebony, peacefully, at the moment. But I hope they can be moved to the palace when Coco and Mason go home.

The Mum of Mum+4 was given the name Kendra.

We promptly named her two boys and two girls. Let's see if those names stick.

The couple who adopted Salt came in to find a friend for him. He loves one of them more than the other except at 1am when he NEEDs somebody to play with NOW. She thinks that if there was another kitten around Salt would let her sleep. I suggested a girl kitten and showed her Danielle (Daphne's). Danielle played up splendidly, of course. She is such a loving handful. But they rather liked Douglas who sat, calmly against their chests and teared up. Of course, it might be that he still has a bit of flu and his calmness is lethargy and his tears of joy are gooey eyes. We decided that they should call Tim tomorrow to see what his advice is. They live locally so are happy to come back.

First the good news

Which is of Billy Bigmouth. His new owner Valda reports that he gives lots of kisses, no rough stuff and Sam and Billy sleep together on the sofa at nighttime.

Then the not so good news that Suki was very flat today. She had an ultrasound yesterday and has various shaved areas around her legs and tummy. All too much for an old girl.

Then the "Oh Really!" news. Yesterday I phoned Tim to get the running orders for today. He told me that he had Silky's boys booked in to be desexed but nobody had volunteered to get them to the vet. Irene was going to bring them home in the afternoon. We had a bit more discussion about them being off ringworm treatment so that they could be moved across the aisle in quarrantine to the flu section. I said it would be easier to change their wheely with just Silky's girl in residence. So I this morning, I decided I had time to get the boys to the vet as I had got to SH good and early and there weren't too many crap bags to schlepp out to the bins. I got them there before the Pet O shop opened. Good thing I knew that there is a back door to the vets. I arrived with three black kittens to be told that they were expecting two ginger boys. . . . . Daphne's boys. Bugger. I had already fed them so it wasn't a matter of going back to SH to swap them over. It all comes of not giving the kittens proper names as soon as possible so that we all know who we are talking about . . . I say! Meanwhile there were lots of volunteers. Even Catsie visited. I put her in the play place with Mia and Belle. Belle cooperated and played a bit. Mia just wants cuddles. We have a new "mum +4". And Mini is back in the cattery where Christopher was.

Buttons, the smallest of Belle's kittens is on a pill, twice a day. I tried to pill her but she has 20 very sharp reasons why I did not succeed. I crushed the spat out pill and mixed it with her breakfast and put her food and her into a carrier. She ate some of it. Come time for the afternoon pill, I did the same. She ate about a third of her dinner. Eventually I moved her and her dish back into the condo with the other two siblings. I stopped them from eating her food and encouraged her by adding a crunchie at a time to her wet/pilled food. Baxter was very happy to be patted. He purred and purred, not at all interested in the soft or hard food. Whereas Bonnie was just interested in eating her share of crunchies. I think the purring encouraged Buttons to eat almost all of her soft, pilled food. Success! Belle is putting on weight again.

At the end of the day all the cats curl up in their beds and wait for the lights to be turned off. Here is Freya, Celeste and Peggy who had had enough human entertainment for the day.

And the bad news is that Starmoon who was adopted on Sunday escaped from her new home. They will try to set a trap for her.

Splendid is the grass

Joan took home lots of the pots of grass that we were given last year. She gave up on trying to revive them and planted seed in other pots. It has grown and grown to very tall, tender, delicious grass. She delivered a box full this week and I took them onto Safe Haven and delivered them before breakfast. I had intended to take a before and after photo but, as usual, got busy. This is how good a pot looked after it had been chewed to at least a half of its original height.

The reason that I took it out of the condo of the cat who ate it is that he, Julio has gone home. He only came yesterday. He was surrendered because the mother of the family of young children has terminal cancer and it was decided that the cat had to find another home. But this morning the kids and an adult were back to take the cat back home before 10am. They couldn't cope without the fabulous Julio. (A vollie who arrived earlier than me had already fallen in love with him). Don't know what the de-surrender price was but, undoubtedly worth every penny. Also on the doorstep before 10am was the woman who NEEDED to adopt Gracie's tabby girl, Gabrielle. The deed was done. She was happy. Gabriella will grow big and fat and the rest of Gracie's kittens will get a better share of any food that is on offer. While this was happening the crew was cleaning the full house. The house now has an annex. Yesterday's crew must have worked themselves to exhaustion because quarantine is now in the new room which makes SPACE in the cattery.

And isolation for the flu cats. Which meant that everybody else was moved. Freya is in the main room. (That must have been a tense transfer). And Suki is in ex-quarantine. She is waiting to be just right to be taken home to foster care. Next door was a VERY pregnant cat who had a battered nose. She has been just trapped and delivered. A brave vollie came to take her home for the birth and tiny kitten period. Another vollie came to take home Bella's kittens. All five went to the vet on Monday but only 3 came back yesterday. We hope that they will do better now they have been set up by the vet to thrive. In the meantime, boarders kept arriving. Like Finn who is a bossy cat, according to his owners.

During the afternoon Tim interviewed a volunteer bookkeeper. Imagine! She is to job share with another vollie! She grew up on a dairy farm in NZ so knows cats. Peggy liked her. I sat her in with the G kittens.

The friend of Sue who has been fostering Apricot came to sign the adoption papers. She is very happy with Apricot who is very happy with her other cat. Apricot is still vary of strangers but hides in a place where her ears show, so that everybody knows where she is. And a woman from Hornsby rang at 2.45 to ask if she could come to adopt George but the shops are shut on Good Friday and do we have the stuff a kitten would need? Of course we do. She brought her two young kids and took their time (even grandpop turned up) to decide that Dash was a better choice for her kids. I may just have influenced that decision. Bridie came out.

because dinner was late.

Six de sex ed

I packaged up six kittens at 8:30 am to be whisked off (by Terry) to various vets to be desexed this morning. There was the beautiful bengal-ish kitten of Lillian,

the three H kittens below Salt and Pepper, Leaf (the luscious lone kitty) and Sunny of Mum + 1 out back whom we named Sunny because we didn't know whether it was a boy or a girl. Turns out he is a boy so can perhaps be renamed Sonny. Irene delivered them back shorty before 6 pm. They were all hungry except for Su/onny. At that stage of the day I wasn't prepared for him to decide to eat in his carrier. I put him back in with his food and his mum. And his mum ate his food. She is a bit of a bossy boots. While I did that, Irene took the opportunity to give Peggy some love.

Earlier in the day, Peggy thought that I was Irene and smooched up to my hand. She then realised her mistake and backed off smartly. I was prepared to be friendly but Peggy has definite preferences. Not like Salam who is anybody's friend. See how much better his eye looks.

The woman who rescued the kittens closest to the door rang to ask after them. They have been desexed and should be ready to adopt sooner. She said that she "kissed them 50 times each day, gave them baths, played with them, loved them". They certainly replay her love to anybody who opens their door.

As opposed to Tara who was adopted over the weekend. Went to her new home. And would not eat. She was returned yesterday. And did not eat overnight. But she did eat something today after I cooed to her and she purred back to me. Some cats need a "no return until 1 month of trying" clause.

Chicken magic

We need to make a recording of Tara's purr. It is distinctively lovely. Anybody who heard it would be prepared to take the probable months that she needs to settle into a new home. Dobby thought my finger was part of the chicken treat and bit down on it, hard. Luckily it was the finger next to the one that I sliced while cutting up the chicken. Having bandaids on consequitive fingers took me back to childhood. Suki loved her chicken. She is actually putting on weight and growing so much hair that it needed a brush. I found the softest one I could because she must still hurt from all her weight loss. She doesn't scream so loud since Gracie moved to quarantine corner. This seems successful now that there is a sheet of cardboard behind her wheely to stop the escaped kittens (from both sides) running under the cage. Peggy liked her chicken until I got too friendly and she swiped at me. Luckily she missed or I would have had a slash to match Tim's cheek. (More later). The chicken worked magic on Rosie who actually stood up, got out of her igloo, wanted to be stroked and made loving eyes at me. She has forgotten, perhaps that she is heartbroken at being abandonned with us and will give love for chicken.

Tim's cheek was the take off point for the back legs of a kitten who is (probably with a friend) in the condo above the computer. I didn't see inside because they have a modesty cloth. Next door to them are three tuxedo kittens (black and white is definitely the colour of 2020/21). I think we got them by mistake but they look sweet.

Tim weighted kittens to work out a desex schedule. He doesn't like the naming part of this job so Katy and I helped. Katy had brilliant ideas for names. I have forgotten them but Tim wrote them all on a bit of paper . . . . . .

Sewing circle

Today I repaired the hole in the mesh that Hera and Diamond made. John next door donated the mesh. I provided the needle and thread and the cats watched. Katie just above to the right purred throughout. She made music for me to stitch by.

Hera and Diamond were fascinated. They have forgotten their part in the hole.

Beyond Katie, Peggy was fascinated.

Even Mally wanted to know what was going on. Or maybe he just interested in the music Katie was singing.

We got it done and now can admire the moire effect of two adjacent grids. Will it survive a cat's claws?

Apricot has gone to Sue's house to be turned into a brave cat. We have a replacement ginger puss called Billy.

We have a new cat called Emma because Emma brought her. We don't know if we will keep her.

There is a new mum with bubs under where Abbey used to be in Boarding. I didn't realise that she had bubs in her carrier. I got her confused with the other mum with bubs at the other end of Boarding, who has been named Dolly.

And there is a new cat called Maisy under Leopold.

Not to mention the fact that Larry and Leonard went home today. The lovely man who adopted them may just come back to adopt Lucia as well. But I think that is greedying too many greys.