Catwel Newsletter 31 September 2012
Welcome to the latest Catwel Newsletter!
People’s perception of what a cat rescue group does varies considerably, as do the circumstances which prompt people to contact one – and, of course, the aims of individual groups may vary too. In CATWEL’s case, our priority will always be the rescue of needy, helpless cats, and not the solving of people’s domestic problems. First and foremost, we try to help the ‘strays’ which have turned up in gardens, etc, and for which owners cannot be located; and also the poor cats left behind when people move house. Always, stray pregnant females or those with litters are given preferential admission to our re-homing centre. This prevents large feral colonies from developing.
When the female is already feral, we take her into care, socialise and home her kittens, then have her spayed and returned. This is, of course, on the strict understanding that someone – usually the householder who contacted us – will continue to feed and care for the cat. Most of the people we deal with are happy to do this. During the ‘kitten season’ – which gets longer every year – a mother and kittens can occupy one of our pens for three months, sometimes longer. Next on our list are the poor adult cats who have probably been ‘living rough’ for months, but have to wait until the ‘kitten season’ is over and pens are available. However, we will always try to take in sick or injured cats immediately.
Next come the poor cats whose owners have died, and where no friend or family member has been prepared to take responsibility for them. Then, the cats belonging to people who want to get rid of their pets because of lifestyle changes, and for whom I have very limited sympathy! Those emigrating to Spain , France
Then there are the marital or partnership ‘splits’, where on many occasions we have agreed to care for a cat temporarily while the owners sort themselves out. But the owners often fail to contribute to the cost of the cat’s care, become almost impossible to contact, yet will not sign the cat over to CATWEL so that it can be re-homed. Sadly, this has happened so frequently that we can no longer agree to care for someone’s cat on a temporary basis. Because CATWEL does not exist to make people’s lives easier
CATWEL exists for the cats and kittens which have no-one else to help them.
Our grateful thanks go to Mrs Blanche Lloyd, for generously donating £50 in memory of her much loved cat Putzy who died on March 5th this year.
VINTAGE FAIR: CATWEL’s ‘Vintage Fair’ will take place at Ararat Church
Autumn arrives - and we start to think about cold weather and, of course, about Christmas! We need to take special care of our cats during the ‘festive season’. Antifreeze is lethal to them, and so are those lovely traditional Poinsettia plants, while turkey bones are another hazard. Also, it’s wise to check under our cars on frosty mornings – a neighbour’s cat may be sheltering there. And if there are any dogs in the family, it’s very important to remember that chocolate intended for humans can poison them, as can any cake containing dried fruit!
More microchipping success stories! We were asked to take in a young stray cat which had appeared in a garden in Ely. We checked for a chip at our vet’s – and discovered it had been missing from its home in Bedwas, Caerphilly, since January! How did it get so far? We’ll never know, but were very pleased to reunite it with its owner. Another little cat, white with one ear, was being cared for a kind man at his workplace. As our re-homing centre was full I advised him to advertise the cat, which he did, though no-one claimed it. He then agreed to take it on permanently - and we agreed to pay for a full health check-up at our vet’s, because he had other cats to consider. However, Snowball was found to be microchipped, and was returned to his delighted family! All cats should be chipped because it really does work!
Remember Princess, the beautiful Persian we had to return to her owners, despite her neglected and starving condition? Well, she has had another six kittens, once again in a neighbour’s garage – yet there is nothing we can do to help her, as the people who own her can legally prove ownership. We have so many people making laws in this small country, all earning comfortable livings at the taxpayer’s expense. Yet when it comes to the suffering of animals, no really effective action seems to be taken.
One of our supporters visited a car boot sale recently, and saw someone holding two small puppies which were obviously very unwell. They were the last of a litter which had been sold on ‘Gum Tree’ for £1,000 each. Now these poor, sick little animals were being offered for £500 each at a car boot sale. We pride ourselves on living in a civilised country, so why do our laws allow such awful cruelty to take place?
Just to remind you about the special goods we need for our shop! Wool, thread, embroidery silks, knitting/sewing equipment and patterns, lace…small items of furniture…jewellery, whether real or costume, even if it’s broken… glassware, especially cake stands and large vases…china tea sets, dishes, vases…ornaments, particularly any relating to cats…bedding, and especially Welsh blankets, as even damaged ones which can be turned into cushion covers…’smellies’ like soap, perfume, candles…all types of cards/stationery, particularly postcards…and we also accept small electrical items like table lamps, which we can sell after they have been properly checked…plus small musical instruments, bicycles…goods can be left at our shop in Whitchurch Road, at my home (83 Rhydypenau Road), or we can collect from your home.
ANNUAL PRIZE DRAW: this has proved to be an excellent fundraiser, and very popular with our supporters! In the past there have been eleven or twelve prizes, but this year we are trying a new format, with fewer but more valuable prizes. The draw will take place during our annual ‘social’, which will be held at our shop on Sunday December 9th (more details below!). As usual, a ticket is enclosed.
Please write your name and telephone number on the back, and return it to me with a donation of your choice. People who sponsor cats/make regular donations will automatically be entered in the prize draw.
CATWEL CHRISTMAS SOCIAL – this very popular event will take place at our shop, 17 Whitchurch Road
NB: We have lots of lovely kittens and young cats urgently needing homes!
Remembering Margaret Watt, who died in February this year at the age of 63.
Margaret was a committed CATWEL supporter, and had been helping cats in the Riverside area for around thirty years. She will be greatly missed. Our thanks go to her husband Roger, also a CATWEL supporter, for his very generous donation.
Thank goodness for our lovely shop! This has been the worst year I’ve ever known for abandoned cats and kittens, and our re-homing centre and our fosterers have been full to capacity. Homes have been few and far between, and even when a cat has eventually been homed, another needy one has come along immediately to take its place. So our veterinary and food/litter expenses have continued to rise - and will do so, I fear, for the foreseeable future. Yet because of the success of our shop, which is now over a year old, CATWEL is coping financially. Many, many thanks go to the team which makes it so successful – joint ‘managers’ Teresa and Liz and their ‘staff’, all of them unpaid volunteers. Thanks also to the loyal supporters who keep the shop supplied with excellent goods to sell (keep them coming!) – and, of course, to our lovely customers, every penny you spend there helps us to help a cat!
THE STORY OF ZOE – Most of our supporters are aware that CATWEL was able to purchase and set up the property in Radyr, which became our re-homing centre, thanks to the generous legacy we received from the late Mrs Mary Williams. Hence the name of the centre – ‘Ty Mair’.
Included in Mary’s Will was the requirement that we care for any cats she had at the time of her death. One of these cats was Zoe, fifteen years old and almost blind. Helen, our re-homing centre manager, immediately took Zoe into her own home, long before the estate was settled and ‘Ty Mair’ set up. When Helen moved to the centre so did Zoe, always enjoying a very privileged position because of her age and her failing health.
She slept on Helen’s bed, and got first try of any new toys, etc, that arrived! In this exalted position ‘Queen Zoe’ lived another ten years. She passed away during the night of June 17th at the age of 25. Thank you, Helen, for all the love and care you gave Zoe, Mary’s beloved old cat. Mary left her in safe, loving hands and you faithfully fulfilled Mary’s trust.
I write this just after putting the telephone down and after spending an hour or more trying to sort out help for a stray cat. It had all started with another phone call, received yesterday… A woman had a stray tortoiseshell cat in her garden, and could not take it in because she had two cats of her own. Everything seemed quite simple and straightforward at that point! She had taken it to the local vet’s, but left without seeking his advice when told she would have to pay a consultation fee. However, his receptionist had looked at the cat, and thought it was either pregnant or had recently had kittens.
So now we come to our dilemma. If we accept the cat into care and it is pregnant, no problem. It will stay with us and eventually, after the kittens have arrived and are weaned, will be spayed and homed. Its kittens will be homed, too. However, if the cat is not pregnant but feeding a litter, we cannot take her into care unless we can find the kittens. Otherwise, they will starve.
I asked the woman to take the cat to our vet – at our expense – to confirm that she was pregnant. But no, she was too busy to do that and immediately lost interest. The woman said she would put a few posters around, and leave it at that. After trying to resolve the problem I was dismissed because the woman could not be bothered to make a visit to our vet, which would cost her nothing. She knew we would take the cat from her – and the kittens, if there were any, and she also knew we could not take it unless we were certain that we were not leaving a litter of helpless kittens to die.
Postscript: thankfully, the woman did have a change of heart sometime later, and phoned me to say one of our helpers could collect the cat and take it to our vet. This was done, the cat was indeed pregnant, came into care – and has since given birth to three healthy kittens. What a relief!
There was terrible anxiety recently - our government was going to scrap a law that protects stray animals in the UK Cardiff University
Tel. 020 7700 4888.
Blame the Cat? I am furious! I have just put the phone down after receiving a call from someone who has a ten-year-old cat. She has started minding her baby grandchild, who has developed eczema. And I’m sure you’ve guessed – it’s the cat’s fault. I explained how, when my daughter had two babies with eczema, she also had three cats. One of the babies – my grandson – also had asthma. They ‘grew out’ of the eczema, the asthma never became serious, and the cats stayed – as part of a happy, integrated family. Why do so many doctors and nurses blame cats for almost every childhood ailment? What do they find to blame when there are no cats in the home? I refuse to be involved in these problems. I started CATWEL to help stray and abandoned cats, not to resolve people’s domestic problems. Maybe I sound bitter, but I am fed up with being used by people who simply want to get rid of their pet.
I seem to be doing a lot of complaining in this newsletter – sorry, but some of the callers I have to deal with on a daily basis would try the patience of a saint! I’ll give you an example, my dealings with just one household in Cardiff
First I was asked to pay for one ten-month-old male to be castrated, which I agreed to do. It then turned out that the cat had a sister, and they were inseparable. Okay – luckily the family would keep her, too, so we paid for her to be spayed. So far so simple, just a matter of paying the vet bills. But no – things were about to get more complicated!
Next request, a pregnant female, could we take her into care? Our re-homing centre and fosterers were full to bursting, so we couldn’t – instead we agreed to provide food for her and to eventually take her kittens and pay for her to be spayed. End of story? Of course not!
We were then told about several other cats living in the household – and we are now paying for those to be neutered, too. We just do not have the facilities to take so many cats into care at the same time, from one site. Why on earth do people allow these situations to develop? No wonder I am always on the look out for ways to raise more money! The council helps with dog problems, via the excellent dog pound, yet offers no such help for cats. But, though I may sometimes complain,
I am really so very glad that I started CATWEL and that our charity is here for them.
No Assembly help for cats: As I mentioned in a previous newsletter, I wrote to the Welsh Assembly asking them if they would take action to protect cats, eg, from unscrupulous breeders, as they are already doing to protect dogs (though re-reading page 3, not very effectively!). After many months of waiting for a reply, I eventually received a three page letter describing the various committees they have set up, but telling me that they have no intention of doing anything to help cats!
Yet I feel, more strongly than ever, that something must be done. For decades now small groups of people - CATWEL included - have been working hard to raise money to spay and neuter cats, the only way the problem can be solved. Yet the number of abandoned pregnant cats this year has been overwhelming, despite all that work. In many countries, even in some USA
We need our government to put money up front to help solve this problem, and action taken to monitor all cat breeders – licensing, perhaps. So few homes are coming along for these lovely animals who, when properly treated, give so much love and joy. As for the poor feral cats, what hope is there? People are always saying ‘put them on a farm’. Sadly, I have yet to find any farms wanting to take on large numbers of cats! There has to be action at an official level. Perhaps if enough people wrote to the Assembly they would feel obligated to do something...
Have you put those important dates in your diary? Our Vintage Fair, Saturday October 20th, and our Christmas ‘social’, Sunday December 9th. See you at both!
posted by Catwel Cardiff @ 1:35 AM
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