One in a Million

We often use the phrase "one in a million" to describe something rare or even something we just hapen to like very much.

In Jasper's case though, he really is a cat in a million - or according to some statistics - a cat in four million.

Jasper is a very rare thing, a male tortoise shell cat.  Genetics demonstrate that male cats cannot exist (see notes below), but our little Jasper is very much alive and male.

He was found living in the garden of an empty house.  The kind people who found him fed him for several months and brought him to our centre recently.  He will be advertised and then neutered (he is likely to be sterile) and he has been reserved in the event that no one claims him, so he has a new home waiting.

It is such a shame that someone saw fit to abandon him.  In our looks-obsessed culture, we are amazed that something so rare and beautiful isn't prized, and yet, from our point of view, although Jasper's appearance has caused a stir, we would consider any cat to be "one in a million" as they are all unique with different personalities, habits and characteristics.

In cats the colour gene is carried on the X chromosome. Female cats have two X chromosomes so can have colour from both chromosmes, whereas male cats have an X and a Y chromosome, so only one (the X) has the colour gene. So in a female cat, black can be inherited from one parent and ginger (red) from the other which results in a tortoise shell cat (sometimes called calico or chintz). A male cat from the same parentage, having only one X chromosome, would be either ginger or black. Male tortoise shell cats are found to have a mutation giving an XXY chromosome set-up and are usually sterile.

I'll have chips with mine ....

Hello everyone

My name's Harriet, or maybe Harry, or actually maybe it's Tigger.  You see, being a cat I can't speak so I can't tell you.

Here's my story...I was found straying in a Bradford suburb in a pretty poor condition.  Thin, hungry and dirty.  The kind lady who found me made enquiries, but no one knew where I'd come from, so she took me in and offered me a home.

Because she didn't know my name, and because she thought I was a boy cat (perish the thought!), she called me Harry.  A few weeks later, I went along to the vets for "the snip".  They took one look under my tail and realised that I am a girl.

My kind friend tried very hard to keep me, but she had been rescuing quite a few stray cats and we were all getting on top of each other, so she asked Haworth Cat Rescue to find me a place at their centre with a view to rehoming me.  When I got to their lovely centre, they decided to change my name from Harry to Harriet to reduce confusion about whether I am a girl or a boy.

Another thing they did was to check me for a microchip to see if anyone had owned me in the past, and yes, their machine went beep-beep (which made us all jump!) because just under my skin on the back of my neck is a little piece of fantastic technology no bigger than a grain of rice.  This little microchip (or chip) has a number which is readable by the little magic machine which cat rescues and vets have, and the number is registered on a database alongside my owners' name and address.

Haworth Cat Rescue wrote to my owners to tell them I was at their centre, and they were thrilled to bits as I had been missing for over two years.  They hotfooted it to the Centre and recognised me straight away - and told the staff and volunteers that my real name is Tigger!

So I am now back at home and very happy to be here.

There is a moral to my story (well, three, actually).

1. Get your cat (and dog and any animal you can) microchipped - it doesn't cost a great deal.

2. If you move house, make sure you update the details - had my owners moved and not updated the details I would never have been reunited.

3. If you find a cat who appears to have no owner, take him or her to a vet to be scanned.  A vet won't charge you and it will only take a minute or two.  Although I will always be grateful to the lady who found me and helped me, had she had me scanned, I would have been reunited with my owners many months earlier.

And a little plea to any vet reading this - please scan any animals that you haven't seen before, particularly if the person bringing it in doesn't know where it lived previously - microchips only work if the animal is scanned!

A Tale of Two Kitties

Kittens are so cute - we all love their little faces peering hopefully at us as they wait for new homes.  And we love to snuggle them close, play little games with them and laugh at their antics as, safe in the knowledge that they will come to no harm, they jump and pounce and chase.

But what of their less fortunate cousins?  Those baby cats who are born away from loving homes, out in the wild in old dilapidated buildings, under bushes, behind broken fence panels.  Cats are such a hardy species that their survival rates are high, and their mums are such good hunters, catching mice and other rodents that usually most of the litter will survive.

The main issue with kittens born away from homes, is domestication.  It is essential that kittens are handled in the first months of their lives so that they quickly learn that human hands are  kind.  Because kittens born in the wild are hidden by their mothers until they are able to walk out of the nest, around 5-7 weeks old, people are often not even aware of their existence until they are big enough to run away.  And that makes taming them much much harder.

Whenever possible we would encourage people who notice such kittens to catch them, handle them and play with them - the earlier they are caught, the sooner they learn to trust, in fact in some cases it can be as little as four or five days. If they are left until they are bigger - they take much much longer to tame.

Take Nessa and Hettie, pictured above.  They were noticed at about eight weeks of age by a kind lady who started to feed them.  Because their mum was tame and friendly, the lady assumed that the kittens would learn by example - but this isn't the case with cats - they let their instinct drive them, and their instinct says "DANGER!".  

Nessa and Hettie were about four months old when they came to us, and they were absolutely terrified.  We had to put them in indoor cages for a few weeks to get them used to being handled, and gradually teach them to trust.  At the time of writing, Nessa is almost ready for rehoming (to an experienced owner), whereas Hettie will be some time before she is confident enough.

The person feeding them did well, and meant well, but had she caught them and handled them, they would have been far tamer.

Contrast this with Mary, who came from a similar background.  In her case, the lady feeding her mum knew that Mary had to be caught and handled.  When Mary came to us for rehoming she was used to being handled, and used to people being around, and although she was nervous in crowds of people, we were able to rehome her to a relatively quiet home very soon after she came to us.

If you spot tiny kittens playing in your garden, don't be afraid to catch them and play with them - the few weeks of handling you can give them at the start of their lives will make a huge difference to all their remaining years.

Botox for cats? No, not really!

Aslan is a big hunk of a cat who came to us in the wintertime after being spotted hanging around a local housing estate for several months.  He was a big lad, with an enormous head, and rather jumpy and nervous if approached, although not unfriendly.

It was immediately apparent that there was something wrong with his eyes - cat flu was suspected by the person who brought him in, but the eye discharge was not accompanied by any sneezing or other symptoms.

An examination by our vets revealed that Aslan had ingrowing eyelids, which were rubbing on the surfaces of his eyes, causing them constant irritation and making them sticky.

An operation was called for, and duly carried out.  Tiny strips of skin were removed to open his eyes a little more and to remove the excess skin which was folding in and causing him such irritation. ("Botox for cats", as one of our volunteers called it!).  He was also neutered and had several teeth removed or cleaned.  

Aslan has a very large head which is normally caused by a build up of testosterone due to him being un-neutered until we got him - by which time he was already middle aged. 

The transformation from a squinting, smelling, sniffing scared lad to a big clearsighted, sweet-smelling, clean-breathing softy has been a joy to behold.  The nerves which caused the aggression disappeared quite quickly and we believe that they were simply due to the poor vision that his condition caused.

It is easy to fall prey to the belief that any cat with runny eyes has cat flu - and indeed this may often be the case - but Aslan demonstrates that other conditions may be the cause.  Any cat with runny eyes should be examined by a vet who will be able to advise the best option.

Return to sender - not this time :(

With the number of stray cats who come to our centre, you'd think that a reasonable proportion would end up being reunited with their owners.

One great way to reunite lost cats is the microchip, a small implant put under the skin in the cat's neck, which contains a unique number. The number is then registered on a central database along with a description of the cat and the name, address and other contact details of the owner.

One of the biggest highs for our volunteers and staff is when we take in a stray and are able to reunite him or her with loving owners who have been looking for him. Sometimes the cat is found quite close to home, other times it can be many miles away, always prompting the question "how did he (or she) get that far?"

Sadly, the reality is, that most cats who come in as strays aren't microchipped, and very very few end up being reunited - once they're advertised in the paper local to where they were found we rehome them. Of course, there may be a desparate owner searching frantically in the next town for their much-loved pet, but we have no way of knowing where the cat may have originated from, and so we cannot advertise in the correct town.

Almost worse than that, though, is the cat who comes in as a stray, turns out to be microchiped but to our disappointment is microchipped to the wrong address. Presumably the owners have moved and declined to pay the small administration fee to have the address details updated.

In these cases we have a small advantage - we can advertise both in the location where the cat was found, and in the location where the cat is registered as living, but sadly very very rarely does this result in a match.

This is exactly what happened with Charlie, pictured above. A lady had been feeding him for some time, had made local enquiries to see if anyone knew him, but had drawn a blank. She brought him to our centre and we were delighted to find his microchip, but hugely saddened when his owners could not be traced from it. We have advertised locally and are trying to contact all people in the phone book with the same surname - luckily it is not too common! But the chances are slight that we will locate them.

We would love to see all owners taking responsibility for their pets. Microchipping them and then keeping their details up to date when they move. It would help cut down the number of strays, and the heartbreak that owners feel when their pets go missing.

As for Charlie, he will probably be with us for a couple of weeks whilst we try to find his owners, but failing that we will have no option but to put him up for adoption. Hopefully his new owners will keep his microchip details up to date.

A Wandering Minstrel I Shall Be

You would think, wouldn't you, that the neutering message should be starting to filter through by now, but there is still a large percentage of cat owners who through ignorance, arrogance or sheer laziness don't get their cats neutered.

Some people think that it isn't fair - that a cat should be allowed to "enjoy" the opportunity to mate, but in fact what they are doing is imposing human feelings onto something which, for cats, involves no element of choice.

Female cats come into season whether they'd want to or not, and for several days until the season ends, they are relentlessly pursued by tom cats, determined to mate with them. For the female cats, the actual act of mating is very painful - nature's way of stimulating ovulation to produce as many kittens as possible. This is one reason you may hear screaming from mating cats. That's without the risk of disease, bites and the possibility of getting lost or injured as they run from the waiting toms. A queen (female cat) can be mated many times during her season, and she can produce kittens from each mating. For female cats, this is repeated at least twice and sometimes four times each year.

Tom cats don't get a much better deal. To successfully mate, he firstly needs to find an in-season queen (and this may involve a journey of several miles) and once he finds her he needs to fight all the other tom cats to get himself at the top of the pecking order and first in the queue. This is another reason that you may hear screaming when there is a queen in season. After he's mated her (sometimes several times) he will go looking for another queen, and so on. Of course, like the queens, he is exposed to disease, danger from becoming lost and injury and accident. Gradually, most tom cats forget where they live, they establish a territory with places to sleep and eat (if they're lucky) and become less and less used to going home and interacting with people.

The tom has absolutely no choice in this behaviour, his hormones dictate his behaviour and he has no possibility of denying his actions.

We see a number of youngish tom cats each year, who have embarked - without intent - on such a life. Generally speaking these are friendly cats, although they may be initially nervous, and they often come in with injuries and/or parasites. They are normally reported to us as strays or nuisance cats - cats who enter homes through cat flaps and steal food for the feline residents. They may nest in gardens - greenhouses or sheds - or make use of open windows or cat flaps to access a home - and of course worst of all from the home owners' point of view is the smell they leave when they spray urine to mark their territory.

Freddie, pictured above, is a typical example. He's a young-middle aged lad, un-neutered who was found straying in someone's garden. He'd been visiting her for six months, and she'd been feeding him, but couldn't keep him as he did not get on with her cat.

He came to us with a large abscess on his head caused no doubt by fighting, dreadful earmites - his ears were almost solidly filled, and the usual complement of worms and fleas. He wears an aroma of tom cat which would make all but the most hardy faint, and he eats as though every meal is his last.

But he is such a friendly lad, loves to be stroked and petted and will curl up and sleep on a comfy lap if anyone sits in his pen for more than a few moments.

The really sad thing about Freddie, is that at some point in his past he has been loved. Some family, couple or individual will have been thrilled to bits with their new baby kitten - all fluff and breezes and chasing his tail, the things that all baby cats do. They will have taken photos, told all their friends about his latest antics and maybe put his picture on facebook or other social media sites.

Then, one day he will have gone out - missing for a couple of days and they will have worried themselves daft, wondering where he'd gone. But hey! It's OK, he's back and he's safe. A week or so later he will have done it again - they would have been concerned but not quite as much because, after all, he came back last time. And sure enough, after a week or so, he's back. Tired, a bit bedraggled and hungry but OK. And so it goes on. Gradually he stays away longer; gradually his owners get used to it, and stop worrying. In fact after a time they don't notice when he's gone - in fact they're surprised when he comes home. And eventually he doesn't come home at all.

The owners don't care, he'd stopped being loving to them some time ago. He didn't have time for cuddles and purrs, he just wanted to sleep and eat - regain a bit of energy before his hormones pulled him out back on the treadmill again. But they still want a cat, so off they go and get another one - again usually a male because after all they don't want to be irresponsible and have kittens - and the cycle begins all over again.

Meanwhile, their previous furbaby/bundle of fluff/cute kitten is sheltering from the rain under a hedge while he fights off other tom cats for a few seconds of testosterone-driven pleasure with a queen.

Wouldn't his life have been better if he'd been neutered, remained that "love sponge" that he was in his kittenhood, and slept by a radiator or on the foot of a warm bed every night?

Freddie has been advertised as a found stray. No one has responded. He will be neutered very shortly and then we will find him that loving forever home that he so greatly deserves.

Wild thing - I think I love you :)

As many of our readers will know, the primary role of Haworth Cat Rescue is that of a rehoming centre. We take in strays, and cats who are no longer able to remain with their owners and find them new homes.

Most cats are in and out of our centre within a couple of weeks, undergoing neutering, microchipping and any other veterinary treatment beforehand. Stray cats tend to be with us slightly longer as we need to advertise them first, in case their owners are still looking for them.

In most cases, it is a relatively quick process and the cats aren't unduly troubled by their enforced holiday at our Cat Rescue.

In some cases, however, cats can be with us for many weeks and sometimes months. Typical cats in this category are elderly cats, cats with chronic medical conditions, cats with behavioural issues and feral cats.

Feral cats are quite simply cats that have not been domesticated. They are usually the result of a domesticated cat being dumped or getting lost, then getting pregnant and having her kittens in a quiet place away from humans. The kittens grow up without any trust in people, and see humans as an enemy. It is learned behaviour, not inherited, so a domesticated cat can give birth to a litter who become feral, who in turn can give birth to a litter who (if handled) can be completely domesticated. Sometimes adult cats can be domesticated but it is a difficult and long process, and not to be undertaken lightly - the success rate is very low.

Kittens under about 3 months can usually be domesticated if they receive intensive handling, but older cats take much longer and many never tame. What they may do, however, is become comfortable with certain people, so although they may not become lap-cats or allow themselves to be stroked, they may approach certain people quite closely, and even take an interest in whatever is going on.

Many people fear feral cats, and think that they will attack, however, like may wild animals, their instinct is to flee, not fight. The only times people are at risk from feral cats is when the cat is cornered - and may inflict injuries on people as they try to escape - or if a mother cat has a litter of kittens she is protecting.

Some organisations euthanase feral cats, however, we aim to give them a chance of a life with some quality, and so we look for suitable outdoor homes on a farm, stables, smallholding, or even a nursery or public gardens etc. Anywhere where they will have shelter, food and not need to mix with people if they don't want to. We have rehomed feral cats in the past to safe factories and light industrial units too - where the cats do a great job at keeping rodents at bay - and probably amuse the staff too (just don't tell the boss!).

Eva and her mum Gracie, pictured above are two young female cats who are both feral. It is likely that Gracie's mum was abandoned, and managed to raise her so that in turn she had kittens of her own. Eva is only about 6 months old and we don't think Gracie is much older. Both ladies, now neutered, have been with us for some months now, they aren't as happy in their current situation as they would be in a safe outdoor home, so we hope that before long someone with a mouse problem decides to get the best deterrant nature provided!

We are currently fundraising to build a new centre and we intend to have a feral sanctuary attached to this, so that feral cats waiting for new homes can at least have some freedom whilst they wait, and don't need to live in cat pens.

A Tom Thumb kitten tail!

As a rehoming centre we get our fair share of kittens, most of whom are either fostered out for a brief period until they're old enough to be rehomed, or who are old enough to go to new homes almost straightaway. Usually the former have a lovely mummy cat to nurse them, and to teach them the things that all grown up cats need to know, and the latter are usually old enough to have left their mum, full of cat-lore and knowledge to enable them to live long and happy lives.

There is another group of kittens, a small but select group, and these are the orphan kits. These are the kits who no longer have a mummy, and come to us aged anything from 1 day upwards. They have usually become orphans either because somethinghas separated them from their mum (she may have died or they may have been removed), or because she has rejected them.

It's hard work, but usually if something has happened to separate them from mum they have a good chance of survival. Sadly if they have been rejected by their mum, their chances of survival are less - mummy-cats are very good at sensing if something is wrong. So if we're given a litter of orphans, we usually reckon that their chances are good, but if we get a single kitten, particularly if it is found in an unusual place, such as the middle of a garden, or car park, or just out in the open somewhere, there is a strong possibility that there will be something wrong with it and it won't survive.

Such is the story of Remus, who came to us on Hallowe'en 2009, aged about 10 days having been found on his own in someone's garden. We hoped that his mum had been moving him and been disturbed and dropped him, but only time would tell if he was well enough to survive.

So began the routine of feeding him every two hours or so. The amount they eat at that age is miniscule (about a teaspoon full), and you are hard pressed to believe that it is going to be of any benefit. As time progresses, however, the amounts they eat do increase and bit by bit they start to grow. It is usually around the five weeks stage that any problems manifest themselves, as the kit becomes more active.

Here are some photos of Remus shortly after he came into our care (the ginger kitten, Freddy was about 10 weeks old, Remus about 2 weeks old).











Remus did really well until the dreaded five weeks milestone, at which point he simply stopped growing - for about three weeks he hardly grew at all (apart from his stomach which seemed to be huge!), and we were concerned that serious health problems were starting to manifest themselves.

At about eight weeks, he suddenly began to grow again, and grew steadily until he reached the required weight for neutering - three weeks behind schedule.



Despite his shaky start, Remus has grown into a lithe healthy kitten, rather over-confident (which is often a side-effect of hand-reared kittens), and we were delighted to be able to rehome him at the weekend. We think that he will finally grow up to be a big cat.

We wonder what happened to his poor mummy...

Thrown out with the rubbish!

Many of our local readers will have seen us on Yorkshire TV before Christmas, when we were featured because of a story that appeared about us in The Keighley News.

The story was about Snudgie, a white and grey cat with four kittens who came to us after suffering a terrible ordeal.

Snudgie's story began one cold night in November last year when a householder in Leeds went to throw some rubbish into a nearby skip. Just as he was about to let go of the bag he heard crying from inside the skip and fortunately his curiosity got the better of him. Looking inside the skip he saw movement from underneath some material, and further investigation showed that the material was a curtain tied up with something inside it.

The "something inside" turned out to be a mother cat and four tiny newborn kittens. Needless to say, he took them back with him. What a lucky escape that he didn't throw the bag away - it would in all likelihood have landed on the cat and injured or killed her and/or the kittens.

The finder contacted a veterinary surgeons who put him in touch with West Yorkshire Animals in Need. This organisation (amongst other things) does valuable liaison work between animal rescue groups, vets and other animal groups. They were able to contact us and we luckily had a fosterer available who could take them.

Snudgie and the kittens came to us via WYAIN and were placed in a foster home, where they have thrived, luckily none the worse for their ordeal.

It is terrible to think of the dreadful death Snudgie and her kits would have had, had the householder not been there. There are many ways to rehome an unwanted cat, but throwing them into a skip is not the way to do it.

We believe that Snudgie actually gave birth whilst in the skip, or very shortly before, and of course the cold alone might have been enough to kill the babies.

Snudgie is now ready for a new home, and her kits will be neutered shortly and will be ready soon. At least their futures are secure, we shudder to think of other cats and kittens in similar situations through no fault of their own.

Please encourage anyone you know to have their cat neutered.

The not-so-dirty dozen >^..^<

It's not uncommon for us to be asked to rehome a pair or a small group of cats - usually a family group such as a mother and her kittens or a group of siblings.

We were rather astounded recently when we were asked to rehome a household of twelve cats. Their poor owner had recently been diagnosed with a severe illness, and this, compounded with a change in his domestic circumstances meant that he could no longer keep his cats.

He actually had nineteen altogether, but had managed to find someone to care for five of them whilst he was in hospital and had rehomed two directly himself.

The tragedy of this situation is that these were very much loved cats - all neutered and up-to-date with medical treatment - and in normal circumstances their owner would have expected to keep them for the rest of their lives.

It is such a shame that he did not make arrangements long ago for the cats to be cared for "should anything happen". Too many people either think that they will be alright and will be able to keep their cats forever, or they assume that in the worst case scenario, a relative or friend will take responsibility for their cat. We often hear "I would never let my cats go to a rescue centre" - but sometimes, this is the only option. The best way to ensure that your pets don't end up in a rescue centre, is to make concrete arrangements for their well-being, even when all is well in your world. Hopefully you will never have to call upon these arrangements, but if ever your situation should change for the worse, you will have a fall-back solution for your cats.

Take these simple steps:
1. Ask someone to care for your pet - repeat this for each pet you have, even if different people take different pets, at least they will be safe and cared for.
2. Make a clear note and put in somewhere prominent in your house "In case of emergency ...XXX... will take care of my cat [name]. Put a copy with your legal papers too.
3. Check every six months or so that the arrangement is still valid - remember, other people's circumstances change too.
4. Make a reciprocal offer to a friend or relative - but remember to tell them if your circumstances change.

The rescue centres are there to help, but particularly in these hard-pressed times, they are struggling to keep afloat, and quite a few rescue centres in our area have closed, or are temporarily not taking pets in. This is one way to try and ensure that your pet doesn't end up in a rescue centre, or worse.

Hopefully, you won't need a friend, and you and your pet will live happily ever after, just as Pamba, Taiba, Polgara, Jacob, Henry, Kheldar, Bazo, Aboli, Tungata Zebewe, Dufford Charliewood, Rumbo and Sarah are now doing.

The Rocky Road to Success

As a rehoming charity, we generally only see cats for a relatively short period of time. Most cats who come into our Centre need only basic medical treatment, such as neutering and dental work, and are then ready for new homes.

Sometimes, however, we have cats who need a lot more attention and care. One such cat is Rocky.

Rocky is a black and white tom cat who came into our Centre some months ago. His owner no longer wanted him and two other cats due to changes in the household, and asked us to rehome them all. As he left, Rocky's previous owner mentioned that he could be a bit bad-tempered at times.

That proved to be an understatement! Rocky was so traumatised that he would leap at the heads of any of our volunteers who approached him. This behaviour is extremely rare in cats, most frightened cats flee rather than attack. He also sat in a permanently hunched up state, eyes wide, ears flat to the head and his body poised to spring. This was much much more than a bad-tempered cat, this was a very traumatised cat.

Our initial approach was to let Rocky have time to settle and to get used to life at our Centre. He was in a pen on his own and although he could watch people and other cats, he could not be easily approached by them. When - after a few weeks - this didn't seem to be making a difference, we decided to create a completely safe space for Rocky by surrounding his pen with "curtains" and giving him plenty of boxes to hide in. We also limited his contact with humans, allowing only one volunteer to clean his pen and feed him.

This reduced his wariness to an extent, insofar as his ears stopped being flat to his head and he stopped jumping at heads! His progress was much slower than we hoped, however, unlike other cats who had gone through a similar rehabilitation process and had relaxed in a matter of weeks. After three months Rocky was still showing every sign of being traumatised.

At this stage, we felt that the only option to ensure that he had a quality of life was to enclose him indoors in a very small cage and to teach him by association that humans could be his friend. So this is what we did.

It became apparent very soon that he hadn't been neutered and after a trip to the vets to have this operation performed his rehabilitation proceeded in earnest.

At first, the cage was completely covered, but we realised quite soon that he was less stressed if he had some visibility.

At first, we left Rocky to his own devices, but once we noticed that he was looking out and taking an interest, we started talking to him. We noticed that he allowed us to put food into his cage and to remove empty dishes without striking us, so for a few weeks we gave him several small meals each day, which reinforced for him the fact that human hands could be kind.

Along the way our volunteers were quite badly scratched in the process, but we persevered, and gradually Rocky came to welcome attention and started talking back. After a couple of months one of our voluteers, wearing gloves, started to stroke Rocky, and within a couple of days of this, Rocky started responding, looking forward to being stroked and even grabbing the hand as it retreated to try and obtain more strokes!

We are now at the stage where we are considering letting Rocky out of his cage. He has been there for some time now, a situation which is distressing for the volunteers who deal with him, but we can't believe the turnaround in his behaviour. He is really starting to tame up, and we are even thinking that at some point this year we may be able to do what we planned originally to do for him ...find him a loving forever home.

Lonely Lois

Good afternoon friends,

We were alerted to the plight of a little black cat who seemed to have no owner. She spent her days shivering in a garden, grabbing whatever mouthfuls of food she was able to scrounge from the resident cats.

The owner of the garden asked us to take her as she was concerned that the little cat wouldn't survive long out on her own. Lois came to us in a very poor state, very emaciated with severe gastro-intestinal problems, areas of fur loss and full of fleas. Her body was also covered with dirt.

To our immense delight, she was micro-chipped and we were thrilled to think that we would soon be able to reunite her with her owner. Sadly however, we soon discovered that the phone number registered on her micro-chip was unobtainable and there was no reply from the registered address - which was some distance away from where she'd been found. It seems likely that her owners had moved house and not updated their contact details.

The micro-chip details gave us her age - 14 years - and we felt at her age she would struggle to improve. However, to our joy, blood tests revealed no major problems and after a bath and flea treatment, she looked a lot better, and is now gradually gaining weight. We really hope that in due course an understanding and kind person will come forward and adopt her.

It is such a shame that many people don't know that it's their responsibility to update the micro-chip details should they move house or change their phone number. It's not the responsibility of the vet or rehoming centre - and now her owners are probably wondering what happened to her, and she has very little chance of being returned to her original home.

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We are hoping to attract more people to make regular donations to us by Standing Order. If we can have the guarantee a of certain income each month, it helps us to plan and to focus other fundraising events towards our appeal to build a new centre in the Keighley area, which will help many more cats in Lancashire and North & West Yorkshire. Would you be willing to make a donation to us on a regular basis? This link is to our online standing order form. Please print it off, complete it and return it to us. We are very grateful to everyone who helps us in this way, every penny you donate to us makes a difference.

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Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the summer months. Your support has meant a great deal to us and enabled us to help poor cats like Lois.

And they all lived happily ever after ......

It's not often an injury to a cat can be said to be a piece of luck, but black and white Freddy totally disagrees.

We were alerted to his plight on Sunday morning - he'd been spotted hanging around a residential area and the finders noticed he was limping on one of his front legs.

Further examination showed that he had actually put his leg through his collar and the collar had tightened, causing him to limp.

The people who found him had caught him, but when they tried to remove the collar it hurt him so much that he bit them badly and managed to escape.

This called for one of our special cat traps, which we set in their garden on the Sunday morning. To our relief at teatime he went into the trap and we were able to transport him quickly to the vet.

The collar was cut off and further examination showed that it had embedded itself in his armpit, and the wound had become infected.

Freddy was sedated and the wound cleaned out, and partially stitched. Whilst he was drowsy, the vets scanned him for a microchip and to their delight found one!

Because the 'chip company was closed at the weekend, they were unable to obtain his owner's details until Monday, but when the did get the details they were in for a surprise. Freddy had been missing for nearly a year, from a town about 10-12 miles away from where he was found. No one has any idea where he has been all this time, but his owners were absolutely over the moon to have him back.

He will require several weeks cage rest so that he doesn't tear the wound, but the chances are that he'll make a good recovery.

The moral to this story is that microchipped cats have a much better chance of being returned to their owner, and the £20 or so it costs is money well-worth spent. There is arguably a second moral to the story - the use of collars on cats. In our opinion, there is only one reason to put a collar on a cat, and that is for identity purposes. There was no tag on Freddy's collar - had there been he might have been reunited much sooner. And although the collar was ultimately the reason that he was reunited, the collar Freddy was wearing was not a sort we'd recommend. If you do put a collar on your cat it should either be fully elasticated (and changed every 6-8 weeks as the elastic hardens) or a safety release collar which will snap open if the cat catches his or her paw in it.

Freddy is a delightful cat, very friendly and happy to be handled. We're delighted that we were able to play a small part in reuniting him with his owners.

Please remember our Christmas card competition. We've received some lovely entries and hope to receive more before the closing date of 1 May. Please see our website for details.

Thank you to those who continue to support our "In For a Pound" appeal towards our new Centre. We've raised over £1000 with this part of the appeal now.

To unsubscribe, please click here.

A Christmas Competition

For those of you who wish it could be Christmas everyday, now is the time to think about your favourite festive things as Haworth Cat Rescue announces the launch of its first ever Christmas Card competition.

We are seeking 4 cards for our 2009 Christmas selection and entries can be submitted in all media from watercolours and pastels to line drawings and oils on canvass. Photographs are also acceptable.

Cat designs are very popular among many of our supporters but others prefer more traditional themes, so it’s really up to the artist to find their own inspiration. Some may favour a very contemporary design and others wish to evoke a trip down memory lane with Christmas scenes of yesteryear. We are very open and want to allow as much freedom of expression as possible.

This is the first time Haworth Cat Rescue has offered the public the opportunity to showcase their talents with a Christmas card competition. There is no age barrier for entry and 4 winning designs will selected for their charm and appeal by a panel of 3 judges. There is no charge for entry to our competition.

Participants who want their artwork returned are asked to send a prepaid self-addressed envelope. Every care will taken to avoid damage but the charity cannot guarantee this.

We are expecting a large number of designs to be sent via email and this is the best way to scan and keep your original.

Imprint in Keighley is producing the winning Christmas cards, which will go on sale in the Autumn. Photographs should be supplied as 300dpi in jpeg format, the size for the front of the card is 105mm x 150mm but the actual images should allow for an extra 3mm 'bleed' all around. Larger photographs can be reduced to make them fit.

As a special prize, Imprint is sponsoring the competition with an enlarged version of the selected designs as a keepsake for each winning artist.

The sending and receiving of cards brings so much pleasure and generates valuable income for us. Our cards will be advertised on our website and sold in local shops and online. We will acknowledge the artist on their card and our thanks for the contribution they have made towards the construction of a new environmentally friendly and educational cat rehoming Centre in the Aire Valley

The closing date for entries is May 1 2009.

I don't want to share my bed with you......

The early weeks of each year are normally good times for us as far as rehoming is concerned, with people looking to adopt a cat after the hustle and bustle of Christmas and before the holiday season starts.

This year is no exception, and we are delighted to see lots of little faces going off to live happily ever after. It's wonderful to see a cat come to our centre on Saturday and then wave goodbye to him or her on Sunday, even though we haven't really had chance to get to know his character.

Some cats, however, take a lot more shifting! Take Sasha for example. Sasha came to us about 2 years ago when her previous owner died unexpectedly whilst undergoing a routine operation. Sasha was understandably shy and stayed with us for a few weeks before we found her a new home.

The stress of her move to our centre, followed by the move to her new home became too much for Sasha, and she began to have possession issues over her bed. Basically she would attack anyone who approached her whilst she was in the bed, and given that she spent most of the day there, that gradually evolved into aggression whenever anyone approached her.

After almost a year in her new home, the people who had adopted her reluctantly brought her back.

Although we were able to cuddle her and stroke her as soon as she arrived, Sasha still acted aggressively when in her bed.

We allowed her to keep the same bed (a covered one) for a few weeks, and then we removed it to give her an open bed, but in the same position. Whenever we approached her we ignored her whilst she was in the bed, but made a fuss of her outside the bed.

Gradually, she began to accept our strokes and come to us for cuddles, and even got out of bed on purpose to approach us for strokes.

She will now allow us to stroke her in the bed without showing any signs of aggression unless she is awakened abruptly.

We hope a new understanding owner will come forward for Sasha quite quickly now. She will most certainly have possession issues in her new home surrounding her bed, but we are confident that an experienced new owner will be able to work with us and with her to reduce the fear and aggression.

Hands don't always hurt

One of the hardest and yet most rewarding things we do, is the taming up of feral kittens. It is a delight to see a nervous, bewildered kitten begin to realise that there is lots of love to be had if he or she chooses to accept it.

One such kitten is Russet who was found living in a garden. We called her Russet because when she came in she was so wild we couldn’t pick her up, so we didn’t know if she was a boy or a girl.

Gradually she began to realise that when we approached her it was to give her food, or to gently talk to her. She cowered at first, but then one day she dared to rub her head against someone’s hand, and she enjoyed the sensation. It felt great to have her head stroked!

Bit by bit she allowed her carers to handle her more, to pick her up, cuddle her and tickle her tummy. Her loud excited purr showed us how much she was enjoying the attention.

Russet will now allow herself to be handled by the people she knows, although she is still nervous when people walk past her whilst she’s on the floor. If she’s at eye level, or on a chair she demands attention.

We will be looking for a home for Russet soon, and we will be delighted to see her go – to a safe home where her nervousness will be understood and she will be allowed to grow in confidence and trust.

If you would like to support Haworth Cat Rescue, you can make a donation here.

Thank you

A Christmas Cracker

We don't normally use The Moggie Blog to advertise for homes for the cats at our centre, but we're making an exception for Tallulah.

This pretty girl came to us in March 2008 after she wandered exhausted into a hairdressing salon in Bradford. Despite extenisve enquiries we were unable to trace her owners.

Tallulah is "an older lady" with a sassy personality - if she were human she would be waving her walking stick at buses as she crossed the road in front of them!

She has been diagnosed with a hyper-thyroid, but is stabilised on medication which she takes surprisingly well.

Normally, when we get in older cats that we are unable to rehome, they end up being permanently looked after by one or other of our regular volunteers or supporters.

The trouble with Tallulah is that she doesn't like other cats, and of course the people most likely to offer her a home already have cats, and Tallulah turns into a real harridan when in the presence of other cats!

Tallulah is generally speaking happy to be around people but may swipe if she is annoyed. She is incredibly nosey and likes to know what is going on. She eats well, and of course is litter trained. Haworth Cat Rescue will pay for any age-related medical conditions for Tallulah, including of course the medication for her hyper-thyroid.

We would love to hear from any experienced cat owner who has no other cats (or dogs!) and who feels that they could offer Tallulah a loving home for the autumn of her life.

Please don't let Tallulah spend Christmas behind bars - please contact us if you would like to meet Tallulah - haworth.catrescue@btinternet.com

Nervous Nellies? No, not us

Running a rehoming centre such as ours, we get all sorts of personalities of cats. Some are rampant extroverts. Others are naturally reserved or shy. Yet more have had some trauma and their personalities have become withdrawn as a result - these are often the most rewarding cats for us - as once they start to feel more settled, their confidence increases and their personalities start to show.

Take our lovely Betty Fluff. We know nothing of her background. She turned up in the grounds of a sheltered housing complex where pets were not allowed. She was in a bad way with tangles and knots in her lovely fur, and she was starving hungry,

She was taken to a local vets who de-matted her and kindly cleaned her teeth. And then she came to our centre.

On arrival she was very depressed, hissed if anyone went near her and would never eat in the presence of people. Gradually, as she realised that she was safe, she began to relax. She is now able to respond well to strokes and grooming. She will eat and wash herself whilst people are in her pen, and whilst she is still not comfortable being picked up, we think this is just a matter of time. We are really looking forward to the day we rehome her - and we'll ask her new owners to send us photos. We bet the first one will be of her curled up and happy on the bed or in front of the fire.
Another cat who came into our care recently was Lulu. She had been placed in a commercial cattery by Social Services, after her previous owner died or went into residential care. She had been virtually ignored there for about six months - she'd been fed and cleaned out, but very little interaction. She became totally depressed, spent all day hidden under her blanket and did not respond to anyone.

She came to the attention of one of our supporters who spent some time with her and saw her start to respond. With the permission of the cattery and the SS she came to our centre where she reverted to her former shy self. We gave her a few days to settle then gradually encouraged her to come out from under her blanket, and she began to respond to our attention.

To our delight, she was spotted on our website and a lovely new owner came and offered her a home at the weekend. He knows she will be very unsettled at first, but he is prepared to give her the time and patience she requires. We are sure that before too long we will be getting reports about how well she is settled.

The moral of this story is that even the shyest, most afraid cats have a good hope of becoming settled and ready to be petted and handled. If you come across such a shy cat, ask yourself why, and see if there is something that can be done to improve his or her confidence and life.

Drowning in the rain

We had torrential rain here on Saturday. During the course of the day, a lady in our town looked out of her window and noticed a bucket in the middle of the garden next door.

Some time later the bucket caught her eye again, but this time she noticed some movement in it. Thinking that perhaps a bird or mouse had fallen in, she went to have a look and rescue it.

Instead of wildlife, imagine her horror when she found 8 tiny kittens in there. The bucket was rapidly filling with water, and two of the kittens had already drowned.

She was able to remove the remaining six, but one had become too cold and despite all attempts to save her, she too died shortly afterwards.

The five surviving kittens, who are about 5 weeks old, are friendly and used to being handled, so there is very little likelihood that the kittens were the offspring of a feral cat and put in the bucket by their mum. It seems to us that they were deliberately put in the bucket in the hope that they would drown.

This is such an act of unspeakable cruelty that it has left us almost speechless.

Double Trouble

Despite the current economic crisis, the credit crunch and the downturn in the economy, there are an increasing number of people who think that they can make a fast buck by getting a pedigree cat and breeding from her.

Nothing could be further from the truth. To a breeder, the money earned from this will rarely cover the costs incurred.

Let's look at some of the expenses:

• the cost of the cat - this could be anything from a few hundred pounds to a few thousand, depending on the breed
• medical costs - most owners of stud cats will not allow their cats to mate with other cats who do not have a clean bill of health, verified by a vet.
• stud fees - again these will depend on the breed and on the pedigree ancestry
• light, heat and food for the cats and her kittens
• vaccinations for the kittens
• advertising costs
• registration costs with the GCCF (to get their pedigree paperwork)
• emergency vet bills - few litters get to a rehomeable age without having needed veterinary care, and they should be medically checked too
• costs of keeping the queen in between litters - she should not be allowed to breed every year, and she should be kept indoors, or in an enclosed run, so that she doesn't pick up any viruses etc from other cats or worse, become pregnant by a passing tomcat!

And what if she only has two kittens in her litter? Or maybe only one, or she miscarries, or doesn't conceive? The income you might get for this situation is very low, or nil!

And of course, as people tighten their belts in the current crisis, there are going to be fewer willing to pay large sums of money for a pet that might cost them a lot of money.

Bianca and Carly, pictured above, are the result of someone getting a siamese cat to breed from. Instead of taking the necessary precautions to ensure that she could not get out, they allowed her free range and of course when she came into season she mated with a stray tom.

To add to the list of errors, her owner then left her and the kits in a quiet bedroom, well fed no doubt, but not handled, so that the kittens became wary of being handled and are now very timid.

When unable to sell them for £50 each, they were passed to us for rehoming. Sadly he has not heeded our advice to have her spayed and will no doubt let her breed again, although we very much doubt that he will find anyone willing to allow their stud cat to mate with her.

Carly and Bianca have both been rehomed. Luckly, Bianca wasn't too scared and once she'd gone Carly realised that she actually quite liked being stroked and gained confidence quickly, but this amateurish and irresponsible approach to breeding is one of the reasons that there are so many unwanted cats - even pedigrees and part-pedigrees - out there.