Dear George,It's 2009 and here I am sitting in the Cats Protection main rescue centre - The National Cat Centre, in Kent. For me it's a gloomy outlook. I've lost my home and I don't know when I am going to find a new one. I feel disorientated and stressed out. What will the New Year bring? How am I going to cope?
Pumpkin
Dear Pumpkin,
Don't despair. At least you are in the warm and you are getting two meals a day and, best of all, if you are patient you WILL find a new home. Here in the UK we have lots of no-kill shelters that do not put down healthy cats. In the US, where the animal rescue movement is a little behind us, many many cats are just euthanised for lack of a home.
It's much worse for those cats trying to survive on the streets. Or those ones sheltering under the hedges, shivering, who have lost their way in the countryside. Or the cats in towns, who are sheltering in basements, some of them injured from road traffic accidents. Without food. Without warmth. Without human help.
You are a tabby tortoishell and you look beautiful so you will be picked quite early. It's worse for the black cats and the black and white ones that don't look so good. They will have to stay longer. I heard a horrible story about an animal shelter in Ohio where people hand in black cats are Halloween, because they think they will be safer there than on the streets (where they might be used for black magic sacrifices and torture). But 9 out of 10 of these black cats are just euthanised.
Where was I? Well luckily the animal movement bother in the UK and in the USA is working hard on trying to improve the way they find homes. Most of all, they need more animal adopters. The quicker there is a turn-round from unwanted pet to new home, the more animals can be helped. But of course, if they just hand out animals any how, the adoptions may fail. It's quite a dilemma getting it right.
So what do I wish for in 2009? I wish for more people willing to adopt the less attractive cats. Please adopt the ugly ones, the black or black and white moggies, the old, the disabled and the frankly bad tempered. They need help most. Every cat that is given a home from a rescue centre, leaves a pen for a new one. So by adopting a cat, a human is helping two, not one, cats.
Also money helps. With the financial heltdown, all rescues need cash. Cats Protection lost several million pound in the Icelandic Banks disaster. If you can help visit www.cats.org.uk or take a look at my kittenhood home at www.westoxoncats.co.uk If you are very, very lucky, your human could adopt a sleek, shining, and intelligent black cat like me.
George