great kitten migrations,

Breaking News: Ninja adopted and lovin' it! Adopted, Rejected, Adopted again: Someone coming for Ranger tonight!

It's hard to keep track of the comings and goings sometimes but we try.

The woman made a long overdue house visit, so here's another before and after from Ah Ma's Gruesome Foursome...



Big handsome boy still behaves like a kitten. When he was smaller, he used to fish out, play with and cuddle their hamster every night when everyone was sleeping. Now that he is so much bigger, they decided not to risk it by locking poor hammie up in a cat-proof cage. I hope Big Boy still visits his friend often.

The last of the foursome turned up at the CWS Cat's Night Out in July.


Small rules his household from the icy north pole. When you scold him, he will face north (or anywhere where you aren't standing). He can do it for up to 3 days. I am nowhere near that cool.


This is the kitten the woman catnapped from Ah Ma's. We were all prepared to overlook the sudden presence of this ugly cat in our midst but as a stroke of luck will have it...


Melody cuddled the Cat's Night Out mascot all the way home! Now they have to contend with his constant sucking habit, muahahahaha. They love him lots, despite.

staycations,

Can you believe these kiddos have not found homes yet?!





Moo and Boo. You can barely tell them apart except for the straight tail and the kinked tail. (Update: Moo and Boo adopted!)



as predicted, their two white siblings went to new homes first.


Whitley here was almost adopted but for her kinked tail. It's not her fault, swear!

and mystic ocean


Someone left these 5 babies in a plastic bag outside Ah Ma's front door. Why ever did you do this?? Fosters tried but none of them made it. Goodbye, we will be seeing you again soon.

before & after kittens

The horror show in the video has thankfully been averted through the efforts of volunteers from Pawpledge, Vineyard Community Church and others. The flat is painted, cats sterilised and kittens evacuated to the animalfamily.

Previously, White Challenger and Mixed Ranger were confirmed for adoption. Wallflower's condition was touch and go.

Since then, White Challenger has been rehomed. By a twist of fate... Wallflower has also been rehomed, leaving Mixed Ranger and Black Ninja still in our midst.





"Did you think I wouldn't recover? I am all pretty now!"


"My adopter found abandoned kittens in her neighbourhood so she doesn't have room for me anymore. I am happy for the kitties but someone please adopt me!"


"yes, i'm still here too..."

remember this formless lump that was heartlessly left by the dustbin?




He was lovingly raised by Bukit Purmei's P.A.W. Vet Centre, then a super foster. When he became all cute and plumb, he found his way back to the animalfamily and immediately decided to lose his appetite.

Only after some frantic panicking did we realise that Boo Boo did not like being quarantined on his own so he was thrown in with Mixed Ranger and Black Ninja. They hate him but he sure is loving it. Appetite returned and plumbed up again!




He goes to his new home this weekend.

litter of critters

4 out of 6 of the leukemia caregiver's kittens have been adopted! they still had remnants of the cat flu so only 2 went straight off for their home trials with the more confident adopters. The rest were packed off here for recuperation and fattening up.

A pretty little head on a bag of bones, Mixed Ranger has to pile on the pounds before heading to her new home. But she is the least worrisome, all brass and sassy attitude!

Perk up, little wallflower. She was burning hot when she got here and dehydrated. She gave the woman a scare by lying limp on her lap. After a couple of squirts of water, she finally looked up with her big sad eyes. She hasn't caught any adopter's attention yet.

White Challenger doesn't sweat it, he has a new home waiting for him when his adopter comes back from vacation.

Black Ninja's conjunctivitis is clearing up. He wonders why black cats are the last to be adopted, if ever?

ah ma & leukemia caregiver update

The woman was BANNED from Ah Ma’s place because she catnapped a kitten held hostage by that incorrigible hoarder.

So she kept away while Ah Ma fumed and hissed. (The kitten has since been adopted.) It looked safe to resurface again this week although Ah Ma, as befuddled as she is, remembered. Quite surprisingly, she only asked the other volunteers if the woman was there to take anymore of her kittens. They said no and they all moved on from there - Ah Ma back out to her favourite coffeeshop and the volunteers back to work on the cockroaches.

And it wasn’t even a surprise to find Ah Ma with 2 more kittens.



It’s tempting but the woman will try to accumulate more brownie points before pulling another catnap. After all, there is no end to the supply as long as people in the neighbourhood treat Ah Ma as a dumping ground. Since the start of the clean-up - 13 new kittens - 1 dead, 5 rehomed. The rest are where they are but thriving at least.


They headed over to the leukemia sufferer with 30+ cats after Ah Ma’s. The situation was already very much under control with most of the old furnishings cleared out and adult cats sterilised.

The old auntie was tired, overwhelmed, almost resigned. One kitten, degenerated to skin on bones, had to be rushed to the hospital. The others were in fairly good shape but teary. In her state, the soul is willing but the flesh is weak. She is just not able to keep up with the care the little ones need right now and we are desperately seeking new homes for these sick babies.





As soul-gutting as these cases are, it is hard to be upset with these old caregivers turned hoarders. No one taught them any better. And they themselves suffered enough for it. So I save my wrath for the ones not sick, not old, just dim, who cling on to archaic ideas that cats must roam and that neutering is evil and immoral.

On one of her trapping days, the woman had to fight off a teen who insisted one of the trapped cats is his. When it roams, pal, it is fair game. She offered free sterilisation for his other 2 cats. He said no. She shrugged. She will get them on their next wandering.

That makes 15 new young cats discovered, caught and sterilised this month alone. 50 and counting since January in a 10-block area. Half of them from homes. It’s hard to reconcile sometimes why we have let other people’s responsibility become our own. But in cat welfare, their problems often become yours. After all, if they are not sterilising, they are either a hoarder or a chronic abandoner and some one has to pick up their pieces eventually. We can at least take heart that some people are coming to their senses before it is too late.

And quite unexpectedly, they become your newfound cat welfare neighbourhood watch. This one-week old kitten was dumped next to a dustbin wrapped in a tissue and saved by our neighbour’s 7-yr old daughter.


It is with the vet, fighting for a chance on this callous earth.

How you can help:
* Donate cat food.
* Foster or adopt a kitten.
* Sponsor the medical fees for the 2 hospitalised kittens.

Flea Mania, GN'R for the love of cats

See you tomorrow on 17th Jan Saturday at Sculpture Square for Flea Mania, a flea market bazaar for the benefit of stray cats in Singapore. It takes place from 10am to 5pm. Sculpture Square is on Middle Road, beside Fortune Centre. Besides having many things to buy, there will also be kittens for adoption. Come come!


*
with that out of the way, allow me to indulge…

you know what makes this cat purr like a freight train, fly like an aeroplane? a sprawling wilderness of blackboard scratching affliction that is a guns n’ roses song.

for sure, these tunes aren’t pretty. they don’t end quite soon enough. and not without some hard swallowing. instead, they travel on a riotous musical trajectory not unlike the wheels of a human mind wandering through its cerebral crevices towards a concluding thought. and it still wouldn’t be close to the last word on the subject.

most songs are a pronouncement of the artists’ state of mind - simplified, contained and ultimately resolved. presented as a final proclamation of happiness, sorrow, remorse or whatever. a gn’r song injects you right in there with the artist, swimming, drowning, grasping for clarity, suffering for, and relishing every revelation and indecision.

there is something to be said about the unmade-up mind which is often not more appreciated. they are minds still engaged. for those whose worldview is well and truly set, those conversations are essentially dead and dried up. and where does that leave us?

recently, the woman encountered a clash of cultures between a cat foster and potential adopter. the foster is dead set against the potential adopter because she has heard too many stories. it’s not right she admits, but would you gamble away the life of a kitten on ideals about tolerance and harmony?

the woman looks at the kitten in her hands and she wavers. ultimately, she gave the kitten to the adopter.


while those of us who are more informed and involved have reached certain conclusions about how best a cat should be cared for and protected, we still shouldn't take them as the last final words on the subject.

the work of a cat welfare volunteer is to engage and to help all kinds of people along to new understanding and new revelations. if we are set and hardened as bricks, what we might do is save that one kitten. how about the many that we cannot reach with just one hand on the left and one on the right?

*


white grey and black curly well and fully recovered!

adoptions & flea mania

our four kittens have found new homes. one extraordinary family even took in the two whose eyes are a mess and will keep them even if they never fully recover. that is the kind of news that restores our faith in Christmas.


more festive news: FleaMania is organising a pre-CNY flea market where stall rental proceeds will go towards Pawpledge's stray cat sterilisation and care fund. do drop by if you are free to chat, to chill and to rummage!

FLEA MANIA
Saturday, 17 January 2009 10am - 5pm
Sculpture Square, 155 Middle Road (Outside My Secret Garden)

Cat Welfare Society, House Rabbit Society of Singapore and the NTU Cat Cafe will also be joining Pawpledge there. so will our woman and she is bringing 2 kittens from ah ma's place along. besides clean comfy new homes, they need all the hugs and kisses they can get!



come visit them on the 17th!

slow recovery

the 2 white ones are out of danger but white grey and black curly are still battling for their sight. even with the reduced swelling, what we can see of the eye is cloudy... :(

geriatric robin hood

these months the woman spent at the old hoarder lady’s has been akin to falling down a rabbit hole into another world. just when she thought she had ah ma’s world all figured out, she throws her another surprise or two .

chatting with the ah ma while cleaning, jaime translated for the woman that she was happy that after many years of silence, her youngest son showed up and gave her pocket money. things did seem to be looking up. her other son, an ex-convict, has also been consistently working and close to getting his taxi license with jaime and janet’s help and encouragement.

then ah ma asked for money again. when they had lunch with her at her favourite kopitiam, they figured out why she is always short when she consistently receives money from several sources: her daughter, jaime and janet and some kind people in the neighbourhood.

they saw ah ma give a substantial sum of money on the side to the coffee shop cleaner, a mildly autistic middle-aged man who is also her errand boy when she needs help with the heavy lifting. the poor guy was always getting an earful from the volunteers because he is the one who gives ah ma her constant supply of chicken heads for the cats!

as it is, he is the sole provider for his elderly mother and a severely incapacitated sister. the kopitiam stall owners help him out by giving him work and food and a little extra collection from each stall every month. then last week, a con-woman came along and cleaned him out with her cheap promises.

so ah ma gave him an ear lashing and what money she had. they already knew she was her own one-woman soup kitchen in the neighbourhood. a motley bunch of people would crawl out of the woodwork everyday to take their meals with her at the kopitiam and she would pay. the volunteers thought she was probably lonely and needed the company but they could not have been more wrong. the instinct that compels her to take in all those sad animals is exactly the same as what compels her to spread what little she has around.

and she is smart about it. ah ma has no qualms taking, begging and even defrauding the haves just so she can give to the have-nots, like some kind of geriatric robin hood. she is also the kopitiam mafia, so luck to the con-woman if she shows up again!

___________________________

in another twist of this wonderland tale, someone left ah ma four kittens this week and they all suffer severe conjunctivitis. the woman has convinced herself and all of us that we have NO CHOICE but to offer them the hospitability of our utility room so here they are depriving us of our strategic neighbourhood look-out point, our vital evil plan headquarters above the wardrobe and sleep.

two have found adopters and two will go on the adoption boards as soon as they are pretty again.


get well soon kiddos and we will be glad to see you out of here!

leafty & the kitten

always trust leafty to roll out the welcoming mat for new kittens. he is, however, in danger of being the mat with this one!

fingers crossed

we have had 3 enquiries but no follow ups on the kitten. in the mean time, he is attaching himself to whoever will have him. don't get too comfortable there, boy!

our fren just told us that gremlin has been reclaimed by his family. but what kind of family loses a kitten?!