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.

CWS: A Look Ahead

Cat Welfare Society has had a solid month of fundraising with the LPN Cat Day at Suntec City, the Cat’s Night Out “In Search of the Most Beautiful Domestic Cat” at Jurong Point and that unforgettably tongue-in-cheek STrip “What’s New Pussycat?” campaign.


Besides raising funds for stray sterilisation, these light-hearted occasions gave us a rare chance to let our hair down with other cat groups, volunteers and with the public.

Now the fun is over, it is time to get back down to the serious business of cat welfare.

Engaging govt agencies

CWS is planning a series of engagements with AVA, HDB and Town Councils. And it cannot be timelier that Sunday Times dedicated a full page on animal welfare last weekend, giving voice to the poisoned bayshore cats, abandoned animals and tireless animal welfare volunteers.

(They had to juxtapose it with an article on our good friend Mr TTK to provide a perfunctory journalistic balance to the spread, but that is easily forgiven. A contrary article on a less controversial figure would have been more detrimental. So thank you, Sunday Times.)

Also featured in the full page coverage is a small victory for cat welfare. AVA has put it on record, “AVA… is again open to subsidising the cost of sterilisation of stray cats, if caregivers, town councils and communities are willing to participate.”

So our upcoming meeting with them can now fast track to the mechanics of the stray cat sterilisation scheme: what is required of town councils and volunteers, and how to streamline the scheme for greater success.

After which, we can start working with dedicated caregivers whose stray management work in their areas through Trap-Neuter-Release-Manage or TNRM, mediation and community building work has reached a healthy maturity. We will talk to their Town Councils first.

How you can help:
If you are a caregiver with a well managed cat community, come forward. Also start keeping records of the number of cats in your neighbourhood, the number of cats you have sterilised, your encounters with Town Councils and the number of complaints handled as these will go a long way when we engage them.

If your area does not have a TNRM programme, start one! Look out for our upcoming stray cat management workshop and meet-up on how to get started.

Sterilisation

CWS continues to single-mindedly put our funds into subsidising the sterilisation of stray cats. All our fundraising efforts are for this very purpose.

We get appeals from time to time to provide financial help for caregivers in need and for cat rescues. And this the committee members and volunteers do on our own personal basis.

The reason CWS funds are not diverted that way is this: The cold honest truth is that we have had to dig into our reserves last year to cover sterilisation and medical subsidies. And one had to go. It is a sign of the times that donations are down and reimbursements for subsidies are up.

We must keep stray cat sterilisation going simply because sterilisation makes the biggest impact to the welfare of our cats in the long run. It is this consistent, demanding, unglamourous work by dedicated caregivers and volunteers that provides a compelling reason for AVA to enter into a dialogue with cat welfare advocates. And we cannot afford to derail now.

The moment the government finally takes on the funding of stray cat sterilisation, that will really open up everyone’s resources to help the sick and suffering.

That moment is close and what will get us there is to make sure more community cats are sterilised and managed.

How you can help:
Start a TNRM programme in your neighbourhood. The next best thing is to sponsor a sterilisation!

Mediation

This is something that we struggle with immensely because we don’t have a full-time person in CWS. The committee members and volunteers handle our cases after hours or through phones and emails.

Mediation remains the most stressful, unrewarding part of cat welfare work. Being yelled at by irate people with cat pee on their slippers after a long day at work is not anyone’s idea of a fulfilling existence. But we still do it, together with our network of caregivers and volunteers because it goes hand in hand with TNRM. Stray management just doesn’t work without it.

What we find is that people come to CWS for a magic pill. And five after-hours dispensers to pill an entire nation is beyond ridiculous. We need more mediators.

It is a fact that Singaporeans hold an uncanny esteem for authority. People from an organisation are often seen as more respectable than someone from the neighbourhood. That is how Singaporeans work, so “I am from Cat Welfare Society” goes a long way. But anyone with the passion, a little gumption and knowledge can register with CWS and fulfill this role. And all the better if they are actual residents in the neighbourhood.

These resident mediators have their nose on the ground, they get to the problems quicker and they can better establish long term relationships with the Town Council officers and other residents. Town Councils can’t ignore them simply because they are residents, therefore constituents and more importantly, voters.

The magic pill? Don’t yell back and don’t wear your house clothes when mediating.

As much as mediation is daunting and completely thankless, just a word from you can save a cat from being caught and culled. If you are lucky, you can instill a little conscience in the neighbourhood, one cheesed off resident at a time.

How you can help:
If you want to be a mediator for your neighbourhood, register with CWS and contact your Town Council officer. Also look out for our upcoming stray cat management workshop and meet-up on how to get started.


Beyond CWS

If you have been following the posts and thread on the Cat Welfare Society’s Facebook page, you would have a good idea of the spectrum of cat welfare activities required to fully tackle an issue as broad as cat welfare.

There are the numerous appeals for medical fees for sick or injured cats, the many catteries and shelters in trouble in these tough economic times, cats and kittens that need fosterers and homes, AVA officers and Town Council officers to negotiate with and the unenlightened public to educate. As individuals, where do we start?

My own experience with the animalfamily is to start where your passion takes you. I started with the rescue and adoption of an old mangy toothless cat that stole my heart.

6 years on, the family has 10 cats at home, 40 cats fostered (and thankfully rehomed), hundreds sterilised and we dream of a cattery. We have seen cat shelters and their antithesis, cat hoarders and left a part of ourselves with each and everyone of these animals, the cheery ones, the sadly neglected, the dying and the dead.

Still, it is not enough. There must be a more sustainable solution to the plight of our cats, the kind that makes it less necessary to take cats off our streets for anything other than to loving homes. This will happen only when the responsibility for stray cat welfare is not just on caregivers but the entire nation. That is the prize worth working towards.

good news on the rehomed, the sterilised and the released

the rehomed
ah ma's conjunctivitis kitties grow from this,



to this.


afiq (in the background) has a squinty eye while putri has a cloudy eye. still, they are in the care of a loving extended family so it's as good as it gets. their siblings are faring just as well, one as a royal family pet and one with a mummy inspired to greater cat welfare volunteerism.

the sterilised
just out of surgery but look at him go. popped out of his picnic basket for a merry-go-round in mario's moving taxi.


wonder what the people in the car behind make of this.


safely back in a more secured cage but still acting up, shredding the newspapers and lying on his back in defiance.


the woman had a bit of luck catching this one. he walked right up looking for food. but now, we are so waiting to let this constant whiner back out where you belong.

the released
auntie's released cats are doing fine. they get plenty of food and cat auntie company (definitely more than one, including the woman).


although one ginger with a knotted tail seems to be losing out in the pack. she bolts when she sees the woman and doesn't get to the food fast enough when it is left out. hope she gets her groove soon.

continuing stroke of luck with new TC officer

We have a new TC officer and she is a cat-lover! There has been some complaints about the number of community cats in the estate but she lets it be known that the TC abides by the general rule that sterilised cats will not be removed.

The sun is finally shining on our estate.

But the area she is referring to is a problematic one that keeps us busy catching and sterilising every few months. There must be at least one chronic breeder upstairs if not more. The officer has spotted kittens in one of the corridors and the woman will hopefully be able to follow the lead this time to the culpable unit.

The woman also reconnected with a feeder who discovered an old hoarder in the neighbourhood. The old cleaner lives with her mentally challenged brother and 20 cats, although the number can’t be confirmed as the old woman opens her door only enough to speak through it. Even so, the putrid stench can fell a grown man. Only seasoned cat aunties like the woman and the feeder are able to stand their ground without so much as an involuntary nose twitch as they coax the old woman to let them sterilize and install grills for much-needed ventilation.

They met minor success when the old woman agreed to neuter her male cats. The whole experience brought forth geriatric tears as she passed the cats out to the woman one by one. It’s a start. She has still to relent on the females and help in cleaning and grilling. At least there will be no more new litters for now.

These are the small victories that the woman keeps her eyes on when the decision to fund cat welfare efforts becomes more complex in our present economic climate. Yet all the more, it calls for dedication and determination from volunteers and sponsors to stay the course. It will really be a crying shame if we let our collective labours be undone by a prolonged but ultimately temporary bad situation.



Ginger needs you!

modern day cowboy

the man and woman was introduced to a professional cat catcher recently who does work exclusively for TNRM. in less than an hour, he solved the problem of our wily carpark cats who have been eluding the woman's traps for months. with lightning speed, he has them in the cages before they even knew what hit them. for our particularly gangster-like white alpha cat, he used a net. with the feeder calming the cat, he took his time to case the periphery as the cat is lulled into complacency. in one blink-and-you-miss-it action, the cat was in the net and quickly transfered into the cage. *applause*

the woman can really use a lesson in this. the quick actions of the cat catcher minimises the trauma of being caught to the cat and they can quickly calm down in the safe darkness of the cage. it's more than a skill, it's a talent to have that kind of hand eye coordination and dexterity. if only we knew about Vincent earlier!

with far less style, the woman performed a stunt of her own this morning. as she left the house, chaplin made a dash for it and ended up on the locked 2nd floor landing where he froze with fear. after running around like a headless chicken for about 10 mins, the woman decided to climb onto the landing from the lift lobby. to get there, she had to lever off a railing onto a narrow decorative wall where she slid like a snake until she connected with the landing. there chaplin hardly protested as she passed him along to the man and safely back home. it will be sometime before chaplin lets his curiosity get the better of him, we think!

so far, vincent has been down twice and we had 5 carpark cats, white gansta and ginger tom snipped. 2 more coming of age cats to go...

bad tooty

oh my, has it been this long??

sorry my dears for not keeping up with this blog for a while. i blame our digital camera, which conked out on us and we had only our pathetic camera phone to fall back on. blogging just didn't seem worthwhile without nice handsome pics of the family to make all you people green with envy... :D

on the cat welfare front, the woman had some luck with the new TC officer who is sympathetic but understandably caught between a rock (the woman) and a hard place (cat hating complainers). sterilisation however, has been tricky as it is getting harder to catch the new younger cats in the neighbourhood. for some reason, they have become a lot more wary and clever, even of their feeders. a good combination for avoiding pest control but not good for TNRM. we had some luck with two prolific males that got hungry and complacent but at least three more are particularly hard cases that have time and again avoided capture. i don't think the conventional traps are working and the woman is on a look out for better ones.

on the home front, we are still an intact household of 2 beans, 11 cats and 1 leafty. it's probably time to update the "how we came by" section to add Tuxedo and Calico to the list as they are well and truly family now.

me slacking off
Chaplin is now our alpha male, never mind that he remains pint-sized compared to Papa, Bak Bak and Rosie. he even orders the woman around! so what do they say about size?
Rosie mellows with age... she is 6! we are sorry to hear about your brother baby blue who died of leukemia late last year. see you at the bridge, blue
Tuxedo graduates to adulthood

giddy lunar

outwitted, outmaneuvered, outdolled on Survivor: Bridesmaid... Rosie took my spot!




heady from wedding glee, man and woman splurged on a luxurious new sofa. never mind that there is no more space for walking. just dive and sink at the door and you don't even have to hit ground to prod the on switch for the TV. domestic bliss.


all this from the good folks at salvation army. definitely worth a trip to one near you this year.


Flower Mama is our first TNRM kitty for 2008.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

comings and goings

marble has been adopted!

she was sterilised together with carpark cat, Poppet, who is still with us until she fattens up a little. according to our malay neighbour, Poppet moved into the carpark about a month ago after toothless calico passed away. the vet was quite sure Poppet has had many litters in her lifetime as the ovarian tissues showed much wear and tear.



we just hope Poppet will be more resilient than dear toothless...

you one corner, i one corner

courting couple parts with a tiff before their big surgery. they are joined by Chaplin and a surly ginger tom who wears his battle scars as aristocracy. ginger tom is certainly NOT happy to be losing the pride of his malehood and protested by escaping his cage with just enough time to pee on man's freshly laundered shirt.

incidentally, most similar 'accidents' in the past year have occurred on man's shirts...

on the way to pick the convalescents up, the woman interrupts comic cat - Bug Eye - in mid lick. do you see a resemblance??

goodbye Mummy

Mummy goes back to her usual spot sterilised after a week of crying for her freedom. her kittens are doing much better. only blackie is still sniffling. the woman hopes it's soon before she can stop wiping mucus from the floor and walls of the utility room. glad we are not allowed in there. eeks.

Suede comes of age

not necessarily a good thing for cats. she gets spayed. ouch.


nice to have friends at times like these.


bad news. vet says the woman's latest trapping has already been spayed. $$ (flush). peoples, please tip the ears of spayed cats or keep them INDOORS.

more bad news. really bad news. tomcat died. old age (it's not that old) or complications with the sterilisation? damn, how did that happen.

woman makes a check on the rest. leukemia and mummy ok. no sign of bendy and bushy tail. bad day all round.

something's gonna give

as a resident cat of the animal family, i think i have been pretty cool about the craziness around here but there comes a point when a cat has to put her paw down and yell, get freaking organised or stop this insane crusade once and for all!

yes, i get that a lot of what's going on in this estate to do with stray cats is a grevious matter of life and death, what with its suspicious cat control tactics. i almost have no excuse to complain as i myself have stood to gain from this family's slapdash sentimentality. but we live in a box, all 56 sqm of it and when you guys moved in you never anticipated the animals and so this place is just not designed to fit so many of us in it all at once.

5 resident cats are about pushing it but lucky for you, we really like each other. but to foster every kitten that comes your way for weeks at a time? and in the meantime also pack wild, probably diseased, very likely flea-infested cats overnight in here too?

edgy Mummy who has not taken to us well from the start has been caterwauling. she has also started to chase and maul us, especially Suede. i have a lot of sympathy for you girl and could have understood if this is all to protect your little Bramblerose but its not. you just hate us so very sorry, you have to go.

maybe if we had just one more extra decent sized room in the apartment, we could do this right. someone suggests that all the crazy cat people get together to rent a place to properly foster and quarantine animals. the woman really likes the idea but no money no talk. as sterilisation remains a cornerstone to the saving of cat lives, they have to still pump whatever they have that way. still, quarantining cats is a real problem. the vet has been very kind to let the man and woman put up cats there overnight for free if they have space but they can't impose all the time so its the bathroom for those hapless suckers.

- because we don't have enough litter pans so it's easier to hose down when necessary.
- it's the only enclosed place in the apartment so it keeps our curiosity in check.
- it also provides little but valuable sound-proofing to keep neighbour's hostility in check.

this arrangement however, sets the man on edge because being sensitive to smell, he is often odorously menaced into taking his business to the nearby hawker centre public toilet.

it's not a question of stopping but a question of getting organised. ideal: renovate the apartment. form a cat management team. get more funds. educate through neighbourhood campaign. realistic to man and woman's capacity: reorganise the apartment, find at least one like-minded person in the neighbourhood. education through flyering. buy a few more litter boxes.

sadly last night the woman takes Mummy back to the neighbouring block where they found her. Mummy starts marking her territory on the columns and after sniffing around a little, disappears. the woman sticks around to see if Mummy would come back or call out. sometime through the night between Daniel and Hosea, an old man comes around to feed the community cats. there are more than 10 and the woman sees only 2 tipped ears. she spots a male white bushy tail and marks it for sterilisation. she sits with it till dawn before taking him back home in time for today's appointment. still no sign of Mummy.

Big Tom caught!

at last Tomcat walks right into our animal family trap and its bye bye testosterone tomorrow.

Tibby remains elusive. the snatch and grab operation the other day ended in bloodshed. the man's and woman's. and Tibby is still on the run.

leukemia and bendy tail go back on the streets

leukemia clamours to go out again soon after surgery. the woman releases her at her usual spot the next morning. late afternoon, she hears leukemia meowing from the second floor and goes out to lead her back downstairs and to give her some food and hugs.

bendy tail is released that afternoon after a good snooze. she follows the woman back upstairs a couple of times but wouldn't come back into our house of cats. she finds a warm spot on the 2nd floor roof landing to enjoy the sun. when the man and woman goes for supper in the night, they find her still there. the dilemma of strays.

i wish you all the best you two. come visit us if you feel like it.

leukemia's back

after a couple of sluggish, embarrassing and ultimately failed attempts at using the cat traps leading up to the many festive distractions of december, woman completely forgets about her resolution to sterilise the community cats until today when in a fit of activity, she nabs 2 cats on the way back from late night shopping at mustafa. so leukemia is back. and a never before seen cat with a warped Escherisque tail, bent in 2 places to resemble a Penrose triangle.

the cats are quarantined in the toilet and that makes us one animal too many in our 7 residents, 7 squatters 2006 household census. and the woman is going on about how Escherisque tail is rare for a domestic short-hair, luxurious and soft to the touch. eh, don't get any funny ideas lady, one more resident and we are officially slumming.

i am in a mood today. letters to Town Council about potential animal abuse have come to naught. 2 times already, a certain politician comes back with standard replies on necessity of animal control and no feeding and allowing stray cats in our estates. excuse me, i am asking you what is being done about cleaners taking their own initiative to kill the cats by whatever means available to them. witnessed practices: poisoning of cats and bagging kittens alive and throwing them in the trash. he skirted the issue completely in his first reply, and only on further insistence does he say they will instruct cleaners accordingly.

that is an appalling lack of reading comprehension or respect. so estate beauty more important than value of life, is it? feedback on potential animal abuse case becomes another avenue for them to read residents their riot act.

this makes me more inflamed about their ridiculous stance on not allowing stray cats in our community, he says we need to take into consideration of others living in the community. HDB and Town Council have received many complaints on stray nuisance and we need to remove strays.

what about people who value the lives of strays animals and want to see them well taken care of? don't they have a voice in the community that also requires action from the authorities?

to be in keeping with the stray policy, it requires in most circumstances for people who care to consciously walk away from animals in destitute or distress. that's asking them to give up a part of who they are. Compassion and social conscience are not attributes that can be turned on for politically correct causes and off for unpopular ones. you want to promote volunteerism and philanthropy in Singapore, here's your citizens, auntie and uncle giving of own time and money everyday, others trapping and neutering, still others rehoming. but what the authorities are saying is sorry hoh, only for the causes we like, ok? no wonder so many disillusioned, complacent, indifferent people here.

if you are as inflamed as i am, give a shout to your Town Councils today: set guidelines, not DEADlines.

tomcat thwarted... hopefully

now that all females in the family (eh, bar one) are spayed, hopefully tomcat will stop its regular amorous visits to the animal family. the horny bugger has even taken to urinating outside our apartment, possibly to mark us as his special angels.

the woman just got some cat traps from cat welfare and tomcat is top priority on her community sterilising crusade. tibby, leukemia and Bobby's momma suspect no. 1 are also marked IMPERATIVE on her hit list.

hoo wee, we are in for some fun and games.