busy long weekend

it's the man's bday but there's work to be done. they visited Socks who is very happy in his new home. he now lives in the lap of luxury in a hip city studio with direct view of the singapore flyer. lucky cat!





yeah, we can see you are totally at home there!

at dinner

dinner conversation turns to the topic of the animal family today. it is quite usual then for friends to start wondering about whether it is right to lock up cats. today, they also thought about whether it is right to let Bak Bak continue to face his fate. this mind you, coming from a doctor.

as cat welfare volunteers, we know our course of action. but it does throw up some food for thought. what is more important? to be free or to be free from suffering? in our crazy world, these two values are in increasing opposition. in many instances, you can only fulfill one to the detriment of the other.

humans usually have a choice, to live with abandonment or to live cloistered. to plead doctors to save you at all cost or to give them an advanced medical directive. us cats do not have that kind of control over our fate so these well-meaning moral wranglings about being free or free from suffering hold no real meaning for us. ultimately, survival and pain is just as much a part of life as everything else.

so if you have to make choices for us, we only ask that you make them with the conviction of your love. if you must keep us in, do it because you can give us your best. if you must help us along to a better place, let it be because you done your best. if you must allow us to hold on to this precious bitter sweet life to the very end, let it never be in darkness, away from your presence, your thoughts and your prayer.

already, to have you make any decisions about us makes us the lucky ones, over the many whose fates are left to blow in the wind.



saved from AVA, our community queen, Frazzle, still rules the roost.

Bak Bak's legs

it's happening, as if losing one is not bad enough.

Bak Bak is losing control of his hind legs. while he still has sensation in them, they just won't prop him up anymore. it is therefore pretty amazing that with the partial lameness and blindness, Bak Bak hasn't once shown signs of being distressed. he eats, he is curious and he never fails to respond to affection. we wonder if he is oblivious to his condition. if the woman holds him up from behind, he will paddle his way around the house like it's any normal day, except that he has this clumsy person behind trying to keep up.

but we are not kidding ourselves here, the vet doesn't offer much hope...

so we take our blessings where they come. after the passing of our dear rabbit, Tuxedo rose to the challenge by making it a point to fill our rabbit's larger than life paws. he became the one who gave comfort to Bak Bak. it does present a painful dilemma. do we risk Tuxedo catching the virus? do we let Bak Bak live out the rest of his life alone? in the end, we let the two friends enjoy their time together as long as we dared. but Bak Bak is in his own space now.


Tuxedo is no doubt one of the least news-making member of this family. ever since they arrived as a bunch of kittens with a serious eye infection, he has lived in perpetual shadow of his sister, Calico. she was the one who needed more time and attention from being the more sickly and subsequently, from the sheer force of her personality. and Tuxedo remained the one who operated behind the scenes. he was Leafty's champion when most of the kittens have left or grown up and out of their childhood friend, he was and still is a giving big brother to a sister who isn't always appreciative. and now, he is an angel to a sickly Bak Bak.

being this quiet and unassuming makes it easy to get lost in this bustling household. when the more extroverted of us have tired of imposing ourselves on the woman with our chatter and antics, that is when he shows up to lie his head on her arm or leg. the woman makes it a point that his silent nudges for attention do not go unnoticed.


most of all, the woman will never forget how Tuxedo was the one that stood by her when she cried over Leafty and for that, he holds a very special place in her heart.

perils of a chain smoker

woman hears about an old feeder in the neighbourhood who chain smokes with cats in the apartment. apparently she will not open a single window in the apartment for a variety of reasons.

this news comes from *Wendy* who knows her from their nightly rounds to feed strays. she wants the woman to mesh up the old feeder’s windows to let in a little air for the cats. that is the easy part. convincing the old feeder is quite another matter.

for a start, the old feeder sounds like your typical hardnosed, mistrustful, paranoid, cranky old woman. when wendy brought up the issue to her, she burned her bridges and slammed the door on her long time friend. and then there is wendy herself, who is working herself into a relapse. she is extremely agitated, constantly calling and smsing the woman to belabour her few circular points. i. "the cats are going to die" ii. "the old feeder is crazy" iii. "you must help" iv. "the cats are going to die" v. "the old feeder is crazy"... you get the picture.

there is no walking away from this, of course. what is the worst that can happen? the old feeder will wreck the door slamming it and wendy will scream blue murder that the woman did not follow her precise instructions to the tee. can't be worse than not trying.


even without smoke, we can't imagine closing a single window at our place!

last breath

thanks everyone for your kind words.

Leafty’s peaceful passing at home is a real consolation to us but brings back a lot of guilty feelings towards the passing of Bobby. in their mindless attempt to save him, he was put through a lot of treatments at the hospital and the worse part was that he died there alone in the middle of the night, before the man and woman could get to the hospital.

animals don’t know the good intentions of hospitals and drips, they only know if you are there with them or you are not.

when the woman finally got to the hospital to see his lifeless body, his tortured expression haunts her to this day. We know he is in a better place now, waiting happily and patiently for the reunion of the family. but on his last breath on earth, he must have been thinking, “where are all of you?”

the end of an era

the man and woman left Leafty in his favourite nook under Bak Bak's chin yesterday morning. that was their last memory of Leafty. he left us during the day.

it was his look of peace and quiet dignity that consoled the woman. the albino dwarf rabbit who arrived from spca with pee stains on his snow coat lived his life with his heart wide open and left it the same way, deeply connected to everyone around him. even ailing, he did for the kitten no less than what he had done for countless others before him. for Bak Bak, he showed that the cat's instinct to withdraw from the sense of our own weakness is no way to live at all.

and so your work here is done. rest now, little one.

Tuxedo stood by as the woman said her final goodbyes to that small bundle of love. Bak Bak has not gone back to the spot he shared these months with his special friend.

in preparation for their new journey

everyday now is a gift. another day to say goodbye.

both leafty and bak bak have taken a turn for the worse. we only hope that leafty will not see bak bak go first as he is our rabbit's final comfort.

joo chiat auntie

another old cat auntie has fallen on desperate times. a fire gutted hers and three other shophouses along joo chiat road, nearly burning her to death and taking away the lives of some 12 cats.

we can only imagine the trauma of this experience for the joo chiat auntie and her remaining animals. some of the cats are now in various stages of recovery. one dog is dying from smoke inhalation and exhaustion.

the woman spoke to the volunteer who has been helping this joo chiat auntie for the past 15 years. it is good people like her who have helped kept the sanity in this situation and gotten supplies enough to cobble up a decent existence for the auntie and her animals in a short amount of time.

but the sense of desperation and despair lingers, compounded by the fact that the auntie’s financial situation has taken an irreversible turn for the worse and finds it almost impossible to sustain the rent and food for the animals in the house as well as the ones on the streets that she dutifully feeds.

any financial help at this point will really make a difference. drop a line to the animal family if you can spare some loose change and we will hook you up.
__________________

this comes close on the tail of the old hoarder lady’s situation, which thankfully, has reached a kind of milestone with the clean-up, sterilization and rehoming. this massive exercise was able to build up a lot of momentum, bringing together a lot of people and seen tremendous results, for the condition of the flat, the many cats that went to good homes and the health of the remaining animals. mostly thanks to jaime, janet and lynn.

it did all end on a strained note over the tragic fate of Ezra. whatever lingering feelings of anguish, hurt and resentment, they do not take anything away from all the good that has come out of this collective effort. Ezra's loving nature won the hearts of all the people who came in contact with him. where he is now, he continues to smile down on ah ma and everyone that has been touched by him.

now, what is left for the living is the less glamourous task of maintenance. weekly visits and cleaning are still very much on the cards to give ah ma a few much needed pairs of extra hands as well as to keep her grounded and connected. there is also the question of where the next supply of cat and dog food will come from that will keep the animals properly fed and off the chicken heads.

heavy on the volunteer's minds right now is the unenviable task of bringing ah ma down to visit the last remaining cat at the vet’s. she screamed when she heard that Big Head will not make it. she has been shouting for the cat ever since.

the volunteers don’t know if bringing ah ma down is a good idea, but if any one of them were in her shoes, this would be what they would want, however unbearable the inevitable parting.

3am call; foster needed

our eccentric neighbour *Wendy* woke us up with a 3am call railing about how her cats are giving her so much stress she is going nuts. in her unkind 3am 'you woke me up for that?!' state, the woman felt that NUTS was the operative word here...

against our advice, Wendy took in one more cat over the 3 she already has in the flat causing one of her existing ones to picket in protest by spraying her furniture any chance it got. at first, Wendy was appealing for the woman to take her offending cat in in hopes that we can toilet train before returning to her. but the cat is not losing its toilet training by accident here. as long as the new cat is in the flat, she is going to be upset and act up.

the woman's advice for Wendy is to give up one of the cats and is actively looking for a loving and patient foster right now who can give this distressed cat a break.
_____________________

this and the case of the old hoarder lady really drive home the fact that more needs to be done for our old and alone. and not just to provide the basics like food, hygiene and shelter. their solitary lifestyles give them no release for their stress and grief and the result is an inward imploding state and a string of irrational bad decisions. gone on long enough, any well-meaning people who want to help can do little more than wade through their woolly self-seeking obstinacy to an uneasy friendship that is frustrating for both parties.

the question the woman would like to ask is, is there a way back from where Wendy and the old lady have wandered?

cleaning out the old hoarder lady's roach-infested cabinet the other day, the woman came across all her old photos, all smeared with roach droppings, and sees a life full of potential, with people, family and events. the old lady was anxious to remind the volunteers not to throw them away. so they are cleaned and stored, all these imprints of people that are no longer there. there was a full-colour laminated A4 photoshop-ed poster of the old lady and her 2 dogs which seemed recent. the old lady told her it was done by friends, but they no longer come to visit.

in the process of cleaning and painting the old lady's flat, the woman has seen both the soft and the cold mercenary side of the old lady, been exceedingly frustrated and been touched. the way forward is still fraught with uncertainties but the transformation of the flat has motivated the old lady to try in her own small ways to maintain it that way. she is also more willing to listen to the volunteers' suggestions and to let go of some of her animals. the woman hopes in her heart that this progress will not be undone by them becoming yet another collection of friends who no longer come to visit.


the woman wonders how many of us would turn out like this? the statistics on the solitary elderly and the mentally volatile are certainly against us.

the best counters the woman can think of are to build up our networks while we can, keep akin to this changing world, and break our hard habit for the material. in the old lady's cabinet are bags, jewelery, liquor, ginseng and clothes from all eras. they probably meant something at some point. now all they do is clog up her world and her mind with their irrelevance.

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?!

time of our lives

Leafty is getting on in years. 3 months ago, he developed an alarming head tilt from which the vet wasn't confident he could recover. we were preparing for the worst but he came back strong like a second wave and is now skipping and hopping round the house like he is rediscovering it afresh. he also has a renewed fascination with us cats so the timing cannot be more perfect that we have a new kitten in the house. watching the child and the second child is enough to stir the forgotten adolescence in all of us!

there have been other signs that the family is more than maturing. some of us are quite certainly heading into full retirement. Papa is wheezing, barely perceptibly, but a wheeze nonetheless that wasn't there yesterday. and Bak Bak, the tom that chose to stay, has a full-blown infection from FELV.

so the woman's gentle giant is preparing for the final wind-down, responding enthusiastically with his trademark squeak when nuzzled, rubbed or carried but otherwise hardly stirring from his favourite spot in the laundry basket. he might yet pull a Leafty and surprise us all. whatever happens, we are glad he has been living out the best times of his life here with us. we can't ask for much more than that.

stay strong, Bak Bak!







whatever Leafty is doing, it's working. see the difference between Bak Bak's eyes now and the scary before (below)!

my oh my

there are no pregnant cats in our area so where did this guy come from? the woman went hunting for the incessant meowing downstairs and found this little thing tucked in someone's shoe rack. the family says they have never seen the kitten before so this is a mystery.



yet another for the adoption boards.

in the mean time, that means camping in the utility room until the kitten stops waking the neighbours with its cacophony. he was spitting and hissing at the man and woman at first, then he cried when they went away. contrary little thing. but after a night in a warm spot under the sleeping bag next to the woman, he was finally quite ready to entertain himself and took over the sleeping bag with gusto when the woman left for work.

(update: Socks has been adopted!)

gremlin for adoption

our friend had this little surprise waiting for him at his void deck when he went out for breakfast. the woman is not allowed to look at these pictures too closely or she will become singapore's next hoarder...




please contact us if you are interested to adopt, the kitten is absolutely adorable and more photos can be found here. you can also help us decide what sex it is, the friend can't tell but judging from the photos, the woman's guess is male...

(update: we were told the family that lost him claimed him back...)

nation of tattle-tales

it’s a tough job being a good neighbour. your children should never be too loud or have too much fun, you as an example to them, should never have any fun at all throwing after-10 parties, enjoying loud music, indulging in insect-breeding plants, loving disease-carrying pets, have questionable lifestyles, questionable religious practices, non-singaporean-looking people stick around who speak all sorts of odd languages or show any interest in your neighbour as no one appreciates a busybody. (suck in breathe)

the best neighbours it seems, are working couples who don’t come home till late and have no time for hobbies, TV and sex.

if the town council officers think they are overwhelmed with complaints now, have they thought what it would be like when we do fulfill our national vision of a fertile vibrant diverse 6m-strong melting pot of cultures and lifestyles? If we are a nation of tattle-tales today, i shudder at the hubbub when our precious newborns and esteemed foreign friends take the pledge and become true blue Singaporeans tomorrow.

mr mah, you say you receive 530 complaints on cats every year from the residents. i hate to tell you but things are not likely to get better for either of us. 4.5m people = 530 complaints, 6m people = 706 complaints. 706 complaints, I can see, would be all the more reason you would say your stance is indeed the ideal one. the way i see it, we are looking at a long hard blistering road of discord between cat haters and cat lovers for as long as you are here and i am here. don’t forget, the numbers on my side will swell too.

and so the argument that the number of complaints that TCs receive is a good gauge of public sentiment and apt justification for curbs and restrictions is another fine example of rational reasoning that doesn’t do anyone any good. moreover, the attitude behind it frankly runs counter to the rhetoric about embracing a vibrant diverse gracious society.

for one thing, it tells people they have to be part of the majority or they are a problem. for another, it rewards a lot of people who simply do not make any effort to connect with neighbours who aren’t like them.

perhaps the way forward to resolving neighbourly angst is not to come up with more restricting laws and by-laws but to break this culture of complaints altogether, by helping to bridge differences and build relationships.

if it were deemed perfectly normal that some people keep cats as pets and care for strays, and perfectly understandable that some people fear and dislike cats, then everyone would have no choice but to find a middle ground. if we are to succeed as a model of multi-racial/faith/cultural graciousness to the rest of the world, finding middle ground is precisely what we all need to be good at.

proud to be a cat auntie

if you have been following the local cat blogs, you might have heard about a hoarding case of an old woman in a roach/maggot-infested 3-rm flat, which she shares with 40 unsterilised cats, 2 dogs and 2 tortoises.

it is rightly called a house of horrors, with black streaked walls, cobwebs, flying roaches, sick animals, dead animals, broken tiles over which animals defecate, everywhere. and in the midst of all these, a stubborn cranky suspicious forgotten old woman.

a couple of cat aunties discovered this and with understandable trepidation but unusual courage, took it upon themselves to help her. jamie and janet, i don't know what classes you did at school, for darn sure, everyone else should have gone to the same!

they started the ball rolling and inspired a lot of people along the way to get involved, the woman being one of them. Babywail's Shelter gives a complete rundown of the events surrounding this case, Lynn being one of the pioneer volunteers herself.

for sure, a case like this draws much attention and on some forums, even on Lynn's blog, there has been some contentious comments. some said that the old woman should be locked up, some said the animals should be taken away from her, some said that the volunteers are taking things into their own hands and the authorities should be involved, one even hoped the old lady will die soon.

our woman won't even be bothered to answer the person who posted that last comment.

her initial reaction from discovering this case was also that the old woman should be in a home as she seems to have a condition, obviously can't take care of herself, much less the animals. but upon meeting the old woman, she did an about turn.

this old woman is far from being non-functioning. and the bond between her and her animals is undeniable. she is frail for sure but lucid she still is, sometimes to the point of sharpness. she understands, but she is unable. she feels, but she is resigned. she doesn't have a mental problem. she is just trapped in the unforgiving state of being old and alone.

the final nail in the coffin of despair would be to take away the last of her freedoms and in particular, the little ones who love her so dearly when everyone else had gone away. she simply needs warm human bodies with friendly faces and willing hands, which in a world population of 6.684 billion, is in short supply.

so until the day we have a solution for the helpless that wouldn't conclusively break their human spirit, no easy decision can be made in a case like this and for better or worse, the authorities and the organisations have stayed distantly silent.

and so the day is saved by a swat team of cat aunties armed with face masks, shower caps, mops and cat traps. partial to both human and animals, they don't choose one over the other and save them all. they fundraised, they scrubbed, they sterilised, they befriended. their special ability? having ears close to the ground (often an excellent source of information), great powers of persuasion (try outtalking a cat auntie), speaks all the local dialects, networks with handy people like taxi drivers and contractors, garang, gung-ho, and most importantly, not afraid to get hands dirty.

it is our hope that when the conditions of the flat and the animals have stabilised and the old woman's trust in people regained, people will come back, family, social workers, befrienders. in the mean time, she has the formidable cat aunties and that is nothing to turn your nose up at.

animal family mugshots

HEADLINE: Constable Tooty Cleans Up The Family

suede - CAUGHT! gave false information to get $1m reward for capture of puss selamat "thorry lar thir, i thot i thaw a limp."

rosie - CAUGHT! forgery and abuse of animal family funds
"sir, i swear, not for personal gain."

chaplin a.k.a. chappy chap - CAUGHT! brokering kidney between downstairs stray cat and upstairs fat cat
"one want to buy, one want to sell, i only want to help."

calico - CAUGHT! stealing squirt bottle from utility camp
"i was confused."

Crime Boss Still At Large!

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...

best cat litter solution for multi-cat households

seriously, this works like a dream and it saves money and so much effort.

sometime ago on recommendation, we switched to the PeeWee cat litter system. i must say it works very well if you have a 1 - 2 cat to litter box ratio. not forgetting that we have a serious cat-count here, it became just as much effort to keep sand-free as previously with a normal box unless we ramp up to 5 - 6 peewee boxes, which is not practical in our small space. and not to mention the cost!

so now instead of using the wood pellets as they prescribe, we only line the bottom catchment area with them as we still find that wood pellets offer the best absorption and odour control. and this works just as well with the cheaper Pinnacle brand wood pellets.

on the top layer, we use the sand-free Breeders Choice recycled paper pellets instead. instantly, this cuts our cost to at least a third because the woman doesn't need to change the litter as often. best part, no more sand. voila!

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