What's up with all the Cats?

Moose before and after

Back in late 2020, when we walked along the highway bridge due to no people, we found Moose. Since then, several key things happened:

1. Barry became very much a cat person despite having allergies.
2. We learnt about the cat situation in Singapore.
3. We found cats and they found us.

Moose

Moose, who's full story is here, will be 5 this year. He says that his fabulousness encouraged us to help other cats glow up. He's not wrong.

Harvey Bodhi before and after

After Moose, we met Harvey Bodhi, who had the best transformation of all. On the left, his face was swollen and I edited out some of the pain dribbles. On the right, smart and playful thanks to his amazing adopters. To confirm, we do not keep the cats, we get them new homes.

Tigger

In the beginning, we didn't look for cats, they found us. Tigger was walking along a multi lane intersection. But after each of these lovely cats got adopted, we would ease our empty cat nest sorrows by petting the local community cats. These cats live in and around apartment building communities, and are fed on a schedule by local feeders, supported by donations etc.

Tigger

The more time you spend with rescue cats, community cats and vets, well, the more you realize community cats are often well fed, but not very healthy, unfortunately.

Marcel (Donut)

Marcel, (formerly known as Donut since we found him the day Tim Horton's opened), was our first intentional community cat rescue. He was malnourished, which we found was due to the general parasitic load he bore.

Marcel

It's not his fault, and this is common. The cats we've rescued have generally had some combination of lice, fleas, gut parasites, worms, ear mites, ringworm, other fungi, random fevers and infections. They are often well fed but malnourished as a result of parasites and/or food spoilage in the tropical heat, which is why they have drastic fur improvements as they heal.

Marcel

Recently, we have figured out how to get involved a bit more formally, and have been able to trap, neuter and return six more timid strays in our local community. Jeju here was very surprised. (Also, this cool speckled fur is common in Singaporean cats.)

Jeju (TNR)

Lately, there has been an excess of cats in our local community housing after a cat hoarding situation. Since these buildings will soon be torn down, we have tried to help more of the cats. Both of these two had major fur loss due to overgrooming stress (cat equivalent of nail biting).

Nakia (formerly Melba)

We've now rescued six cats, sterilized another six (and treated one elderly curmudgeonly lady).

Pinto: Glow Up in Progress. Note fur regrowth.

We're not going to turn this into a full operation, for various reasons including Barry's need to use his lung capacity for air rather than fluid. (Also, I can't get the cats to pay for their own vet care, though you can see Pinto working on it here.)

Now, I've written this without a goal or conclusion, and I don't want to be a patronizing jerk, but I'll end it with some requests.

1. If you are thinking about getting a cat, please help a rescued cat through one of many organizations out there. Or let me know!
2. If you want to rescue, foster, take care of and adopt out a cat, please let me know! This is a short term (up to 2 months) commitment, with some marketing effort.
3. All of our rescues have been adopted by friends of friends, so please spread the word!

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