Days are beginning to get longer, which means spring is close!
I’m a summer girl. I need long sunny days and afternoons spent in the garden or at the beach. I wait all winter for signs of spring. I have a countdown app on my phone that indicates how many days are left until the end of winter. That end never comes soon enough.
At the same time, spring is also the season I fear the most. Spring is kitten season!
Every year around May or June I get the ‘gift’ of a new unwanted and very pregnant mama cat, or unwanted kittens. I always search for new families for them, but it is becoming more difficult as time goes by.
If you follow me on social media, you may have seen pictures of this kitten. Her name is Margherita and she was dumped here a few months ago. She has a cleft lip and a few balance issues which are improving with time. Due to her cleft lip, her nose has a funny flower shape and she snores a lot. She was quite shy and scared but now she’s a force of nature: she plays continuously, eats like a cow and loooovvves to cuddle. Her coat was matted and dirty: now she’s a ball of candy cotton.
Margherita is now about seven months old and ready to be neutered: and with her, I have to spay and neuter Valentino, Titti, Polly and Giorgio.
Every year around spring I do this thing I call the ‘Spay, neuter, love marathon’. There is usually a week in spring when I just run back and forth from the vet’s office with various cats who need to be fixed.
Valentino.
He was abandoned here with his very young and inexperienced mommy. Her mommy fed him regularly but didn’t care for him much. I never saw her licking him or playing with him. He was very small and under-stimulated. His mum is semi-feral and still lives with me here in the garden but I took Valentino inside as soon as he could eat solid food because I was worried about his development. He didn’t grow, almost at all.
After a couple of months, he had an infection which left him deaf and wobbly. Today his balance is almost perfect and he’s finally ready to be neutered. He also grew very chunky and strong! The vet said he probably had some bacteria in his system, and that was why he didn’t grow until he was on antibiotics due to the infection.
Titti.
She was abandoned here last summer. She was young but used to people, sweet and cuddly. I couldn’t tell if she was pregnant or just a little chubby because her belly was only a little pronounced… but after only two days at the cottage, she gave birth to two kittens: Polly and Giorgio. All three of them are still here. They have received a few adoption requests, but sadly from people I’d never give a cat or any other animal to.
The five of them are probably just a few of the cats who will run the ‘spay, neuter, love’ marathon this year because the number of strays around here is increasing again.
The vet bill here at Cat Cottage is a fixed expense: not a month goes by that I don’t have to bring at least one of the cats for a visit. But taking care of them, even if it’s sometimes emotionally demanding, is what shapes my life. My cats, the fact that I have to get up and work no matter what because I have these souls depending on me, is what has given me the strength to get through very hard times.
I have been living here at Cat Cottage for a little over 22 years now, and I have lost count of how many cats I have spayed and neutered. The cats I have given up for adoption are more than 50, even if I had to take back a few.
The main reason behind this website is to raise money to care for all the cats who are dumped here, to provide them with the best quality food and the best vets when they need medical attention. My dream was always to draw, live in the country and save animals. And this is what I am doing and will continue to do! Cats are the best!
Because of the upcoming spay, neuter, love marathon, there’s an active discount code on the store: use code ‘kittens25’ at checkout and get 25% off everything!
