Not the best of photos, agreed. But oh my, that expression says it all… One totally pissed off puss. This is Missy when she was in our local cat’s home and really rather miserable. She had been dumped in a cardboard box in the driveway overnight. The first member of staff to arrive the following morning found her running round the front garden – next to a busy main road. Shows what her previous owners thought of her.
It took a while for them to catch Missy and get her into a pen. With no idea of her background or history, she was checked over by the vets and eventually moved into the compound area with a view to finding her a new home. Missy was not impressed by any of this and met all attempts at meeting potential new owners with an angry hiss and a swipe of viciously sharp claws. To say she was tetchy is an understatement. She had been at the home for quite a while when I began volunteering as a befriended, and had settled nicely into a routine of fending off all attempts to touch her. Missy was one of the few cats who did not have a collar because none of the staff could get close enough to put one on her.
My twice weekly visits gave me the chance to get to know the cats and I worked at socialising and playing with some of the more nervous ones to the point that they would go up to visitors instead of running away to hide. Some of them went to new homes which was rewarding. Unfortunately one of the rehoming officers would send the less socialable cats off to become farm cats, living in barns and keeping the rodent population down. I had started tentative negotiations with Missy and was almost able to stroke her ears when I learnt that this was the fate she was destined for. Despite her extreme tetchiness I knew there was a friendly cat in there and was devastated at this prospect. Missy did not like other cats any more than she liked people but she began to trust me and when she felt threatened would come to sit behind where I was sitting.
My daughter’s cat lives with us and is very attached to my daughter, and also very territorial. After speaking to her vet, who recommended introducing a new cat very slowly, we hatched a rescue plan for Missy. The cats home agreed to book her to us and we made preparations to turn our spare bedroom into Missy’s room. This included shifting my hoarded clutter into my bedroom and buying litter trays, food and a cat igloo, Missy’s preferred style of bed (well, it makes a good hidyhole). A few weeks later and everything was in place. Missy had a lovely new cat carrier – all I had to do was get her into it!
randomly thought blog 