Hi everyone.
firstly we are very sorry we haven't updated for a while
. As some of you may know as it was posted in other chat section Paul & I had a baby boy on the 25th July. He is a wonderful happy baby who we very nearly lost before he was here and spent the first 10 weeks of his life racing back & forth to hospital. Further complicating matters I was left paralysed down my left side and in both legs following his birth. Thankfully after a much extended stay in hospital I have slowly regained the use of my limbs again however they are much weaker and it may be a year or more before they are back to the wonky state they were in before. This is a very cliff notes version but I thought it only fair to let you know why we haven't been around.
over the last 4 weeks we have been trying to get back to a degree of normality... well if there is such a thing at Sunny Harbour lol.
What I can tell you though is that throughout all of this we have continued to do all we can for the rescue. We tried to get numbers down before Aeryns arrival and did get to 34 which is the least we have had in years. We closed the doors for about 8 weeks as we could barely function ourselves and our amazing band of volunteers were brilliant as always and helped keep things on track & the cats hugged and loved while we were running to and fro to hospital.
We re- opened the doors in Ernest at the end of October and within 36 hours numbers soared to 52 cats & kittens & we once again had to switch to emergencies only as we simply just do not have any where else for them to go. More and more cases continue to need spaces and we are literally struggling for space, keeping funds coming in and our sanity!!
Some of the cases we have dealt with in the last 3 months have included;
Diamond - a cat repeatedly dumped by his owners in a seperate part of town. Finally made his way to us and will be leaving to join his forever home in around a weeks time.
purdey - Some of you may remember this old girl who we were desperate to find a long term foster for. Well after just shy of a year we finally found one just a couple of weeks ago. She is settlign in really well and very happy thus far! Great result for her and we are over the moon for her.
Flynn
Flynn is yet another free ads cat that found his way to us via one of our volunteers. he was taken from a house in squalid conditions hiding under a bed at the back to keep out of the way of 3 children who were tormenting him. One of the worst conditions we have taken a cat from Flynn was nervous, reserved and covered in matts. He is now a happy, bubbly 1 year old boy ready to take on the word!
Nico
Sadly Nico has a very find coat and as a result her fur set off an allergic reaction and massive asthma attack in her owner. At just 16 weeks she found herself at the harbour and has thankfully found her new forever home and is settling in well.
Angel
Angel was taken to be PTS by her owners who no longer wanted her as she stress urinated and saw her as a problem. She is a cat that does stress and is a little temperamental but she has come on very well and we hope to find her a home of her own soon.
Beanie
beanie was being left 5 days a week on her own in a flat. Thankfully her owner eventually realised that this wasn't ideal and contacted us to rehome Beanie. She has been living like this for quite a while and this in turn has made her very withdrawn and timid. We were overjoyed to find her a happy, understanding and quiet home where she will head to tomorrow afternoon.
We were overjoyed to find homes for all 4 of the British Shorthair cats that we took from a single home that were in an appalling state of neglect.
and last but not least (well for now) Alfie.
Alfie came to us with his moggy companion Lily. This was Alfie on arrival a couple of weeks ago:
His right eye was badly swollen and surrounding tissue too. His eyes were weeping thick gungey 'yuk' for lack of a better word. His coat... well it was just one bit matt to be honest. We had to book him in right away to be shaved and this showed he has been like that for a while. His body and head had a few sores where the skin just could not breathe and we discovered he had had a skin graft to his eye at some point recently but no basic care provided to either him as a whole or the eye. He is exceptionally severe and our vets believe he will almost certainly have eye issues to some degree due to the severity of his facial features. How old is this wee cat??? believe it or not only 12 months old!!
This is a pic of Alfie on his return from the vets.
this is just a very small selection of the days & kittens we have continued to care for over this very busy & trying time & more appear all the time just as we are about to cease rehoming for Xmas.
We have just taken in 13 cats and kittens from 1 house and another litter of 5 kittens and are expecting this afternoon another 2 kittens and 1 adult on Thursday.
Some of our very kind adoptee's banded together to create Sunny Harbours very first Calendar which is fabulous to help us raise critical funds. They managed to feature 38 Sunny Harbour Babies and we have been delighted at how well received it has been.
I hope this gives you an idea of what has been happening at the harbour & will be back to update u all again soon. We hope this will be us back more regularly and are currently still trying to work out how best to juggle a baby, rescue and some form of a life of our own!!
