Do you wonder about where they were before? Rescue Cats

[LovingChristmas]

I've had my cat for nearly three years, she followed me home one day all skinny and full of fleas, but gorgeous and sweet and bloody LOUD should have given it away then that she'd be demanding
I fed her as she was starving, door knocked over 100 houses, checked to see if she was chipped, rang every rescue in a ten mile radius, put ads in the paper and on the internet and still no-one claimed her.
Due to the rescues being chock full (it was the height of the recession) no one would take her in so we kept her whilst trying to find an owner, anyway it never happened and she wormed her paws under the table quickly.
We took her to be spayed and she'd already been done, she has never scratched anything (well us when we tease her, but no carpets etc), she was house trained, litter trained and everything. I still cuddle her and wonder who she belonged to and do they still miss the little demanding tortie that's so adorable, or is it as the Cats Protection suspect, she was dumped because of the rescues being unable to take her.

If you have rescues etc, or you've just adopted a cat, do you ever wonder what their life was like? I'd never part with her now (and she's chipped etc) but I do still worry someone somewhere is missing their furbaby.

We wonder what our old boy's life was like before we scooped him off the kerbside of a major road.

He had no injuries but his face is a bit lopsided and his back legs are wobbly and his eyes are poor and he freaks when in a cage or carrier but is happy in a pet holdall.

We had a major dental on him and the vet aged him at 8 and tho blood tests say he is internally healthy he is still 'off' but is generally happy and loves sleeping in our bed under the duvet day and night.

We recently introduced raw meat into his diet and his coat shedding has lessened and he loves it.

My first cat, Annie, was an unofficial rescue as we found her miaowing on our doorstep, skinny and starving hungry, when we came back from the pub one night! Fuelled by beer she was allowed in the house, then had full access to outside but showed no signs of wanting to leave!!!

3 weeks later after having phoned all the rescues, put up posters etc etc we spoke to CPL who agreed to cover the cost of spaying her (if necessary) and we took her to the vets (carried her there in a gym bag as we were skint, barely out of university and didn't have a cat basket ) where she was found to be about three years old, not chipped and not spayed.

13 years and three house moves later she is still with us (albeit with virtually no teeth left and on drugs for life for hypothyroidism) and is the most loved and loyal cat ever. And the best thing is, she is MY cat, everyone else is a poor second .

We have just got a second cat, Shadow, from CPL who has been with us for a month, settled in amazingly is absolutely gorgeous. Despite being two adult females, her and Annie get on really well and she also gets on great with our pug, Betty, I can't imagine life without her. We did actually pay an adoption fee this time and a bit extra, god knows what the vets must have thought with our first cat being in the gym bag, we probably didn't look like the best examples of cat owners

I was so sad when we weren't allowed rescue cats- we live on a boat and thy wouldn't even consider us. So we actually had to buy kittens! They are lovely cats- but I still regret not being able to give a lovely home to people who really needed it.

Mine was either a Russian spy or a hired thug, judging by his general attitude. Or possibly a furry Noo Yoik gangster. He only pretends that he lived with an old lady and too many lots of other cats in Staffordshire to cover his tracks. I reckon his stint in Cats Protection was all part of his new identity scam.

Our last rescue cat had a sad story. He came to us at the age of 11 with three legs and no teeth after being relinquished by his owner (due to not wanting to pay vet bills for all the extractions he needed).

It turned out that the SSPCA had had him in before when he'd been kept out on the landing of a block of high rise flats and had fallen off the balcony, resulting in a broken jaw, pinned bones in one of his legs and the loss of another leg.

He was the loveliest, most affectionate cat and very nimble, but sadly we lost him after only a few weeks when he developed osteomyelitis in his jaw, probably because of the multiple extractions and previous pinning of the broken jaw.

Our current rescue cat is a complete mystery - we were just told "change in owner's circumstances". She was far less sociable, was overweight and very greedy. She bolts her food and we wondered if there had been other cats or a dog who might have eaten her food if she didn't do that.

We've had her 8 years now and she's warmed up a lot and got quite soft and cuddly - still fat though

Our lovely little madam was adopted from battersea dogs home (but she is a cat!) when she was about 1. She had been found wandering, Not spayed, not chipped, no collar, never reported missing. When the home spayed her they found she was pregnant so she lost those kittens.

She has always been the friendliest, people centred cat I've ever had, so I find her a bit of a mystery. She can't have been feral or mistreated, but she clearly wasn't loved either. Maybe she was just so grateful to be rescued she fell in love with people. I often think about that year homeless in London she had. Now she is an indoor cat (her choice -we have a garden) and is soooo cuddly, and tolerant of the children. She's 5, and a lot fatter than when we got her!

We got a rescue cat last week from a local rescue place and I was just about to start a thread here to introduce myself! Toodcat is about 2 years old and has settled in really well. He was found in living rough and taken to the vets where he needed a hernia op. He is a big furry blob, friendly and litter trained so we don't think he has lived all his life on the streets, we think he was dumped when it was found that he needed an op but who knows??

I do wonder if there is someone out looking for him but the rescue place assured us that all steps had been taken to find any owners. Even though he has only been with us a week I would be gutted if I had to give him back.

We had a kitten we adopted, she had been given to two male students who had lost interest in her. Her collar was strangling her, she was feral and hadnt been spayed or had jabs.

We knew the mothers owners, usually they drowned the kittens when they got to a certain age.

cats mothers owner "do you want to play with the kittens FLC77?

Me, no not today Ill come round tomorrow,

CMO, but there being drowned tonight. This was 1992ish. Bastards.

So we took her in, she caused chaos with our three established cats but we couldnt just leave her there. She never really trusted us, she was always prepared to run at a moments notice. It was awful to realise that she had been hit, if you raised a hand to her she would cower, if you did it to our other cats they didnt pay any attention.

But she had years and years with us having good food and fuss and regular vet care before getting cancer (cats are secret smokers, yes?).

Second rescue puss lived down the road with a family banned by the rspca from keeping pets, mom found him outside on a freezing night eating the left over food she put out for the hedgehogs. She bought him in and eventually he moved in and they moved on, they came up the road to get him back but he would run off and hide from them. He had a wound on his leg when they first got him from one of the dogs they kept. He loved my dad and again they had a few years with him before he died too. Very clever animal.

People are just vile arent they?

HI FLC77

Yes people are vile, but some of us (as proved by above) are soft sods and will do anything to help an animal (whatever it is) - I've even got a rescue snake, although my cat is curious and thinks he's a giant toy

I guess that there will always be muppets who have pets without knowing the ins and outs and nasty people who just want shooting, we just have to hope that we balance them out!

I paid a local wildlife rescue service to put a wild baby rabbit down in the summer, it had mixy and was lying in the road. I drove home with it on my lap. You cant just let an animal suffer can you?

I bet the snake doesnt think the cats a toy!

Snake only eats large dead mice, so cat is too big, although I'm sure he's like to practice!! The cat doesn't get why snake can have mice (which she has swiped and played with a few times during the defrosting process) but we remove the caught ones she brings us as presents
I hit a rabbit once and was devastated, I didn't kill it, I'd completely squashed its back legs, my DH who has gone rabbiting in the past was given the choice of breaking it's neck instantly or putting it in the car and we found a vets (it was gone midnight) he thankfully, very quickly put it out of it's misery and I cried all night!

First cat that was 'mine' (not family) was a 9 yr old, blind, epileptic little darling. She was a cat that was rescued as a week old kitten, by my mum who worked for the CP at the time. It was the first 'rescue' she ever did, along with her sister and their mother (suzi, named after me). She sat cuddled into my tummy in the car, as there was some problem with going in the cat box with her mum/sister. She found her home with one of the foster carers. When she was emigrating years later, she was looking for her to be homed to someone who knew her, was happy to manage her condition and who would keep her indoors only. I was a student in a top floor flat so I was an obvious choice. Had her 6 brilliant months, but she had sudden kidney failure.

Next cat found us less than 2 weeks later. We had just moved into a new house and I heard a kitten yelling from the car park at my work late one evening. It wasn't a kitten, but a HUGE muscley tabby. He had been mooching there for days, near dual carrigeway, and I couldn't leave him in case he was run over. We didn't intend to keep him. His owner never came for him, though we suspect he had been straying a while as despite being in good nick, he had very cracked skin on his paws. He had a strong heart murmur, so was perhaps evicted for that. We had him 11 years. I'll always wonder about him - he was a lovely cat, well mannered, never once went on the worktops or 'stole' food that wasn't for him. He had clearly been brought up well and loved. He LOVED the bed sheets being changed, so much so that we used to lock him out the house to do it as he wasn't much help. I had to pin him under the fitted sheet and he would work his way out lol. But HATED the doorbell going. We always wonder if he was a hotel cat.

Current kitten is from a local rescue shelter. I started volunteering there when our cat died as I wanted to be around cats, but DH didn't want another and it was too soon for DS and DD. She would grab my ponytail and try and eat it. When we decided to get a kitten, she was a good choice. I think she had been in a couple of homes before she arrived there at 10 weeks - one home was allergic to her.

There are so many stories so many of them have to tell. Some of them it's so obvious they've been through such hard times or horror. There is one in the shelter at the moment that is so emaciated it breaks your heart to look at her. Then she purrs and just wants a bit of a fuss and you realise she's just happy to be somewhere that's going to help turn things around for her.

Frilly Cat1 was from CPL. She was about 18 months old and had been living with a mum and 2 little girls. On her arrival the CPL vet found she had a sewing needle in her head and it had gone rusty it had been there so long.

She is a lovely looking cat (black with huge green eyes). It took her about 30 minutes to settle in to our house and about 2 days to dominate all the back gardens! I think she hadn't been that well looked after though. When she first came here she tried to eat everything including toast and tinned soup and she still (4 years later) gets very upset if you try to stroke her head or pick her up. She loves DH though. We think she had been treated like a toy by the small children and that the needle must have made stroking painful for her. She disappears in seconds if a toddler visits!