One Lucky Kitten - Another CatCuddles Rescue

It has been a gruelling few days for CatCuddles’ volunteers, who worked back-to-back shifts of up to twelve hours on Saturday, Sunday & Monday to rescue a stray mother cat and her three kittens, one of whom stubbornly evaded capture until early this morning.

We first received news of the feline family earlier in the week, from a concerned resident in a housing estate in Belvedere.

The friendly mother cat had given birth in a garage on the estate some weeks ago, entering through a small gap, & had been living there ever since. At least three local people had contacted several major charities about the cats, becoming increasingly distressed at the lack of interest, before one was directed to CatCuddles.

Since volunteers had no access to the garage, which was private property, the only way to rescue the family was through ‘stake outs’; setting up specialised cat-traps at the entrance to the garage, monitoring them, and catching each cat, one by one.

The first day of trapping, though long and tiring, was successful; the mother cat and two of her kittens were caught and brought to safety by the early evening. However a final ginger & white kitten remained elusive - volunteers saw him only once, briefly. It was imperative that this final kitten was trapped since his chances of survival, alone, were slim. Releasing his mother was also a less than ideal option - it being a weekend, she could not be neutered till the following week, so release posed the risk of her evading capture a second time and becoming pregnant again.

As the trapping entered its eleventh hour, volunteers reluctantly decided to call it a night. The next day’s trapping yielded much the same results - there was no sign of the kitten, though volunteers employed every trapping trick in the book, & worked for around twelve hours in total.

On the third day, hope was waning, with no further sightings of the kitten.

Thankfully a text came around dawn the following morning from one of the local people assisting our efforts; the kitten had been spotted! Despite the early hour, two volunteers were quickly on the scene, & used smelly food and recordings of kittens crying to lure the kitten from the garage, inch by inch. Finally, when his body was all the way out, he was grabbed, a heart stopping moment that could have backfired if it was timed a second too late. He was rushed into a carrier, and into emergency foster care, where he was consoled with several large bowls of food, and named Kouna (pronounced Kona), an interpretation of the Japanese word for ‘Lucky’ - for obvious reasons. He has since been reunited with his family, but whilst his ordeal is over, our volunteer team’s hard work this busy season is far from it.

This is just one complex stray cat rescue that the charity has been involved in this summer, & fresh enquiries land in our inbox daily. Though our volunteer team remain steadfast in their dedication, their work rescuing cats & kittens cannot continue unless donations from the public also continue, to cover the considerable costs of each cat’s vet care and upkeep; a single healthy cat typically incurs costs of around £90 - £135 for full veterinary care and health checks alone.

Please continue donating to our Summer fundraiser - so that the next Kouna in need of our help will be just as lucky. Donate @ https://bit.ly/2Z2OQBX