www.dovecatrescuesanctuary.org.uk

November 2007

Christmas greetings from Dove Holes! We are well into our winter regime as we ransack “the bedding department” for warm fleeces for our chilly residents.

Up to two months ago our year had been quite a good one health-wise, but a sudden outbreak of sneezing and diarrhoea has meant some colossal veterinary bills and, sadly, the deaths of several of our kittens. Lets hope this bad patch will soon pass as we are still being asked to take mothers and kittens in despite this worrying situation. Unfortunately, but understandably, kittens born this late in the year cannot cope with illness very well.

On the plus side, our food stocks are holding up well, thanks to all of you who help us in this way. We very much appreciate your all-year-round generosity.

Our fund-raising efforts were dealt a blow earlier in the year when Macclesfield Borough Council changed its policy with regard to the hiring of Disley Community Centre, where we hold our Coffee Mornings. The Council decided they could no longer include public liability insurance in the hire charge – each individual organisation must find their own cover. This caused quite a headache for some months, as some of the quotations we received were just out of the question for our small sanctuary. Things were looking rather bleak on the coffee morning front, but we eventually found an insurance company that specialises in voluntary groups and charities. With some financial help from Paul Crank (Crank Peach the Estate Agents) we have now been able to insure our two dates for 2008, and have just held a very successful November coffee morning.

A lady who took one of our kittens in the autumn turned out to be the Events Manager at the University of Derby in Buxton. She suggested we should take a couple of tables in (or under) the magnificent Dome, formerly the Devonshire Royal Hospital, to raise some money. It was to this awe inspiring venue that Branwen and Hilary, armed with an interesting mix of cat beds, books, CDs and videos, jewellery and bright woolly scarves, arrived one cold November morning. By lunchtime we had raised £90. We will be back, and thank you, Christine, for the invitation.

Another fund-raising event took place one sharp October morning when three of our ladies of a certain age sallied forth at 7:30 am to set up a modest stall at a local Car Boot Sale. Fortified with bacon butties, they coaxed and cajoled their way through the morning and raised a respectable £70!

You may have noticed that we have not included an order form for calendars this year. Sadly, we have not been contacted by, or been able to contact, the gentleman who usually organises this project. We have had lots of enquiries from people who love to buy the calendars as presents, but we are sorry to say there won’t be any this year.

Despite all the moaning and groaning, we have had some very welcome donations over the past year. For example, a lady from High Lane who has now moved to a retirement apartment has sent a generous donation in memory of all the cats she has had from Dorothy over the past twenty years. We have also had a generous donation from a Poynton businessman and his wife, and a keen-eyed lady from Marple regularly sends us money which she insists she finds on pavements! Our loyal friend Dot, a pensioner from Eccles, has come up trumps once again with a very welcome donation made up of all her small change saved up over the year, plus some lovely crocheted cat blankets and bric-a-brac for our coffee morning sales. As this newsletter is being written, a thoughtful lady has sent her heating allowance cheque to help keep our kittens warm this winter. We thank her for this very kind gesture, as we do a lovely couple from Disley. Their latest donation was sent following a request by them for money for charities for their Golden Wedding, rather than presents.

A particularly touching letter came earlier in the year from Lady Jenny Melmoth, the Macclesfield author. Her lovely, talented cat Amber, also an author (she wrote “Dear, Dear, Mary”), died at the age of 16 in April, and Lady Melmoth kindly sent us a donation in her memory. Thank you, Amber, for your contribution to our work.

These are just a few examples of your generosity and we wish we could mention you all – like the people who hand us a cheque, with an encouraging word and a smile, at our Coffee Mornings – very often because the cat they have chosen from the Sanctuary has brought them so much pleasure.

Let’s finish this part of the newsletter with one more big thank you, this time to Diane Huxley of Mellor, who paints equestrian and dog portraits. She has painted a stunning portrait of Leela, her own Sanctuary cat, and produced some blank cards, individually wrapped in cellophane, for us to sell at our Coffee Mornings, with all the proceeds going to help our cats.

Karen, our intrepid cat rescuer, has once again been experiencing the joys (?) of bringing cats and kittens out of really dreadful circumstances, often after some patient bargaining with decidedly unpleasant and uncaring people. A six-week-old kitten was found on a rough estate in Manchester. He was very cold, hungry, and very alone. Back with Karen he didn’t leave the radiator for two days, but when he did the transformation was remarkable. He quickly developed a wonderful character together with an enormous appetite, and is now a very important member of a caring family in Poynton.

Karen has to bite her tongue on numerous occasions as you can imagine, but almost didn’t manage it when she went to a house to rescue three black and white kittens which she called Nella, William and Jo-Jo. A young woman had put them out of the house with the words “I thought if I stopped feeding them they would just go away.” Karen’s response cannot really be repeated here, but let’s just say the lady was left in no doubt what Karen thought of her. Sadly William died, but Nella has been homed, and Karen is still looking after Jo-Jo.

Another example of sheer irresponsibility and callousness was displayed by the woman who asked Dorothy to take some of her twelve cats, as she was moving house. Dorothy agreed as the woman lived in a bad area and she suspected that feeding twelve cats had become a problem. It was suggested that the younger cats came into the Sanctuary, as they would be easier to re-home. Instead, we were sent her oldest cats (so much for loyalty on her part) – hungry and needing flea treatment. It then emerged that the woman had acquired two beautiful kittens that were still un-neutered at ten months. When the subject of neutering for these two was raised, the response was most definitely in the negative, as she wanted them to have “beautiful kittens of their own”. And then ask us to take them in when the novelty has worn off. . . . . . . . . .?

Despite the frustrations, Karen (thankfully) soldiers on and invariably finds comfort and satisfaction in finding wonderful homes for the cats and kittens she rescues – as we all do. She therefore wishes to thank, through this newsletter, all the caring people who have adopted cats over the past year – and so say all of us.

Finally, some stories about individual cats that have touched a collective nerve. Flora and Finlay come to mind – two delightful young cats that had been kept in a cupboard in a fifth floor flat in Brinnington. Understandably they were very subdued for a while and did not seem to realise that they could actually go into their outside run and get some fresh air. Yes, but they had never seen a cat flap! After some patient tuition from various elderly ladies on their stomachs holding open the aforementioned flap, Flora and Finlay got the message and have now been successfully re-homed.

The older cats that come in can be a problem but not for some kind people. Lulubelle, a grey Persian with a sweet nature, had been owned by a lady who had been taken into care. A former helper at the Sanctuary spotted her and took her home where she now sleeps with the dog. Scruffy, a handsome twelve-year-old black and white, longhaired, tail-less cat had been sent to a rescue centre with another cat when their owner died. A lady was persuaded to take them both. She was reluctant to do so, but when she tried to take Scruffy back because she couldn’t cope with the two of them, the centre refused to take him. He then came in to us and has just been homed with a very nice young lady who announced she would like to take one of our “difficult” cats. Thank you Lucy, and well done Scruffy!

You may have read recently in the national press about a cat called Sergeant Podge who waits for his owner to pick him up in the car each day on her way home from school. We had our own Sergeant Podge for a time – her name was Missy. She too was an older cat that had developed a wonderful relationship with her owner, so much so that she used to meet him at the bus stop every day and accompany him home. Missy, a dignified tortoiseshell, became distraught when her owner had a stroke. When the paramedics came to the house to take him to hospital, they had difficulty getting near the gentleman as Missy refused to leave his side. Sadly, Missy’s owner died some weeks later as she fretted in the Sanctuary. She was clearly deeply affected by the incident and never really reached the stage where she could be re-homed, as her temperament was so unpredictable. Some months later, however, she was offered a home at a farm, where as far as we know she is happily living out her days.

A clever piece of deduction on Dorothy’s part led to a tearful reunion in the Sanctuary yard. A Chapel-en-le-Frith family had lost their beloved black cat. He had been missing for about ten days and extensive advertising, including a phone call to the Sanctuary, had failed to locate him. In the meantime a gentleman who lived in a remote area on Long Hill contacted the Sanctuary to say he had been visited by a black cat that he had never seen before. Dorothy said she would take him in (the cat, not the man), and knowing it was a long shot telephoned the Chapel-en-le-Frith family. The two cars arrived simultaneously in our yard. One peep into the car, cries of joy and tears all round – it was the same cat. Another happy ending.

Our last story is about Oscar, who surprisingly is still with us, despite the fact that he is a disturbingly handsome Bengal cross. Could it possibly be because, when he lived on a caravan site, he regularly attempted to remove rabbits from their hutches? Or because he entered a neighbour’s caravan and successfully removed from a cage, and devoured, the budgie therein? Surely not, but then he is part Bengal and very, very handsome. He knows he can get away with murder.

Well, that seems to be all our news for now. Thank you for reading our newsletter, and for your continuing and vital support of our Raffle. Your help at this busy, and expensive, time of the year is very much appreciated. Please keep in touch and send us photographs of cats we have homed with you – they are all so special.

A tailpiece:

“Out-thinking a cat that doesn’t much want to come in, is a refinement of Chess”.

(Dominic Courcel)

As always our very best wishes go to you and your families for a happy Christmas and a healthy and peaceful 2008.

Coffee Mornings 2008

Saturday 22 nd March (Easter Saturday) and Saturday 15 th November – Disley Community Centre – 10:00 ‘til 12:00 noon.