A stressed out Mother cat arrives.

Kittens are overtaking the place!  We have admitted a very sweet tabby/ginger mum  who is not much more than a kitten herself , she was taken in as a stray with a litter of 4 by a local family ,but they were worried that their hectic household full of children and dogs was proving too much for the cat to cope with and they were absolutely right. The mother cat was showing little sign of interest in nurturing what is probably her first

litter.Many young cats find motherhood difficult, as do  some young women  and iof there is any  By the time Rhian went to collect them the following day, she appeared very unsettled and had dropped one kitten coming down the stairs.Thankfully that baby was fine but a ginger youngster appears to have either neurological damage or has been born with a deformity, his tiny back legs are splayed out when he walks.He seems fine within himself, he is eating well and moving about the same as the other kittens but I think he will eventually need a safe indoor home as he will Im sure be permanently disabled.Poor little thing. The people had done their best , they were kind enough to give shelter to the little family and they did the right thing by ringing for help. Today mum has settled down and is caring well for her offspring.Pictured here with her babies which are in hiding behind her except for the kitten which fell down the stairs, as you can see he is bonny and lively.
Two more semi feral kittens have also been admitted and are really beautiful tortoishells but they need more handling before they are suitable to be adopted unless of course, we find that rarity - a person willing to take on a pet which has problems. Having just said that, I realised that in fact lately we have actually found a few such people so they are definitely out there! Sue and Graham from Plymouth are shortly to be taking on a very nervous young collie called Seren who had not seen thelight of day until we agreed to take her on. Her companion Cadi has already been
adopted by Ian and James and to quote them "we love her more and more each day" .Taking on a dog which has never had any socialisation can be very hard indeed but the rewards are so much greater too and when I hear from those kind people who have taken on pets with real problems it makes my day.I am so grateful that they keep in touch, its just so fantastic thinking of how that animal was when it first arrived at Freshfields and then to see how far he/she has come on is truly heartwarming.

There is a lot of coming and going at the moment with the work that is being done and little by little I can see it coming together.Now I feel that it will be finished in time for Open Day so I am very relieved.

Finally, an unexpected visit today from an Essex family who had last week reserved a kitten, resulted in the lurcher pup being adopted.She had been reserved but the home visit did not pass unfortunately and I was just about to contact the original people who expressed interest in her when this family arrived for the kitten and mentioned that they were after another dog.I explained that we only had a few which were fostered out but that I happened to have just one in the house.When I told them she was a lurcher they told me they had a rescued greyhound and another rescue so I felt happy they had some knowledge of this type of dog(they are not everyones cup of tea)They fell in love with her straight away so she has left us to become an Essex Girl! A good end to the day.