Monday 10 January 2011

WHY I BLOG ABOUT CAT RESCUING

Firstly there are the obvious reasons, so let's get them out the way to start with.

1.  I love writing and have spent much of my spare time since my teenage years writing for pleasure be it fiction or non fiction..
2.  I love cats.
3. Cat rescuing and my general involvement with Animal Krackers plays an important part of my life, particularly since my retirement in August 2008.

However, the most important reasons I write about cat rescuing  are as follows.

I hope that my experiences in animal rescue will enlighten those who aren't aware of what it entails, while admitting that everyone involved will have different experiences, but then I can only write about mine with any authority. 

I hope that people who come across my blog will find it interesting and enjoyable  -if only by looking at the various photographs I post- and understand the delight I have in working to help cats (and  the occasional dog).

I hope it will inform people about cat behaviour and cat problems. 

Writing for this blog is also very different from writing for my Freethinking blog.  Freethinking is more varied in content but significantly it doesn't as a rule mention real people in real situations except when it's about something like a political issue. Catrescuing is all about real situations and, as a result, certain constraints are placed on me. I very rarely identify anyone by their full name and sometimes give them a false one or fudge certain details so as not to make them readily identifiable. Just recently someone I have dealings with has asked me not to include him/her in this blog and I feel obliged to accede to the request to respect this person's privacy.

What I am not prepared to do is alter the nature of this blog. I was recently told that people don't want sad stories of cats being put to sleep. They want happy stories about animals.

Well, if they do they'll have to go elsewhere. While I hope that this blog may encourage re-homing of animals that isn't its prime purpose. Animal rescue can be very rewarding work but it can also be heart-breaking, annoying, frustrating, and at times makes you feel like punching certain people. This is a warts and all blog not a bland icky  Hello, my name is Tiddles and I'm looking for a new mummy or daddy. 

At the weekend I was rung up by H and asked to help out an elderly lady who was having problems with a recently acquired cat and not being helped by a visiting relative. The following day I was rung up again and asked if I'd actually be able to take the cat. I made a couple of calls and sorted something out. Then I went round. The cat was nervous though I eventually managed to get hold of it and stroke it to calm it down before popping it into the cat carrier. I may have been seeing the lady on a bad day -her right hand was swollen from a cat scratch and she was clearly stressed- but really she was very elderly and not in the best of health. While the cat was very therapeutic in providing company and affection, the general looking after it involved was a little too much. Not helping was the dynamic between her and the visiting relative which was also causing problems. The cat went but nothing was really resolved and no-one -well, one perhaps- was happy with the result.

And there you go. A little story which is all part of cat rescuing and one which I feel is valid to relate. I like to think this blog is also about people and that human stories are also interesting. I may not always succeed in what I'm trying to do either in terms of writing this blog or animal rescue but that's life.

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