Two stars of this year’s Cats Protection Advent calendar were safely rescued from a garden in Stirling and successfully adopted.
Korvo and Smudge were born to a feral mother who was a frequent visitor to a home in Raploch where she was fed by a resident concerned with the welfare of unowned cats in the area.
Cats Protection’s community neutering officer Yvette Malone has been working in the area to inform and educate the local community about the benefits and importance of neutering. Yvette assists owners in getting their cats neutered as well as working to reduce the unowned cat population through helping cats living outdoors in Raploch and the wider Forth Valley area.
The case of Korvo and Smudge, who were discovered in a garden hedge, proved particularly tricky as the mother was so wary of humans that she and the kittens would run away if anyone came near.
Yvette said: “Luckily, we were able to trap the kittens and bring them into the foster care while they were young enough to be successfully socialised. They have now been rehomed together and have settled in well in their new home.”
The pair have a starring role in the charity’s Advent calendar, which is mailed out to supporters and is featured as a new daily reveal on the charity’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/catsprotection.
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Yvette added: “The mother cat was so wary that she proved extremely difficult to trap. I tried different styles of traps and everything from catnip to rotisserie chicken to entice her, patiently waiting out of sight hoping she would go in.
“Eventually, the effort paid off and I managed to catch her using a manual trap with a long string attached, this allowed me to activate it from quite a distance. It was such a fantastic feeling knowing that we could finally get her neutered and treated at the vets.”
The mother was immediately taken to a local vet to be checked over, neutered, tested for diseases and vaccinated before she was returned to the original site. Because adult feral cats are fearful of humans and past the socialisation period they cannot be homed; instead they are trapped, neutered and returned to their territory where they feel safe and their welfare can be monitored.
Yvette said: “The importance of neutering cats cannot be overstated, the benefits to the cats and the community are fantastic. This cat will no longer have to go through the burden of continuously having litters of kittens outdoors and will now live a much healthier and happier life.”
For more information about Cats Protection’s Community Outreach programme www.cats.org.uk/what-we-do/neutering/cno.
