29th MaY.
Mother cats Annie(main photo) and May and their babies are doing well at the shelter and Mion our foster carer has 2 more mums and their litters. Both of the fostered cats have had four babies each and when they are ready to be adopted they will come back here , the Mums will be spayed and the kittens will be placed for adoption. Gorgeous green eyed Annie came in from a home where she was unwanted after giving birth to kittens ( of course there was no responsibility taken for not having her spayed) and pretty tortoishell May was abandoned with her 10 days old babies.Amazingly all but one of Mays kittens have already been reserved but apart from the grey youngster, Annie’s young still need homes, they will be ready around the the end of June.
Many of our cats seem to have a reaction to Whiskas food, I wonder do any readers cats have the same issue with that brand?The kitten food pouches seem to be alright with most kittens(not all) but the adult food often results in being vomited up soon after being digested. It may just be that it is too rich for cats brought in as strays which have not had the luxury of a good quality food. Much of our petfood is donated so we use whatever we are given but we keep the tins of Whiskas for the cats used to being fed this and other supposedly superior brands. Using the same brand all the time is boring for the cats and they can go off what has previously seemed like their favourite food if it is fed over a long period of time. On the other hand ,if the food is changed too often it can be the cause of diarrhoea bouts so care needs to be taken with feeding new and different food. My own cat Lucy is extremely fussy over her food and I blame myself for that.She used to eat anything , but in my desire to make her like me (she hated everyone when she first arrived) I bought her expensive gourmet food; this failed to win her round any faster , she still disliked me and all it did was make her a finicky eater. I am happy to say that she is now quite attached to me, and so she should be after five years of having to put up with her bad tempered growls if I had the temerity to approach her . Nowadays Her ladyship spends a lot of her time snoozing on my bed and when she wants affection ,accepts it readily ,but time and patience did that, nothing to do with me being her own private Dinner Lady.
Just one of the Romanian dogs’Dixie’ is left without a home but he is an affectionate and loving dog and I doubt he will be under our care for very long.Our Welsh dogs are flying out , especially the farm collies , and few are with us for more than a week or two.I love it when they go so quickly, it is when they seem to ‘stick’ that I become worried if the right person will turn up for them.Of course, they inevitably do ,though over the years we have accepted that some dogs are likely to be with us for life.Dogs like Harvey the kelpie cross who is totally deaf and can be nervous aggressive when handled , Scamp, a large Kelpie/collie who has issues with strangers bit who adores the staff here and temperamental Tasha who adores me but is untrusting with others and Fred the Staffordshire bull terrier who is very affectionate but on his terms so can be a little unpredictable.Freshfields has a reputation for not putting dogs to sleep if unhomeable and these dogs have their good qualities which would make it very difficult for us to part with any of them. That notwithstanding, we have limited space and facilities so we have to be fairly sure of the good nature of a dog before we will place it for adoption.If we had a different set up, I would take in any dogs in need but the reality of the situation is that we cannot give a long term home to any more canines so sadly there has to be some discretion involved over the dogs we admit.
Mei and Vanessa have gone today to do some follow up visits on horses rehomed in Anglesey through our Loan scheme. We still desperately need volunteers to act as Horse Welfare Officers and will be glad to hear from anyone with experience of horses who would be interested in this. We like to check on our horses every three months so it is not a daily or even weekly job but it is of vital importance to our work and we need more ‘outworkers’.Please ring if you feel this is something you are able to do.01286 479711.
Caradog and Phoebe,two of our ’out on loan’ horses have come back to us whilst their carer is ill.The plan is for her to take them back when she recovers but at the moment we have no idea how long they will be with us. More of our horses and ponies have packed their suitcases for their summer holidays and we are just in need of local grazing for 5 more. It has to be accessible for us to keep an eye on them unless the land owner lives next to their fields and is willing to check on them daily so if you have spare grazing and live within a reasonable distance to the shelter in Nebo, please contact us on :01286 479711. When the horses and ponies go out for the summer,it enables us to put our fields in order, fertilise and rest etc so it is important we have help from local landowners and we are extremely grateful for their assistance during the summer months.
Our 60.70.s night has been cancelled due to lack of interest(we failed to sell even one ticket! This is a great disappointment as I had put so much effort into it to make it a really good evening and was hoping for a good sum to be raised but ‘Que Sera, Sera’. The annual Open Day is also cancelled due to the desperate need for repairs on the property and the lack of manpower to do this. Hopefully by next year we will have these issues sorted and will be able to hold another Open Day.
Main photo is of Annie and her babies
May and babies.
Lucy.
Dixie
