Brisbane Valley Cat Rescue

BOOF AND HIS LITTER TRAY

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 13:50:00 +0000

Dear Boofy arrived at the shelter a while ago. He's extremely affectionate and gets on very well with all the other cats, kittens and dogs. He loves people and is just a generally all round good guy. His one and only abiding bad habit has been soiling anywhere except in his litter trays. I tried all kinds of remedies that have worked in the past with other cats or kittens but to no avail. I felt guilty about the fact that Boofy had to stay confined in his cattery until the problem could be solved, so I decided to take the risk and let him out to run around in the hope that he'd then get into the habit of going outside. Then in turn would learn to hold on until released in the morning after being locked in for the night.

Nope that didn't work. He'd actually go back in during the day and leave me little pressies on the concrete floor or the scratching post, then happily toddle back outside with a look of relief on his face.

While out however he did make friends with Dotti. So I figured that although Boofy is an adult tom maybe, just maybe, Dotti might succeed where I had failed. It's taken about a week but finally Boofy is using the litter tray and I have to learn to live without my pressies.

Thank you Dotti :)

WHY HUMAN EMOTIONS

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:45:00 +0000

Why do we humans insist on putting the word "human" in front of the word emotions? Who decided to do it in the first place? We did!

Yesterday a young cow belonging to my next door neighbour lost her 6 week old calf. She called and called to attract my neighbours attention. When he appeared to investigate she headed off down the paddock. She stopped and turned back every few meters to ensure that he was following. She led him unerringly to her fallen calf and watched as he inspected the little one. Unfortunately it was too late as the calf had already passed away during the night. She let out a loud call when he began to walk away and the rest of the herd came from down the paddock to join her. They milled around and nuzzled her gently as they waited for my neighbours return.

He borrowed a small bobcat from his neighbours to bury the calf and the Mumma stood and watched. The rest of the herd stayed close by her. Once the calf had been buried and my neighbour had gone, she returned to lie beside the little grave and called gently. The herd remained close and one was assigned to remain with her while the others continued to graze.

Last night the herd returned to their normal night area to sleep but she remained beside her son and could be heard calling to him throughout the night. The first thing I heard this morning when I woke was her low moo. I looked out and she had her head resting on the grave with her assigned companion cow lying a few feet away.

Instead of saying "human" emotions. Why don't we just say "emotions".

TRIBUTE RIP OUR BEAUTIFUL BOY

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:00:00 +0000

You were born all grown up. Your eyes were filled with an unbelievable innocence and trust, the like of which I’ve never seen before or since. Your gentle spirit and loving nature were second to none.

As a kitten you took it upon yourself to love and care for all the other little abandoned and abused waifs that were lucky enough to cross your path. You were always there for them. If they were tiny and scared, you’d lie there and let them suckle until they felt safe and loved once again, even though at times you were only slightly older yourself. You’d clean them and make sure each knew where to find the food and water bowls. If necessary you’d take the food to them. If they were very weak or small you’d chew the food first so they could eat it easily. You supervised while they played and slept with them snuggled safely into your warmth. You ignored your own need for a kitten hood to make sure they had the opportunity to revel in theirs.

When you went off to your new home with a wonderful family who adored you, you created your own feline family there as well. Your new Mum realised that you still yearned to care for a kitten less fortunate than yourself, and so she adopted a little stray kitten who came to worship the ground you walked on.

You filled the lives of everyone you met with unimaginable love and laughter. Your love and gentleness are legend.

Your passing leaves behind a trail of broken hearts and endless tears, human, feline and canine. You will live in our hearts forever.

RIP our beautiful boy (Maurie) aka (Ashley)

YOUNG TAFFY CUTE & OUT OF CONTROL

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:50:00 +0000

Yeah I know, butter wouldn't melt in her cute little mouth. Well don't you believe it. Taffy may be quite small for her age, although she still has quite a bit of growing to go at 8 mths, but she has an ego as big as the great outdoors. I'm just hoping that she's been adopted by the time she reaches her growth spurt stage.

See that look in her eyes? That's typical tortie. And I'm beginning to think that the phase "Naughty Tortie" was invented purely with young Taffy in mind.

The fact that all the other cats and kittens on the place let her get away with whatever she wants really isn't helping with her superiority complex.

She was desexed the other week and I'm hoping that it will help, at least in a small way, to calm the tortie terror.

I've found that it simply doesn't work putting her in the female kitten cattery with all the other girls her age and size. It's not that she goes off at them, well no more than they can handle anyway. It's because she turns into this little crazy tortie coloured missile in her desire to get the hell out of there and away from all those confounded sissys and get back in with the boys her age. Them she gets along with. Apparently they're tough, just like her!!! Has she taken a good long look at those male powder puffs lately??????

Robbie, second in command in the shelter hirachy system, always curls up in the sun on the old antique ride on mower seat. No-one dares to try and move Robbie on. However, just look at who got possession of the seat and the sun spot.

I can clearly see the "Yeah, well, so???" in her darling little face. Robbie was lying in the shade at the side of the shelter looking miffed. I explained to him that he could squash her with a single swipe and reclaim his seat but he didn't look overly impressed with the idea.

The best indication of just how big Taffy thinks she is was seen a couple of weeks ago. The cat door here not only allows the cats to enter the house but Tayla the Sheltie can also fit through. She has to squeese a bit granted, but she does fit through.

Taffy on the other hand was seen, not only by myself at the time but also Tony, standing in front of the cat door, literally sucking in her non existant gut and ducking her apparently oversized head practically down to the floor in order to fit through the obviously "tiny" hole. Honestly Taffy you could go through the darn thing standing sideways if you wanted to!!!!!!!!

Dear Smokey, who was recently adopted and has settled in beautifully, always liked to tell the other cats what to do. It didn't matter that some were larger than him or not. Well I let young Taffy out one morning a few weeks ago and Smokey decided to assert his authority. That little move got him a swipe on the nose and an indignant Taffy glaring at him with "that" tortie look. Oddly enough he never did it to Taffy again.

The tortie tornado also manages to dart merrily up every tree in sight. Any other kitten I'd be worried considering she started this hair raising activity when only about 4 mths old. The other kittens always seem to have to learn the hard way how to get back down. But not Taffy. Oh no. Taffy had the whole thing down pat before she even conquered her first tree. Typical!!!!!

In typical tortie fashion, she's really smoochy when it suits her and you can go get stuffed when it doesn't.

One of her favourite games is playing with poor Tayla. Why poor Tayla? Well Taffy loves to suddenly come racing up to Tayla and stick to her side like super glue. The result of this cute, loving display is that poor Tayla, not knowing what to do next, (she's not the brightest dog in the world), has no option but to walk around in never ending circles on the spot with darling little Taffy occasionally dashing around the other side and getting her to walk in the opposite direction. This can go on for ages unless someone is there to disengage Taffy.

Taffy eats what she wants, sleeps where she wants, beats up who she wants and for some inexplicable reason is the cutest little tyke all at the same time. She's irritatingly independant and manages to disappear every time someone comes out to look at adopting a cat or kitten and then suddenly reappears at your side the instant their car starts up to leave.

Like I said. Hopefully desexing the little twerp will help :)

In the meantime, if anyone is looking to adopt an invisable, very cheeky, independant, self opinionated, bossy young tortie to keep their lives very interesting - I have just the kitten for you :/

TRIBUTE TO A LITTLE HERO - BUCKET

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Today we said goodbye to a beautiful little hero. This is her story.

Little Bucket (front above) was saved when only about 6 weeks old along with her little sister Mop. Their mother, a stray, had left the kittens in a farm shed and the farmer was threatening to shoot them both. A good samaritan was there at the time visiting and saved the pair and brought them to the shelter where they'd be safe until homes could be found for them.

Anne took the two babies into foster and raised them both with love along with Chelsea's kittens at the time. Little Mop was adopted but because little Bucket formed such a bond with the family, Anne decided to adopt her. Bucket knew only love and happiness from that time on and would come running from anywhere as soon as her Mum called her.

Penelope was saved from Willawong Pound and managed to convince Anne to adopt her before we even got back to the shelter after she was collected. Penelope prefers to be outside during the day, but has a regular routine and Anne always knows exactly where to find her.

So naturally when Penny went missing Anne searched high and low but could find no trace. Like Bucket Penny would normally come running as soon as she was called and so Anne knew that there was a problem. She, Graham and I searched everywhere and little Bucket tagged around after us all the while. Penny had been missing for 4 days and we'd all but given up hope of finding her.

It was the next day that I received a frantic call from Anne that she was unable to find young Bucket. The last time she'd seen her was when she was following us around. I knew that she'd followed us back to the house at that stage because I'd seen her sitting near the cars looking around while we chatted. I headed over to Annes and once again we began the search. After searching everywhere we had to admit that there was little else we could do except hope that Bucket would find her own way home. There simply wasn't anywhere else to look. The call went out on facebook with their photos and we'd do a letterbox drop if she hadn't returned the next day.

Next morning I got an excited call from Anne that not only had Bucket returned home but she'd brought Penelope back with her. It was so wonderful that the pair of them were home. Bucket realising that we were looking for Penny had gone off looking on her own and had found her and brought her back. The excitment was short lived though when Anne suddenly realised that young Bucket had been badly hurt when she let out a scream when she was picked up. She made an appointment with the vet, after hours on a public holiday (as is usually the way with an emergency) and I met her there. The prognosis was not good. Little Bucket had been severley injured, during her efforts to get her mate back home, and had a gaping wound in her side with severe internal damage. Our beautiful, beautiful, courageous little hero went to sleep craddled in her Mum's loving arms.

Anne cried, I cried and I'm crying now. Bucket had a wonderful life and a loving home and she was a true little Aussie battler and hero. May you run and play in lush green fields, little one, beside a clear blue stream and rest under the shade of a large shady tree with the rest of your little mates forever. Your mum will love you always as will I.

LITTLE COOKIE

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 10:21:00 +0000

Little Cookie is the cutest little tyke imaginable but she also tends to be a tad accident prone LOL.

For those of you who've followed BVCR for some time you'll recall another certain male kitten with much the same characteristics.

Today was pretty typical for little Cookie. She was chasing little Figit around the lounge room and jumped from one chair to the other in break neck pursuit of the tiny little black torando and managed to completely miss both landings and end up sprawled on the floor.

She then fell off to sleep on the back of the lounge chair. Fell off being the operative word as she slowly slipped off the back onto the seat and landed so gently that she just snuggled into the cushion without even opening her eyes.

Later in the day she managed to trip over the edge of the litter tray and landed on her cute little nose in the litter just before she slipped off the edge of the water dish and went splash.

I'm hoping she's going to grow out of it or I'm going to be a nervous wreck :P

MISSY'S HOLIDAY CAMP

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:36:00 +0000

Poor dear Missy. She's an old style chocolate siamese around 12 years old. This is her third time staying here while her Dad is off overseas.

Now the first time Missy came to visit she put on quite a turn when Dad left without her. She threated to decapitate me on more than one occasion over the first few days and then claimed the bedroom off the kitchen as her very own.

Missy is used to being an only cat and the apple of her Dad's eye. She is definitely not used to sharing with other cats or dogs. To her credit, once she settled down that first time, she only threatened to kill those cats that wandered too close to her doorway. The rest that she couldn't see were perfectly safe. Jena, the border collie, learned that if she wanted to continue to live it was best to avoid that part of the kitchen that was visible to Missy and Lexie, the russian blue, just lay on the kitchen table flatly refusing to be intimidated by what I'm sure he referred to as "that old bat"!!

Missy continued to receive her regular dry feed ration morning and night and the occasional meat meal. By the time her Dad arrived back everyone had worked out the do's and don'ts of life with Missy and things had gone back to pretty much normal. Although Missy still didn't mix with the other cats.

On hearing her Dad's vehicle, Missy's eyes lit up (he'd been gone about 5 mths) and her ears twitched when she heard the car pull to a stop. In true cat style, as soon as Dad walked in the door she turned her back and ignored him. Yep Dad was going to pay the price of daring to leave her.

About 12 mths later Missy returned for her second stint in concentration camp. This time her room was occupied and I had no option but to put her in the combined lounge, sitting room and veranda area. The lounge and sitting room were occupied by Kerri and Smokey and the veranda had a dozen kittens running amok including a few ferals.

Missy barely tolerated Kerri and Smokey but became fascinated by the kittens. She'd spend hours lying on the bed in the sitting room watching the kittens playing and scampering around on the veranda. Every now and then when I was going out to feed the kittens one would scamper past me and she'd put on a turn but never physically harm the kitten. More principle than anything else. It was always funny when the kittens would decide to go to sleep in their beds at the end of the veranda and Missy would squish her nose against the glass to see if she could spot where they were. On one occasion I hadn't latched the door properly and she actually fell through onto the veranda and she almost had a heart attack. I think she found it a tad unnerving when on occasion she'd find a line up of tiny little noses pushed against the glass on the other side of the door trying to see what she was doing.

Finally Dad came to collect her again and off she went.

She's now back for her third stay and is once again in the combined rooms. The difference this time is that she's now sharing it with Dotti, Mittens and two of the kittens she had watched during her last visit, Sparky and Tyson. And this time she truly is sharing. They're all living in peace together and she's even sharing her food bowl with young Tyson if he wants it. She's currently curled up on my track pants in the lounge with Dotti and Mittens. Sparky and Tyson usually share her bed at night if she sleeps in the lounge or she curls up on a chair near my bed with the two boys curled up on the floor beside her chair.

I don't believe that she'd exactly jump at the chance of sharing her Dad and her home with another cat or kitten, but she knows that when she's visiting here that just for a while, it can be nice to have a feline friend and family around, provided they show her due respect of course.

I HATE CATS

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 22:00:00 +0000

I'm really getting sick of hearing dog lovers in particular (not all but certainly some) announcing to the world in general that they "hate cats". The funny thing is that I've never heard a cat lover say that they "hate dogs".

These people justify their statement by announcing that cats are environmental vandals and killers. Now I started out life as a dog lover with just a passing tolerance of cats. I still love dogs but let me tell you something that I've learned from experience. Anything a cat will kill so will a dog. The difference being that dogs particularly medium to large ones can also kill lambs, sheep, foals, horses, calves, cattle, kids, goats, possums, wombats, kangaroos, cats etc. They can also maim or kill children and adults.

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that dogs are dangerous to have around. Well trained, loving family pets are a joy, provided they're kept in their own yards and not allowed to roam to form into packs. By the way, have you ever notices how perfectly normal people behave if they end up as part of a mob???

The same can be said for cats. Provided they're kept in their own yards via an enclosure preferably attached to the house then they're a joy to have around and no problem for anyone else.

The major problem isn't with the cats but with the very different ways that we humans have treated dogs and cats through the ages. Dogs we've generally kept confined and cats have been dumped outside with the milk bottles at night. Yeah I know I'm showing my age. Then people complain that they roam. Yeah well dah!!! So would the dog if dumped outside without a fence.

And if you want to talk about "environmental vandals" should be shot etc, then where the hang does that leave the human race???

Cats don't "need" to roam anymore than dogs do, but they do because they've never been given an alternative.

Behind every problem cat or dog there is an irresponsible human. Don't blame the victim!!!!

LITTLE RASTUS LATEST MISHAP

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:42:00 +0000

Now little Rastus is only around 14 weeks old and has energy to burn (all the time!!!). The idea of walking anywhere has never crossed his little mind. He's been raised with or by I'm not really sure which two very large dogs (as a look in his photo album in the photo gallery will attest) and one rather mischievous bengal male (oh and one rather doting human Mum as well). All of this may explain why little Rastus believes that he is master of all he suveys. He also seems to think that he's bomb proof and I guess with the type of canine, feline and human protection he's got, he's probably not far wrong.

His latest idea is persistantly climbing up to the very top of the security door and balancing (not too well I might add) on the very top. The only problem with this bright idea is that his lordship can get up OK, but as yet hasn't figured out how to get back down without a parachute. Now normally this isn't much of a problem, but the other night I went over to give the little darling his vaccination. I followed his Mum innocently into the house and once the two dogs had joined us the door was closed. Well that did it. An ear piercing cat scream shattered the silence of the night closely followed by two screaming females and two very large dogs convinced that the attack of the banchees had begun in their living room. Unbeknown to anyone young Rastus had been tottering about holding on for dear life when the door was suddenly swung shut and his little foot had gotten caught where it didn't belong, again. His poor Mum had to climb up onto a chair in order to rescue him and she handed him to me for safe keeping as she climbed off the chair. We both gave the traumatised little chap a pat and a cuddle and he settled onto my shoulder while his Mum made us both a cup of coffee to settle our nerves.

Now it's really unusual for little Rastus to just sink onto my shoulder like that and his Mum commented on the fact that he was obviously planning on milking the situation for all it was worth. See the last photo in the album. At that stage we really did think that he was putting it on. Once the coffee was made I put him down on the floor and he just sort of tottered a bit and just sat there. His Mum picked him up concerned that maybe he'd been hurt but we couldn't find any sign of injury. As we sat drinking the coffee the little fellow fell asleep in his Mum's arms. Now for him to fall asleep at that time of the day when it was almost dinner time is unheard of. Normally he'd be shooting around the floor, in between the dogs legs and annoying the dickens out of Mum demanded to know when and where dinner was. So his Mum started to think back on the day. She realised that she'd been lying down for about an hour or so and hadn't actually seen Rastus for some time prior to that. She remembered hearing what she at first thought was a plaintive little meow but had dismissed it. On consideration it turned out that little Rastus had possibly been hanging on for dear life for at least an hour and a half. As it turned out we realised as his little head dropped slowly backwards on his Mums arm that he wasn't faking it at all, he was just plain exhausted.

After a few minutes of watching him dozing off his Mum took him and placed him on her bed and partially covered his tiny little form with a doona. He opened his little eyes for a second and then drifted off into sleep warm and cozy dreaming no doubt of how to scare the hell out of us next time.

I got a call the next day to say that the unheard of had happened and Rastus had slept clean though dinner time and hadn't stirred at all during the night for the very first time ever. Well at least now his Mum knows that if she wants to get a good nights sleep all she has to do is stick the little devil back on top of the security door for an hour or so before hand. :D

THE HIDING SCRAP HEAP by K't

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:23:00 +0000

Of a daytime we let our little treasure Scrap run around in the big wide world and when it gets dark we close all the doors and give the little gobble guts dinner and he's inside for the night. However the other night about an hour after we had last seen him- at the food bowl, he was no where in sight, and as we had just been going about our normal nightly life, when we realized he was missing we automatically started to check the fridge and cupboards etc with no luck. During all this our panic had started to rise. We then started the slightly panicked scout around outside, making complete fools of ourselves calling his name, and making all the normal cat calling noises that you do when you're frantically looking for a missing fur kid. Then when we heard a tinkle from his bell we knew that he was somewhere about, so we headed inside and continued to recheck the cupboards and everywhere thinkable that he could be hiding/trapped with no luck. By this point we had heard the tell tale tinkle again and were reassured that he was inside- so we stared to settle down a bit and closed the doors again. Then about 10 min later we heard the bell ringing again, and when we turned around he casually strolled out a pile of warm snuggly clothes in which he had been camouflaged, and he just looked up at us as if to say ' what's all the noise about I was trying to sleep' and continued to clean himself as if nothing was going on. At this stage he nearly used up one of his valuable 9 lives! Got to love our little darlings! :)