Nearly all of these thirteen successfully rehomed cats have been through very tough times. It is upsetting to read their stories before being brought to Kays Hill.
Leanne of Kays Hill Animal Sanctuary kindly sent me the pictures and the brief summary of their stories which are the captions. I love the successful element of stories, the rehoming and the care given by Kays Hill. They are sad stories, though. Well done to Kays Hill for getting them back to health and rehoming them. Great job.
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles:- Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats
I was a bit surprised at the number of injured cats brought to Kays Hill. This must make things harder and more expensive for Kays Hill.
Leanne so lovely seeing all your beautiful cats and knowing they now have happy forever homes. I have to say though I felt sad for them but only because of their previous lives 🙁 so pleased to see though that because of you and Kevin all the kitties stories had a happy ending 🙂
one of the points i wanted to highlight with this post is the ‘never say die’ spirit that cats have. yes some of the injuries we have seen have been horrible, but just picking one story out, daphne was a young cat, well kitten, who had been born/left in the stable, as far as we know. our first meeting with her was to take a look at a cat that has ‘quite a limp’!! the understatement of the century. her back leg was literally hanging off, i cant imagine the pain that little creature must be feeling, yet she never once growled or hissed. obviously we tried to handle her as carefully and gently as we possibly could but inevitably we must have caused her pain. she was taken straight to our vet who had to amputate the leg. the next we saw of daphne, yes i named her!! she was laid as you see in the photo, again as friendly as can be. she recovered quickly and was very soon wanting to climb and jump about the place, trying to keep her in one place for two minutes was NOT easy. even after all she had been through this little cat has such a lust for life and fun and adventure. they are stronger than we would be in the same circumstances. she adapted very easily to having three legs and to this day, no doubt, enjoys life to the full.
Cats are much braver than people! They are so very stoic and accepting.
Your sad stories have happy endings but not so in the USA and Canada where many cats are deliberately crippled by declawing, yet many people accept it happening.
There is no happy ending for a declawed cat, they can never have their toe ends put back on, no matter what.
Such a difference isn’t there!
You fight to keep cats whole and healthy while vets perform surgery in those countries to turn healthy cats into disabled ailing cats.
You have no healthy animal killed while thousands are killed over there in Shelters.
That is what is heart breaking!
It was lovely seeing all the cats and kittens at Kays Hill cattery today, we’d bring them all home if we could!
thank you for the goodies ruth and barbara, it was lovely seeing you both.
Well life isn’t all a bed of roses is it and if anybody wants all stories to be happy with no mention of suffering then they should read fairy tales.
I think it’s good we learn about all you do there for injured cats,it makes me admire you all the more and if ever I had any money to spare I’d give some to Kayshill.
thank you all for your comments. i hope no-one is too upset at any of the images, the stories are upsetting, theres nothing i can do about that unfortunately. the only reason i asked michael to put these particular stories on was to try and illustrate that even when things are really bad they can still be turned around and a happy ending can be found. all of the cats, well except for jerry, went on to new and loving homes eventually. jerry came to us from a family who had taken him in a couple of years previously. they were told that when he was younger, we got him when he was about 10 years old, he had been hit by a car. his ‘owners’ at the time left him untreated and the leg set at an angle. we took him to see our vet who examined him and said that he felt no pain at all in his ‘bad’ leg, we had already thought this, and although he didnt actually walk on it he tended to use it as a ‘walking stick’ for want of a better description. he was the friendliest cat and loved nothing more than greeting people and guiding them round the site. we used to call him the ‘foreman’!! he lived with us for the rest of his life, he used to get his own visitors. he is buried in the top field, one of his favourite spots. everyone loved jerry. when he died i e mailed round and let everyone know, the outpouring of grief was overwhelming, we knew people loved him but everyone was even more upset than i’d expected. it was nice to know he was so loved and not just by us. our cat stories are always going to be tinged with sadness, as i have said before, if they had long happy lives with families that loved them and all went well in their lives, we would never meet them. i will find out some ‘happier’ stories too.
I think it’s good that you share the sad stories as well as the happy ones and show that most can have a happy ending if they have someone to care enough to nurse them back to health.
You get the balance of what you do at Kays Hill just right Leanne, life isn’t all happiness.
Hoping to get up tomorrow afternoon with those litter trays, some food and a lot of bedding some kind soul took in to Babz at funeralcare.
See you then xx