It will be that holiday time of the year again soon, so, if you are looking to give something special to the Love Kuching foster kitties for the holidays, here are some ideas! Some of these things are very pricey (to us) and so we have tried our best to do without them thus far. It will make the lives of the foster cats better, but also for the volunteers who help look after them, or help better our outreach be it in education or fund-raising. The brands listed here are merely suggestions; our style of purchasing items using Love Kuching funds is cheapest-but-best, so if you can find a cheaper alternative that fulfills the need, please choose that instead! If you do want to buy the exact same one, click on the caption under available photos below for an external link to a product page.
How you can gift us the wishlist items:
If purchasing online, email us for our address to input for the delivery options. Likewise, get our address from us the same way if you wish to visit us to drop them off. Let us know when too, so we can plan for humans to be around and free at the scheduled time.
- Electric water diffuser for essential oils - we currently use a candle burner, and it works, but an electric one is more effective. This is because we use high-grade essential oils to treat feline conditions, and heat makes the oils less effective. Despite our not so effective method using heat, we already see how many feline illnesses and emotional problems are alleviated by diffusing essential oils. Candle burners also make cleaning harder for us as it splatters, and may also become a safety hazard. Example of a water diffuser:
- Pet gate / baby gate - for the foster space. This is primarily for a few purposes: When the Foster Care Volunteers are cleaning, the cats that are in the suites are let out for a walkabout too. However, because they need special supervision, sometimes they end up disappearing into the lounge and it gets difficult to contain them to walkabout in the foster space. Same for kittens that are let out for play but are too small and need to be introduced to the rest of the foster home slowly, within a penned space. The gate will also keep Scotty the dog out, because while he is the Socialisation IC, he can get in the way of the volunteers when they are cleaning. The penned cats also need to be introduced to the free-roaming cats and dog slowly: a gate that allows visual introduction with a simple barrier will help a lot, instead of merely keeping the foster space door closed.
- Ceiling light - our current ceiling lamp is not meant for working in, it is very dim. We need an upgrade to help our volunteers see better when cleaning, grooming and medicating the cats. The upgrade has to be far brighter, or there needs to be two lamps installed, one in the centre, the other at the side where the examination table is.
- Robot vacuum - while we clean the foster space regularly, the Foster Care Volunteers know that it isn't an easy task, especially when sometimes there aren't any play/clean volunteers that day. We step on stray litter, strands of fur, everywhere, almost all the time. The day after a play/clean session it gets all messy again. While the humans who live with the cats don't mind cleaning and living with this amount of stuff on the floor, it does cause allergies, discomfort, and sometimes, when there simply isn't time or energy to clean, it gets frustrating. So this wishlist item really is for the humans encountering and cleaning the cat-generated mess regularly, not so much for the cats.
- Oxygen therapy set - usually when a cat is in respiratory distress we administer artificial respiration i.e. mouth to mouth. But this is no match for oxygen therapy. If a cat needs this in the middle of the night, we will need to spend on high emergency veterinary charges. Having an oxygen therapy set on hand might be a life-saver too, because it can be administered immediately, even en route to the vet if necessary. It can also be used routinely for cats that would otherwise need a rented tank or frequent visits to the vet for oxygen therapy.
- Stethoscope with heart rate monitor and recording function - we are not vets, so we can only guess at what is normal when we listen to a cat's chest, and what needs immediate veterinary visits. Unfortunately, cat heart rates are so high, calculating them manually is usually very difficult. The sort we use as humans like watches, are not ergonomically designed for cat's bodies. We like the electronic stethoscope also because it can record the sound, and then we can send the sound clip to the vet so there can be remote assessment without labour-intensive and costly visits to the vet if there is no need for it.
- Camera - our camera was good to use for photographing cats that move about even in low light. But the LCD display died (it cracked and has gone black), so now we use phone cameras. This poses a problem when we try to take photos of cats during TNR sessions which are at night, and we cannot use flash. It is also quite impossible to take photos of moving kittens on a phone camera. For the kind of needs we have, the ISO has to be able to go up to at least 1600 and there must be the ability to increase exposure up to +0.7. Of course, we are no camera professionals, so if you have a better idea what would suit our needs, feel free to gift us with anything that will work. Below is a camera similar to our old one.
If none of the items take your fancy or fit
your budget, please don't feel you can't be able to give. We can do with
other things, some even more essential than these items listed.
These things include food and litter (see
this link
on how to give those or go to
The Water Dish and search 'love kuching') and boarding supplies we go through very fast:
paper towels, Sofix/Kiwi floor cleaner for wooden floors, Arm and Hammer
baking soda large size, UIC/Ligent dishwashing liquid refills, cotton
balls, gauze, 10 or 20ml saline vials. Anything else you would like to give but not sure if we use, just email us to ask.
Make a financial gift via a deposit to our POSB savings account 188-52652-7. Find out more.
Become a monthly giver to help ensure our rescues continue getting their needs met.
Feed and provide litter to the cats we foster via our corporate sponsor The Water Dish.
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