Uno has been adopted!

Chris, who lives in Holland Village area, came by to bring Uno home today! He came dressed in all black, as if readying to take a Men-in-Black picture with his dearest Uno. Uno seems to really recognise his new human dad, allowing himself to be cuddled even though he usually is a ball of crazy energy that never stops dashing about the house.

Chris used to allow his two cats, one who moved to Singapore with him from Australia, partial outdoor access in Singapore but only to realise that our animal control and community tolerance is not humane enough to leave home cats with collar and ID tags well alone, so Uno will be strictly an indoor cat. Chris also has a house-helper who loves cats and will be caring for Uno while he is at work.

Liyin, Uno's rescuer, also came to touch base with Chris and say goodbye to Uno. Uno is the last stray kitten to be rescued from Sunny Spring condo and his mother will be going for sterilisation in this coming week.

A big thank you to Chris who is giving a loving home to Uno! Chris also gave us a donation atop the adoption fee, the wonderful cat-angel that he is!

reminder to adopters regarding outdoor access

I have written before about granting your cat outdoor access and how it is not a good idea.This applies as well to those who live in private properties. If you live in a condo, the rule is the same, in fact more so, because condo managements can be extremely harsh towards cats roaming the compound.

If you live in a house, allowing your cat to roam your garden is dangerous if he can exit the garden by hopping over or through fences and gates. However, it is definitely beneficial to your cat to have some outdoor enjoyment. To facilitate this you can consider getting an outdoor enclosure like such -

It is also beneficial for you to tag your cat so that if he does accidentally roam away from home due to an unclosed door or gate, he can be identified by anyone who finds him. You can microchip your cat, or get a name tag like ours that has your contact information inscribed behind. Cat Welfare Society has a lovely ad on this, fronted by celebrity Melody Chen and one of her cats -

and you can see the kitty is wearing a UniqTag like our cats do.

If you can't get any of these suggestions in place, do keep your cats strictly indoors, within closed or meshed windows and doors at all times. Your cat may seem to need freedom, but what he needs more is safety.

calculating food and litter consumption

In conversing with The Water Dish folks I found out that many cat owners seem to order their cat food when they are down to a few kibbles, and then worry when kitty get super-hungry and deliveries haven't yet arrived!

We are guilty of the same habit. It all started because we started fostering more kittens at home and we could no longer gauge of our cat food consumption because we have variably more mouths to feed out of our own cat food supplies.

Now that we re-calculated our boarding costs and budget for our cat food consumption specifically for our foster cats, I came up with a widget, well an Excel spreadsheet really, to help us calculate how many kitty-mouths we can feed for how many days based on our current level of funds. It looks like this -

So now we know how much we need to order ahead based on our estimated cat population, eating on average 200g of dry food per day with about 45g of canned food daily. And we can gauge how long our funds will last till we have no more in our Love Kuching Project bank account to feed the rescues. This way we can be more accurate in communicating to you our public how much dollars and cents we need your help in, in order to sustain feeding the cats in our custody. For example, if we input in 4 cats per day for the month of June, the widget will look like this -

Which means we need to raise another $107.73 - as of today - worth of cat food and litter if we have an average of 4 cats to care for every day for the month of June.

And this way, we will not have to stress our at-charity-rates food supplier The Water Dish when ordering our foster cats' food with texts to them like, "Cat food crisis! When will your delivery arrive?!" thus being better, non-last-minute cat persons!

donating food to rescued cats via The Water Dish

The Water Dish will  be offering charity-priced donation bundles of pet food supplies to those who would like to donate to the Love Kuching Project by The Water Dish. You can choose from any one or more of following bundles and The Water Dish will deliver the pet food to us directly

Bundle A: (Addiction Feline Brushtail & Vegetables x 12 cans) + (Solid Gold Indigo Moon 4lbs) = $60

Bundle B: Solid Gold Indigo Moon 15lbs = $68

Bundle C: (Addiction Feline Brushtail & Vegetables x 12 cans) + (KMR Pet Milk) = $55

Bundle D: Addiction Feline Brushtail & Vegetables x 24 cans = $60
Bundle E: Tom & Pus Pine Litter 15kg x 2 bags = $50

These prices include their delivery costs and the prices are charity rates which apply only for donations to Love Kuching Project.

How to Donate:

Write to The Water Dish at enquiries@thewaterdish.com.sg, or text/buzz Maxine@ 9685 3929 or click on the Bundle links above to place an order directly through The Water Dish's website.

Thank you for your generosity!

LoveKuchingProject.org is live!

Thank you so much Anderson of Webhosting CS who donated us the domain, hosts it for us, gave us new email addresses elaine@lovekuchingproject.org and andy@lovekuchingproject.org, and designed and uploaded the website in one day! Superb service! We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful pro bono web hosting professional doing all this work for us.

Visit us at www.lovekuchingproject.org

our second boarding pen arrived!

After some brainstorming by Andy we created a space for a second boarding pen in our house, with space more suitable for adult cats or for bigger kittens. We put out the request for a boarding pen that suits the dimensions, and we got a donation of a cage! It arrived, delivered to us today by our kind donor.I think it is a CYH brand cage, and has only been used a few times. The bars are chrome and therefore won't get rusty and it is easy to detach and clean.

It is not ready for use yet - I need to mesh the behind of the cage to protect the pets from the wirings behind, and to prevent litter from being kicked behind the cabinet the cage is sitting on. We are also going to sew a hammock and place baskets and blankets in it to make it more homely. We have attached a hanging scratching mat and a water bowl implement. For the bottom tray, I will be placing Daiso pee-pads and charcoal filter deodoriser sheets. The cage can also be used as a crate for small dogs if we do come across any needing re-homing. We hope to give the best to our boarding animals!

Tomorrow we will be fetching a Persian cat over to stay here, a cat that was dumped outside Angels during the week and is still boarding there for now. For tonight, we are placing Sam inside, a more comfortable pen for him since he's a bigger boy.

paddy goes to his new home!

Paddy got adopted today! It all happened when Bun, now known as Brownie, came to visit us purportedly because her family initially had to temporarily migrate to Canada and Brownie might have had to be re-homed again. As it turns out, Canada rejected Brownie's mommy's visa, so the family is staying in Singapore and came to take Brownie home for good. When they came to visit us, they unexpectedly fell in love with our darling Paddy and decided they would adopt him as a companion for Brownie.

So we showered Paddy and trimmed his claws just now to ready him for his new home, and we were all gathering around him to tell him we would miss him! All of us are showering him with hugs, even Uno who has come to love Paddy as a younger brother. Here is a picture of Andy cuddling Paddy -

Paddy is by far the only kitten I personally hand-reared that I have immense feeling for, so needless to say it would be hard to say goodbye for him. The good news is that his new home is going to be great - with Brownie for company, and his family has already got them a new kitten pen to help give him easy access to the litter tray and food, since he is so small.

Here's a picture of Paddy with his new family!

Because Paddy is still having watery stools, we showed his new mommy how to dose him with antacid syrup and anti-diarrhoeal tablets - his new human mommy is a nurse - and they will be taking him to the vet when they vaccinate Brownie. Paddy looked really happy to be cuddled by his new family and we are happy for him too!

our new web address

Our blog is moving to LoveKuchingProject.blogspot.com, do join us there!

Our website LoveKuchingProject.org is still under construction, do bookmark the page when it is up!

our new website will be up by tomorrow!

A big thank you to Anderson So of Webhosting CS who is sponsoring our domain purchase, hosting, with email addresses, and a home-page design!

more uno

Uno is now free-roaming in our house among our cats, sleeping on our bed with the rest of the cats, even next to Slinky. He is really adorable -


We are still looking for an adopter for Uno. Uno's favourite activities are playing with our toys especially the ball-toys, making friends with humans, and his favourite food brought over by his rescuers is also Nutripe! He prefers eating his dry food mixed in with Nutripe, and knows how to drink water on his own - Andy had a moment of joyous awe when he saw Scooter teaching Uno how to drink from our fountain and Uno promptly following suit after.

If you are keen on adopting Uno, an 8 week old male Oriental black kitten with white locket and medium length tail, do contact Elaine at 90880675 or email lovekuchingproject@gmail.com,

more sam from joo seng

After Sam arrived at our place last night, he couldn't get to sleep until 4a.m. after I gave him some some anti-anxiety medication (Xanax 0.125mg). Today, when he woke up, he woke our whole household too with his incessant meows. Turns out that he isn't stressed about the other cats, but hates to be caged up.


When I let him out of the pen, he loves so much to cuddle next to me, exploring every inch of the house, purring in response to cuddles and even likes tummy rubs! He also enjoys cuddling with Paddy, and is really docile towards a younger kitten.

Unfortunately we are still needing to pen him for now because we need to give him easy access to food, water and the litter tray. He does considerably well when outside his pen, but is prone to hiding, and didn't know where the litter trays around the house are, he peed on our sofa. He does know how to use the litter tray in the kitten pen, and he pooed there today, which is a good sign. Unfortunately he's having watery stools, and so I gave him anti-diarrhoeal (loperadamide) and antacid syrup. Will deworm him too. He has finally started eating and drinking, and if his appetite does not improve will put him on lysine (vitamin B) solution to boost it.

Sam will do well with lots of attention and affection. He is easy to medicate, okay with showering and trimming nails. While he did growl at Uno when they first met, he is not violent at all, claws always sheathed, and doesn't bite us, that and he doesn't growl at Uno anymore, they are almost friends. He enjoys sitting on laps and being cradled in the crook of my arm.

Will monitor his eliminations to see if his diarrhoea improves, and after deworming and more socialisation and acclimatisation to an indoor environment, Sam will be ready for adoption! If you are keen to adopt Sam, drop me an email at lovekuchingproject@gmail.com or call Elaine at 90880675.

current fund-raising needs

We are looking for donors - that's you! - to help us fulfill the following needs:

• Cat Welfare Society membership which will cost $40 for a year, in either mine or Andy's name. At the rate of sterilisation we carry out which is around $500 a month, we need one membership to help us get more reimbursement for our sterilisation work so as to multiply your donations' mileage. to give, you can purchase a donation for us in either one of our names, or donate to our account specifying via SMS to 90880675 or email lovekuchingproject@gmail.com that you wish to contribute for the CWS membership. Update: Donor found for this need. Thank you Nicholina!
  
• Food and cat litter for June - we have enough funds right now to feed 4 cats for 16 days before our funds for food and litter run out, this is including The Water Dish's monthly cat food donation for June. The remaining 14 days of June are as yet unprovided for. We also anticipate there be more cats in Love Kuching Project's care very soon when we visit Joo Chiat Complex for feeding and sterilisation next week, as the kitten population there is quite huge. We hope to be able to rescue as many kittens as our resources can reach. To donate to this cause you can either (1) email enquiries@thewaterdish.com.sg to order Solid Gold Indigo Moon, Nutripe with Chicken, KMR milk replacement or Rrao pine pellets, requesting the supplies be delivered to Love Kuching Project or (2) donate directly to our account specifying via SMS to 90880675 or email lovekuchingproject@gmail.com that you wish to donate towards buying cat food and litter for our foster cats. $3 will feed and provide cat litter for 1 cat per day. Update: We have enough dry food and milk now! Still hope to raise more for pine litter and canned food, we have enough to pull through for the first 3 weeks of June!
• We need to purchase a Feliway pheromone-diffuser refill which costs around $23, also available at Pet Lovers Centre. This is to enhance the rehabilitation process for the foster cats in our care, especially for older kittens and cats, to reduce arrival stress and stress-symptoms such as loss of appetite, constipation, fighting and caterwauling. One Feliway refill lasts about 4 weeks. We have a few drops left and are using it till it completely dries out. Update: We have used up our Feliway diffuser vial. This is a really important purchase to use because cats tend to stress in new environments resulting in health problems. Anti-anxiety medication works well but has side effects for some cats and we are now relying on that since our Feliway has run out. Still looking for funds or a donation-in-kind for a Feliway refill! Update: We managed to scrape together some funds from our general funds to purchase one vial of Feliway refill which will last us through June. Thank you!
• We need AA rechargeable batteries and a charger for our donated camera. This costs around $21. You can buy us one that is brand-new or donate a charger and batteries that you no longer have a use for. Alternatively, you can donate one-time-use long lasting AA batteries in bulk so we can photo-document our work and adoption processes almost unceasingly. To date, Andy and I have been buying batteries for the camera but there are humbling times when we don't even have enough cash to buy more batteries.

Stuff that Andy and myself will be buying or have bought for Love Kuching Project as gifts from ourselves for June:

• Pine pellets cat litter if we do not raise enough funds for restocking it for June
• Baby wipes for grooming and messes
  
• Printer inks to print our adoption agreements
  
• Cat collars for kittens housed outside pens in our house
• Cable-ties and meshings for the new cage which needs to be protected from wirings and sockets behind where it will be positioned
• Pee-pads for the cages and carrier for young kittens
• Cleaning detergents and disinfectants for routine cleaning of housing area
• Litter tray with meshed bottom for our second cat boarding pen arriving tomorrow
• Updated items we will be buying to donate to Love Kuching Project ourselves:
• Thick towels to use as blankets for our second boarding pen
• A medication and deworming / defleaing chart to put up in our foster home to keep track and inform adopters of the cats' medications, doses and dates
• Baskets to use in our boarding pens - one of our baskets is falling apart and we are using a reused carton box for the other pen
• Catnip to calm foster cats down by marinating their housing environment with it
• Charcoal deodorisers to maintain cleanliness in our foster home for visits by volunteers, sponsors and adopters

Do consider us in generosity for the upcoming month. We want to reach out to more cats in need and provide quality care and rehabilitation for them, as well as continue sharing our work with you our readers. Thank you!

cat boarder

With the school holidays here, many of you will likely be needing a boarding place for your pet cats. At Love Kuching Project we do not provide cat boarding services for pet cats but we do have contacts to various cat boarding and pet sitting services that we have encountered and approve of. One of them is House of Cheshire's home boarding service.

We have visited the House of Cheshire before and we have to say we are really impressed with the level of comfort and luxury boarding cats there experience. Located in the east (email pet_boarding@hotmail.com for more details), it is housed in a beautiful private walk-up apartment that is fully air-conditioned with closed windows. The boarding cat will have a balcony all to itself - the balcony has half-length windows that are sealed - with spotless, nicely furnished floors. The place is immaculately cleaned and apart from the pet sitter herself who cleans up after the cats, has cleaning services come to tidy and disinfect the place regularly.



The balcony has space to accomodate your own cat's furniture, toys and litter tray. We once encountered a boarding cat there that had his own plant brought from home to accompany him while he was boarding at House of Cheshire, with his choice of litter and litter pan, and his favourite scratching furniture which was an old stool. It probably really felt like home away from home for that particular feline!

While the pet sitter herself has her own cat, the boarding cats do not need to interact with the resident cat as she has access to different parts of the house instead. To ease in your cats' stay, House of Cheshire has a slew of cat-calming elements such as feline-pheromone-diffusers, herbal and aromatherapy stress relief cures. You can opt to bring your own food, or eat the grain-free choice that House of Cheshire feeds its resident cat. Best of all, when a boarding cat falls ill, taxiing to and from the vet is also included in the service so you need not worry about your cat's health while you are away.

We totally approve of House of Cheshire's boarding service! So now you know where to place your cat for boarding when you are away.

sam, rescued kitten from joo seng

This is Sam, a beautiful 10-week old red male kitten rescued from Joo Seng (near Potong Pasir) by The Water Dish folks. Sam was found alone near a coffeeshop and in need of human attention - he is very sociable with people. Being near a coffeeshop and this sociable with humans meant that he would probably elicit complaints by the coffeeshop patrons if he parks himself there, more so when he grows old enough to mate in three months' time.


Sam will be rehabilitating at our place and when he is more open to contact with other cats his size and older, we will make him available for adoption. He is healthy, no signs of fleas or ear mites. He is a full red coloured cat, with mackeral tabby stripes in darker red around his legs, pink nose leather and round eyes with a medium length kinked tail.

He is still a bit stressed from being in a new environment but has calmed down a lot already, thanks to our new Nutri Vet Pet Ease paste. He hasn't calmed down enough to eat or drink yet, but has stopped meowing for attention and is now relaxing in the upper levels of our kitten pen.

facebook

To all our 500+ fans of our old Ubi Kuching Project's Facebook page, do join us in our new Facebook presence at Love Kuching Project's Facebook page!

Koh Zhen Jian likes

Love Kuching Project

moving to a new web address

In line with our partnership with The Water Dish and our name change, we will be moving to a new domain eventually. This will take some time for us to accomplish, having to migrate this site to a new address. We will have to look for available domain names, put up our information and get used to a different blogging interface. So in the meantime, do visit our site at this current address daily as you already do and when we announce our new web presence, we will see you there too!

we have been adopted!

One of our major pet supplies sponsor for the cats in our care is The Water Dish. They have been donating cat food to us every month, and also supplies us pet supplies such as Revolution, KMR and additional pet food at charity rates. Not only have they supported us with their generosity, they have also come to visit the animals, spending time with them to socialise them and get down on the ground with our work.

Needless to say, they are one of our favourite sponsors! As such, we are happy to announce that our animal rescue group has been adopted by The Water Dish. In line with our name change, Ubi Kuching Project is now known as -




Our partnership means a lot of things for all of us. From Monday 31st May onwards, all adopters that visit Love Kuching Project will get a one-time use $5 voucher and 10% discount. The Water Dish will also be publicising our adoption opportunities to their customers through inserts placed together with their delivery invoices, and through their blog and social networks. The Water Dish customers will also be given opportunities to donate to our cause.

What is the difference between Ubi Kuching Project, and Love Kuching Project by The Water Dish? In essence, we haven't changed. Our credo is still the same - loving the animals in our lives and neighbourhood. Our sterilisation work for stray cat populations in and around Ubi continues. We still shelter and rehabilitate animals in need. We still promote adoption and provide adoption opportunities. We still believe in sharing pet care tips because happy owners make happy pets.

All this is in line with The Water Dish's philosophies of promoting better pet ownership and pet adoption too. Branden and Maxine of The Water Dish have envisioned that The Water Dish be more involved in animal rescue and adoption, and adopting our animal rescue group has made their vision a reality.

We hope that you will continue to support us through the change and grow with us.

See also The Water Dish Blog's post on our partnership

pudding, now marmalade

Marmalade, now a member of Siti's family, says hello!

nutri vet pet ease paw gel

Ubi Kuching Project is making progress towards better rehabilitation of rescues in our care - we just got Nutri Vet Pet Ease Paw-gel (S$16.25 at Pet Lovers Centre after PLC members' discount) for easing in the stress that cats often have when in a foster home for the first time. Cats when they are stressed in a new environment or when going to the vet, often exhibit signs like loss of appetite, constipation, shivering, Flehmen response, overly-vocal behaviour and even fighting.

So we tried some today. It works as a gel you can either put directly on the cat's tongue (about half to one inch long strip when you squeeze from the tube) or you can rub on their paws which will encourage them to lick. Andy and I tasted some ourselves - it is almost tasteless and has an emollient feel. We used some on Uno, who is still getting used to the new environment in our foster home. He stopped stiffening up when we approached him, and is now playing away like crazy as if he has lived here for a long time when he has only arrived yesterday!

It contains natural ingredients only: chamomile, catnip, passion flower and oats, flavoured in a mild salmon flavour. We like natural products so this is definitely a plus. The price is right too, not overly expensive and comes in a pretty sizeable tube. It is also easy to dispense.

Use once a day only. Great for easing in new pets and for visits to the vet!

Uno!

This is Uno, Bun and Pie's brother. He was rescued off condo grounds because he had been innocently playing in residents' gardens and property, causing complaints, and often falling into the condo's basement carpark and getting lost. Liyin rescued him and placed him under foster care with a friend, and now that we have space we have taken him in ourselves.




He is a real cutie, black Oriental with a white locket. He reminds us a lot of Coffee in his personality, playful and endearing. He is looking for a new home! He has a potential new dad coming to see him and Paddy tomorrow, and if things work out he will be adopted soon! Otherwise, if you are keen to visit and adopt Uno, do email me at ubikuchingproject@gmail.com

voucher and coupon from The Water Dish for all adopters

Our kind sponsor The Water Dish is offering all adopters who visit us a one-time use $5 voucher and 10% discount coupon starting 31st May 2010, this coming Monday. A big thank-you to The Water Dish!

Seeds Salmon mousse from Giant

This is a great supermarket cat food! Consisting of pure meat with vitamin B and oligo, this sachet of salmon is not only delicious - our cats ate it heartily - it is cheap and healthy. Only costs about $1.30+ if we recall rightly. They also have salmon with tuna or salmon with chicken, among other flavours. We love it!

boarding costs now reduced!

Here is our revamped boarding schedule for all cats that are home-fostered by us and our network of volunteer-fosterers. Most of our volunteers who foster at home feed premium, grain-free diets, as do us.

Based on a cat's diet and usage of

• 200g grain-free dry food per day
• 1/4 can of premium canned food per day
• 1kg of pine litter per month

We calculated the cost of boarding one cat per day at a home to be $3 per day per cat, a $0.50 reduction from boarding the cats at Angels previously.

For all donations that come into our boarding fund there are two main sources: from the public or from the animal rescuers who engage us to foster their rescues in our homes.

In the past, we paid the boarding expenses of the animals boarded at Angels, to Angels directly. From now on, the boarding funds donations will be channelled directly to Ubi Kuching Project's bank account. We will tap on the funds to buy the food and litter supplies when we need to feed the boarding cats. We may not spend the total $3/day/cat because we do have our kind pet food sponsors like The Water Dish as well as donations-in-kind from the public. So any excess collected and not used on cat food and litter will be channelled into other uses such as veterinary and sterilisation causes.

Also, donations-in-kind and cat supplies bought with Ubi Kuching Project boarding funds are made available to volunteers who foster for us, to alleviate the huge responsibility of fostering rescues.

As such, we have two donation wishlists that we would like to appeal to you to fulfill for the cats of Ubi Kuching Project -

1. Cash donations for current fosters at $3 per day per cat. You can help us raise funds for the cats' food and litter by donating a sum of $30 which will feed a cat for 10 days. To donate cash, see here.
2. Donations of cat food - Solid Gold Indigo Moon, premium canned foods such as Wellness Core Chicken, Go Natural Chicken, Nutripe with Chicken, Natural Balance. You can order through The Water Dish and put the mailing address as ours - The Water Dish has our address on file so they know where to deliver your gifts to. All donations-in-kind received will be earmarked specifically for the fostered cats.
   

Tomorrow, we will have another 5 cats coming to our foster home - one mother and her four kittens. The rescuer is a cat feeder who may be unable to pay for their boarding, so we will be tapping on the Ubi Kuching Project bank account to buy food for them since our own is running out. Together with Paddy, that will make our foster population 6 cats by tomorrow evening! Many mouths to feed, so do think of us in generosity!

potentially harmful toys for your cat

Sometimes it is easy to keep your cat happy as an indoor cat. A crushed paper ball, an old sock, all can double up as a toy that keeps kitty intrigued while he play-hunts with these simple toys.

Some toys though could be dangerous. Like in our house, where anything left on our floors equates to cat-property, sometimes I chance upon items that my cats play with that I immediately take away.

These are classified as choking hazards, meaning that your cat could chew and ingest these items and thereafter cause an intestinal blockage. Unless your cat retches it out, this will mean surgery to remove the foreign object.

• Rubber bands
• Loose strands of string
• Small plastic or foil wrappers
• Loose cable ties

Keep your cat's areas clear of these things so they won't accidentally swallow these items. There are other options to DIY toys that are safer. Some of my 'toys' are things like shortened bubble tea straw with a treat stuffed within, a bottle cap that they can dribble with, and paper boxes and paper bags that our cats love to play hidey-pounce -



Have fun and stay safe, kitties!

paddy!

Here is what Paddy looks like now! He has a habit of staring at us with his big round eyes -




Paddy was found dumped outside Angels with his siblings and three hamsters, and subsequently re-homed, and returned to us when the adopter had to leave the country. Paddy came back to us with diarrhoea and abrasions but has since recovered nicely - we had to apply medication to his abrasions to prevent infection. He is still on diarrhoea medication, and we already weaned him off milk. We have been training him to learn how to eat dry food slightly moistened, which he still prefers with canned food but has adapted to. He has also recently learned to lap water out of a bowl, so he is getting enough moisture without canned food.

Paddy is really cute when he stares at you with his huge round eyes and just adores sitting still on your lap. His only quirk is that he still hasn't gotten used to the litter box completely, but with supervision he usually does it in the box. He makes really yummy noises when he is eating too, another adorable trait of his.

Paddy is ready for adoption and if you are keen on visiting him, drop me an email at ubikuchingproject@gmail.com or text at 90880675 to arrange a visit.

pudding has been adopted!

Tonight, Siti and her family of two lovely girls and their dad came from their home in Simei, to adopt Pudding -

Pudding joins their two cats making their cat family three!

Paddy is still recuperating from his diarrhoea and will be available for adoption soon! If you are keen to adopt Paddy, do email me at ubikuchingproject@gmail.com.

newness

This is a really exciting post for me to write.

Recently, we were approached by a really kind sponsor who wants to give us a free website domain, hosting and support included. It was really good to hear from Anderson, whose other half is an avid cat lover, and his sponsorship stems from his love for his fiancee.

It was a critical moment for us at the time, with our main boarding space at Angels Pet Shop having rental issues.

Angels is in the midst of sorting out a new shop space in Ubi, with new investors. Aswat is also still in recovery from his eye surgery - he has been caring for the animals in the shop half-blind, hence the surgeries. It hasn't been easy for Aswat at all having to juggle caring for the animals for Ubi Kuching Project, running a pet shop on his own, sorting out the investors and moving of the pet shop, and having to go for visits to the hospital.

So, some rest is definitely needed on the shopfront-adoption facet of our work. As such, we will be allowing Aswat to rest and recover, and giving him time to finalise the changes that are happening to Angels Pet Shop. After Coffee, Spitty and Tala get adopted at Angels, we will no longer be boarding animals for rehoming at the shop premises, relying instead on fostering the rescues in homes like our own. Once Angels has tided over the changes, we will re-engage Angels as one of our corporate sponsors again, and Angels will continue to be a pet shop that supports pet adoption work through boarding and rehoming rescues for us.

So much has happened for Ubi Kuching Project since we started, and we are going further geographically in our rescue and sterilisation work. A lot of our work is no longer just in our beloved estate of Ubi. This is a direction we want to take while we continue to be involved in helping to care for Ubi's urban wildlife together with our kampung network of feeders and cat-patrons in Ubi. I received an email today from Suqi who wants to start an Yishun Kuching Project with the caregivers in her estate. This is the kind of community-activism we love to encourage! We want to keep inspiring pet owners towards better care and education for their pets, and the public towards getting involved in protecting the urban wildlife in their neighbourhoods. If we do change our name, it will reflect the main tenets of our work even more. Ultimately, the premise and action of loving the animals in our lives and neighbourhood will not change. Sayang Kuching Project perhaps?

A name change will definitely also take us forward in working with corporate sponsors. In my talks with potential corporate sponsors I propose changing our name to reflect the co-ownership with our corporate sponsor. Corporate sponsors look for mileage for their brand when it comes to their contributions towards social causes, creating win-win situations for both social and business causes. We do not mind being co-owned and re-branded by a corporate sponsor if we find the right fit with a pet business. Also, the possibility of removing 'Ubi' from our name may also help us score more viable corporate sponsorships because our brand will no longer seem geographically limited to the 50 blocks in the small estate of Kampung Ubi.

Which brings us back to the website sponsorship that Anderson offered us - when we do finalise our name change, our new domain will reflect it. We will migrate our current blog to the site with our new brand name. Stay tuned to find out where we will be moving - online - to!

Hence, the post title 'Newness' and my excitement in having the privilege to share this news with you. Am totally excited myself. While we have all been concerned because of Angels Pet Shop having forced to go, even in a crisis comes opportunity to grow. We started because of our crazy love for the animals around us, and we will only reach further to continue spreading this love.

writing to MPTC about their feeding-of-strays poster

from: Elaine Chiam
to: internet@mptc.org.sg
cc: stomp@stomp.com.sg, veron CWS ,news@newstoday.com.sg
date: Mon, May 17, 2010 at 1:32 PM
subject:RE: MPTC notice in Ubi concerning care for urban wildlife

To whom it may concern:

I write regarding the attached notice found propagated around the residential estate of Kampung Ubi. The text in the notice states, I quote: "No Feeding of Strays - Residents who come across anyone committing the above offence are urged to contact our Town Council..."

I understand that this may be a misrepresentation of legal fact. Feeding of stray animals as part of our community's appreciation of nature and care for urban wildlife in our estate, is not in fact illegal as the notice has misleadingly stated. I believe that feeding of stray cats are not constituted as a legal "offence" as stated in your notice.

The public has been advised by animal welfare group Cat Welfare Society that such accusations of feeding stray cats being a criminal offence should be escalated to the police if not resolved. I have informed Geylang Neighbourhood Police Centre (tel no. 68486999) that recently my own stray cat feeding items outside my doorstep were stolen, allegedly by MPTC staff. The Geylang NPC officer assures me that stealing, that is, theft, is a crime and the complaint was duly investigated by the Police.

MPTC may perhaps have confused feeding stray animals with littering. There are cases of littering in Ubi but not as a result of feeding stray animals - bulky refuse strewn along the staircase landings, a lack of recycling bins in Ubi resulting in recyclable waste being dumped along common walkways, a lack of dustbins and waste disposal units for shopfronts in Ubi resulting in their waste disposal being thrown in common areas. These concerns regarding littering are not due to the feeding of stray animals but actually due to MPTC's negligence in managing the waste disposal in Kampung Ubi.

From what has been observed by myself and my neighbours, those residents who take responsibility in feeding the stray cats in Ubi actually do not litter. In fact, they are also engaged in stray cat sterilisation in order to reduce the stray cat population and thus complaints from residents in Kampung Ubi, a job that I personally believe should be engaged by the Town Council as the humane way of pest-control in our community. Almost all the stray cats in Ubi are sterilised with a tipped ear. I have not noticed any sterilisation of stray cats being done by the MPTC.

As such, I feel that your notice is misleading, inaccurate and misrepresented. These notices may have been printed in error and I advise that they be removed immediately. The Town Council should encourage responsible care and feeding by our community for the stray animals in our neighbourhood. Should the MPTC refuse to remove these misrepresented notices, or unlawfully charge any of those who care for the urban wildlife in Kampung Ubi, please be advised that my neighbours and I will be reporting this matter to Geylang NPC.

--
Elaine
ubikuchingproject.blogspot.com

strays

On Friday I had a small note slipped under my door from Marine Parade Town Council, one that had my unit number on it and said it was regarding: CATS issue. On that same day, Andy found this notice pasted on the wall below our block, and promptly removed it and brought it to me to show me -


It says feeding strays - stray humans included I reckoned, it didn't specify in English what sort of strays - is illegal. Oh well, I guess I will never offer to buy a drink for any poor destitute demented senior citizen again. The best part is it says its an offence, that anyone who is seen feeding strays should be reported, not to the police but to the Town Council itself.

I guess the Town Councils have become criminal legislature enforcers. I never knew we had a new police force in Singapore. I certainly ought to inform our wonderful policemen that they are no longer the law enforcers of this country.

I think the Town Council folks must have visited me because I reported to the lovely policeman at Geylang NPC that my cat feeding station items were stolen. Now that is a crime, theft. But no, appreciating nature, acts of compassion towards 'strays' and the homeless, are criminal acts that can be prosecuted by my-oh-my the Town Council.

If they were to visit me and Andy again, I would tell them the following:

1. Want to put cats to sleep? Why don't you put to sleep the possibly illegal immigrants I might have as corner neighbours?
2. Why don't you do something about residents using our common balcony landing as their laundry area?
3. Stray cats loitering around the corridors? Why don't you ban children from playing on common corridors? They really disturb the peace of the neighbourhood with their noise.
   
4. There are so many people throwing recyclable waste on our staircase landings and corridors. Why are there NO recycling bins in Ubi?
5. There are no dustbins or refuse disposal units for the shops below my block, they are resorting to dumping their rubbish openly, why aren't there enough dustbins?
6. Why do you charge me a fixed late fee for my conservancy charges even though I made a partial payment? It should be charged by percentage of sum owed, not a flat rate.
   

And if they were to do anything drastic, I am going to call it my Paddy Chew moment where I put aside my dignity for the cause against the dreadful, archaic concerns of the misconceptions and laws in our country and make a sensational scene for the public to become aware of the ridiculousness of the situation.

By the way, feeding of stray cats is not illegal. See the poster below created by the cat advocates of our country, Cat Welfare Society.

joo chiat complex

Update 3 June: There are more than 8 cats to neuter, at least 10 to 16 cats. More pictures and update on a later post when we visit on Friday 4 June. We have so far raised enough to neuter about 9 cats. We still need your financial support. $30 can neuter and board 1 male cat, $65 1 female cat likewise.

After much discussion, and groundwork by Melissa, we will be helping to neuter the stray cats at Joo Chiat Complex on 5 June, Saturday, 10pm.

Melissa went to pay a visit to the feeders of the area to let them know our plans, as well as do a cat-count of the stray population there. Here are some pictures she took, about 8 cats sighted.








So far we have managed to raise the funds for about 7 of the 8 cats sighted.

Also, next week on an afternoon Aswat, myself and Hazrul - one of our student-volunteers - will be going to talk to the Malay Village management about entering their premises to sterilise the cats there. The situation at Malay Village is even more dire than at Joo Chiat Complex - there have been a few more births again there lately, and one cat even died from giving birth. If the talks fail we will be sterilising the resident strays around Aswat's cousin's shop at Malay Village to begin with, but we hope the talks will work out. At the same time, we will reconnaissance the Joo Chiat Complex cats again to ascertain how many cats of each gender to see if we need to raise more funds for this cat population.