The full story on Moca's rescue

On 12th April we received a call from Christine who works in the Ang Mo Kio industrial area. She had found a baby kitten, probably less than 3 weeks old, meowing away, on the carpark ground. A hunt produced no clues of a nearby stray mother cat or similarly aged siblings, and the security personnel also shared that there were no stray cats in the area. Thus, Moca is likely an abandoned kitten.

Christine and Aloysious set about buying kitten supplies, trying to hand feed the orphan baby kitten but it still kept mewing away. Christine's sister is allergic to cats, and after the weekend ended, there would be no one in the house to take care of little Moca. The situation that Moca was in made this baby kitty a suitable Love Kuching case to handle.

True enough, based on Moca's teeth development and size, he was about 2.5 weeks old.

Banana-sized Moca

We named the kitty Moca after the 'Mo' in Ang Mo Kio and 'ca' after Christine and Aloysious, his rescuers. Moca was still in the age range requiring handfeeding regularly, and is thus now being fostered by one of our volunteers, our Treasurer Vivien, because her work schedule alternates with her hubby's - this way there is always one human around for Moca.

Needs round-the-clock handfeeding

They are now at the stage of slowly introducing solid food to Moca, but different kittens take to this at varying paces. Once Moca is able to eat on own, does not need a bottle, and can use a litterbox, he can then move back to our foster space to be readied for adoption. Apart from food and litter training, he also needs to be dewormed.

Give us some time, and watch our blog for his adoption post when he is finally ready. For now...

Thank you for rescuing me... zzz

Current fundraising need: Make a pledge to our ER Fund.

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.     
Follow on us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

Feline Therapy for Seniors | Bringing the love of cats to humans that need it

You probably have heard of equine therapy, dolphin therapy, dogs visiting nursing homes. But cats? In Singapore? In medical facilities? Yes, it is possible.

Kieran working at Thye Hwa Kuan's existing cat therapy programme

Since last year, we have been envisioning and researching on feline therapy for patients in hospitals and nursing homes. If we the young and able can experience the healing love of cats, we should share this love. After all, we -are- called Love Kuching Project, and our mission is about loving cats.

Apart from sharing the therapeutic effects cats can have on those who are ill, we also wanted to help those of you who live with parents, want to adopt a cat, but face parental objection. If we can prove that cats are actually good for health and safe enough to enter even medical facilities, perhaps your parents will change their minds, right?

Another patient experiencing kitty-love

We want to change the mindset of some of our elderly citizens who think that cats are dirty and transmit diseases. This is quite far from the truth, but before rabies was eradicated in Singapore in the 60s, citizens were educated that cats are carriers of rabies and should not be pets in HDB flats.

The seniors who lived through this period might still think the same way, that, "cats are dirty." Cat Welfare Society mediators do a lot of education on the fact that cats are highly unlikely to spread diseases to humans, and we want to do our part in proving this fact too.

If we can change the cat adoption climate by showing the therapeutic effects of cats to the lives of seniors, that would be just one more benefit on top of our therapy objectives for these patients.

And so we built our Outreach Team, we developed a structured feline therapy programme with specific therapy objectives that can be measured. When therapy objectives can be measured, it means that there is data that can be presented showing the benefits of feline therapy, which will help promote feline therapy even further. (We found very little academic literature on feline therapy, even in foreign university online libraries.)

Our feline therapy programme focuses on 3 measurables: psychological, social and psychomotor therapy benefits.

Thye Hwa Kuan at Ang Mo Kio already had a visionary staff member, Sharil, that pushed for feline therapy to take place for their patients. Cat Welfare Society aided them in their initial launch, and it has been taking place every fortnight since. We are now in partnership with THK to implement our structured feline therapy programme.

Our next client will be Renci Nursing Home, where we have tailored our programme for their bed-ridden patients in the wards. Our pilot run starts in early May.

Currently all our therapy sessions are during the weekdays. After our therapy programmes are fully developed in both locations, we will open for weekend sessions, which ad hoc volunteers (humans AND cats) can register to attend. 

If you volunteer or work at a seniors' facility or know someone who does, link us up! Our feline therapy programme is pro bono. Mostly sheer hard work by the team and the therapy cats:

Our Outreach Volunteers - from left, Camellia, Jess and Nicole. (Absent: Ann)

For the expenses incurred in providing feline therapy to senior welfare homes, we have set up an Outreach Fund. This fund also financially supports any adoption events we host or attend. We don't need to spend much for now, but if you would like to show your support for outreach initiatives, give to our bank account (info below) and email us to indicate you are giving to the Outreach Fund. Future projected expenses will include grooming items, toys, harnesses, printing services (for events).

Hope you approve of this kitty-love sharing initiative! Inspired? Click one of the share buttons below this post.


Current fundraising need: Make a pledge to our ER Fund.

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.     
Follow on us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.