Organise an event, run a marathon, etc. etc. to raise funds for us via @SimplyGiving365!

Love to run? Holding a book or poetry reading? Organising a gig with your band?

So many ideas, and you can use any of them to raise funds for us via SimplyGiving.com, a peer-to-peer fundraising platform.

How to do it? Visit our page at Simply Giving, and click "Fundraise for us" to start.

You will then be led to sign in either via Facebook or with your email address.

The Simply Giving support team is superb with answering any questions you may have as you embark on a fundraising journey for us. There is also an FAQs page for fundraisers on the website, and various tutorials you can use for help.

We hope you will find this an awesome way to give, especially if you don't have that much to give financially yourself but have lots of ideas for fundraising for us. This way, your social network can be aggregated into a pool of funds you can give to Love Kuching cats!

If you have any more questions about how to go about doing it on Simply Giving just go to their support page.

In advance, thank you for raising funds for the meows!!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3        
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection    
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Our first #ERFund cases

During our second round of TNR at French Road, Lavender, we encountered one of the caregivers who had 2 unwell cats that she could foster but could not afford vet fees for. This kind of scenario was perfect for our ER Fund to help out.

The first cat was Girl Girl, who just that day happened to get poked by something sharp, into her neck. We brought her back to our foster space to administer first aid before bringing her to the vet the next day with the other unwell cat.

Girl Girl

The wound site was getting infected, so after cleaning it with saline, we applied gentamicin cream and dressed the wound. She stayed overnight at our foster space.

The other cat had a chronic skin condition that had been going on for a very long while and all this time the caregiver could not do anything about it because she had no money to.

Siam Boy

The next day, we got the caregiver and Siam Boy, brought Girl Girl along, to the vet.

Auntie Aminah with the cats at the vet

Girl Girl's wound had already healed a lot cos of the first aid. She was given a painkiller steroidal injection and a course of oral antibiotics, as well as topical medication to apply.

Siam Boy's condition is a chronic allergy condition. It had to be treated with a steroid jab and oral antibiotics as well. It however will return in 6 months and he will need another steroidal jab. The vet advised the caregiver to bring Siam Boy to the SPCA free clinic for the follow up jab when his condition returns. The caregiver almost never leaves Lavender area so in 6 months' time we hope to gather some of the LKP vollies to help bring her and Siam Boy to SPCA to get the jab done, or to administer the jab at her home.

Thanks to you, our ER Fund donors, that this was made possible.

If you follow other cat rescue Facebook pages and suchlike, and find similar cases where, like in Auntie Aminah's case has no money to bring stray cats to the vet, let us know. Our ER Fund can help. Auntie Aminah is retired and sick and she lives alone as a widow.

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3        
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection    
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[Updated] #pawcircle for Zeus, stray cat with limp from Marine Parade

Zeus used to be a house cat and was abandoned in Marine Parade. Early this year in February, he started limping and now can no longer walk properly. He came to us last Thursday.

Zeus, after a shower

He needs frequent showers because he can't always access the very low litter tray we got for him and often soils himself. Because of this we use oatmeal conditioner on him each bath so his skin doesn't dry out.

"I don't wanna pose when I am all wet!"

It is his front leg that he needs to limp on

When we approached the rescuer, she said that surgery would be costly and Zeus is an old cat. We hope to get a second opinion from our vet and will update on Zeus if his shoulder can be fixed. He hates it when he soils himself and cats' emotional welfare is very important to us as much as physical welfare is.

The vet took xrays of Zeus, and found that there were no broken bones. Also, the way he limped, knuckling on his limbs, indicated more of a nervous system issue than a fractured or broken bone injury.

No broken shoulder as initially thought

If it is thus a nervous system issue, the next step would then be veterinary acupuncture, the go-to treatment for nerve problems. We have already booked an appointment with Dr Oh the best veterinary acupuncturist in Singapore. We will update on his progress on social media.

He also has decayed teeth and gingivitis (hence he often sticks out his tongue :P) but he can still eat and it doesn't seem to affect him. If it bothers him we will manage it with steroids, and he got a steroid jab at the vet yesterday, because the xray process made him bite on his decayed tooth and bleed.

You can help Zeus through giving through the #pawcircle fund or depositing into our bank account (details below) and stating you are either giving to his Boarding needs (he is quite fussy about food, likes Wellness CORE whitefish, not cheap) or his Veterinary needs which will be spent when we bring him to the vet.

Thank you for you generosity and for following Zeus's story!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3        
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection    
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Next TNR project: Hougang Ave 3 [Edited]

One night while Andy was walking Scotty they met Auntie Shirley, a caregiver in Ubi for stray cats in a cluster of blocks not far from here. She mentioned that she had also recently been going to feed at Hougang Ave 3 because there are suddenly a lot of cats there. No kittens, so possibly a new dumping case.

Cats' roaming area

There are technically 2 colonies at this location. One is fed by a teochew uncle and the other by Shirley. She went to recce the uncle's location for us and there are about 5 cats in this colony.

Tricoloured

Ginger/white

Tabby

White/tabby

Tabby

We are going there to trap the cats for neutering on Wednesday 6 August at night. We will 'live report our TNR as usual on social media!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3        
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection    
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Donate to Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3

This Donate post dated 19 July 2014 is about our new DBS current account 027-905975-3 which overrides our previous Donate posts to our POSB savings account 188-52652-7.

Love Kuching Project Corporate Account

FAQs about our new corporate account

Can I still donate to the old POSB savings account 188-52652-7? 
Yes you can, as we will not be closing this account for now during this transition period. We will still be able to access both accounts for LKP needs. However, we prefer that you donate to our new account as it is our corporate account and therefore gives you even better financial accountability for your gift.

I have a standing instruction on a monthly basis to the old POSB savings account 188-52652-7. What do I need to do now that LKP has a new account?
Currently if you have a monthly standing instruction to our POSB account it would either be for our Boarding Fund (by default) or our ER Fund. We would like you to switch your standing instruction to our new DBS corporate account 027-905975-3. (Yes, we know it's very troublesome, and we apologise for that!) You should indicate in your standing instruction details whether you are a Boarding Fund or an ER Fund donor. We are not placing a time limit on when you should switch as we will not be closing our POSB savings account yet, to minimise the inconvenience we are causing our monthly-giving cat angels. We do not want any of you to stop giving because of this hassle. Since both accounts will be active until further notice, you also do not need to worry that your funds are going nowhere, they will still be used for the cats.

Is LKP paying more bank charges for this new corporate account?
Yes, we are, for the sake of better corporate governance and financial accountability for all our donors. You can download the PDF of DBS's pricing guide for the bank charges here. Summarily, we need to maintain minimum average daily balance of $8,000, failing which the fall-below fee is $25 monthly. We need to ensure we have enough balance to cover this monthly fall-below fee, not only to make sure we don't go into overdraft, and that the bank doesn't close our account but also to maintain our credit rating. There is an annual account service fee of $40 as well. More details are in the pricing guide. This will increase our operation costs (comes out of Operations Fund), but we feel it is worth it for our cat angels' sake, and it will also improve our fundraising efforts because of the increased financial accountability that comes with a corporate bank account.

Are there more modes of donating to LKP now with this new corporate account?
Yes, you can now make cheque donations payable to "Love Kuching Project" and drop it in any POSB or DBS cheque deposit box. Our POSB savings account 188-52652-7 is actually a private joint account and therefore we did not encourage cheque donations in case any donor accidentally deposited the cheques into personal bank accounts. All other modes of donating as before: via ATM, CDM, internet and mobile banking remain the same.

How will we know when the old POSB savings account 188-52652-7 has been closed?
We will announce it on our blog in a post as well as on our social media platforms.


Any other questions? Do feel free to email us should you have any, at elaine@lovekuchingproject.org.

By the way, we don't say this enough: THANK YOU cat angels for giving to Love Kuching Project since we started our humble POSB bank account circa 2009!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3      

Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection  
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Melee the stray from Jurong West, the boy cat with a serious wound that caused infection [FULL STORY]

Michelle from Cat Welfare Society contacted us about Melee, a cat that had a wound so bad it caused bone infection in his elbow. He needed fostering at a shelter as he is on medication and isn't fully mobile yet. He also has an xray showing fluid around his lungs.

The blur part in chest is fluid

So he arrived in our foster home on the first week of July.

Melee in his cat suite

He was already put on a long course of 2 antibiotics, Clavulox and Clindamycin, as well as wound care for his elbow with gentamicin cream.

We brought him to our vet for further understanding of his infection as Michelle could not afford all the tests needed to conclusively diagnose Melee (that's where you cat angels make a difference for sick strays!) and we also wanted to know what supplements we could put him on.

It turns out the fluids in his chest cavity are not in his lungs, but merely outside, most possibly because the bite wound pierced his chest area. This means he will not have respiratory problems, nor is he likely to have diseases such as FIP.

We were advised to give him supplements good for bacterial infections, as this is what his wound is about, an infection. This means a combination of milk thistle, dandelion root, echinechea and burdock root. We are also putting him on anti-inflammatory supplements such as curcumin, colloidal silver, and ashwagandha.

He is very comfortable in his pen now, often seen rolling about and interested when the kittens have their play time with the volunteers.

Lying on his injured side like there's no pain

He loves food! *pose with bowl*

And how did he get injured in the first place? He was bitten by his brother during a fight, before they were neutered. Likely abandoned before that or born on the street by abandoned mother cat. They are now sterilised of course. Neutering is one way to prevent cat injuries due to cat fights over mating territories, which is why trap-neuter-return TNR is so important.

Will update on the sickies on social media, so do follow us there!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our POSB savings account 188-52652-7.       
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection  
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Heffy from Haig Road [The Full Story]

During the first week of July, we had three new arrivals. This is the story of the first one, Heffy. 

Heffy is a stray female black and white cat from the Haig Road area, under the care of a few stray cat caregivers who feed the colony and sterilise the cats. Heffy was seen to be avoiding food and not eating, and was very feral. When cats get more aggressive or fearful than they usually are, it often indicates the cat is sick or injured. The caregivers asked us for help and we said we could take Heffy in and to the vet to get her diagnosed and cared for at our foster space. They hired a professional trapper to trap and transport Heffy to our place one night.

The stance of fear

We tried to coax Heffy to eat, to no avail. We tried to inspect her teeth but she clenched her jaw very tightly and from what was visible, there was no inflammation of gums, a common problem that causes cats to stop eating if there are no other symptoms. We gave Heffy a painkiller injection and some subcutaneous fluids and she started eating, so we knew it was pain-related.

After we brought her to the vet, and with more help, the vet was able to see that Heffy -did- have gum inflammation but it was all in her molar area. Her teeth were clean and were not decaying, so tooth extraction as a long term solution was also not feasible.

Because we want Heffy to sooner than later return to the streets where she feels more at home, we opted to give her an intralesional steroid injection, meaning a steroid injection directly into her molars. A more expensive process but we hoped for quicker recovery so as to benefit Heffy's emotional welfare.

After that, we gave her a shower, and she finally looked a tad less angry.

No more flattened ears
(stance of aggression)

We then put her on supplements that will help her depend less on steroids over the long term. It was a long shot as supplements take some patience if we want to reduce dependence on medication. She is now on a cocktail of supplements including curcumin, ashwagandha, colloidal silver, homeopathic and essential oil painkillers. Because she is on steroids she is also on milk thistle to protect her liver, as are all the cats on steroids here.

However, the intralesional steroidal jab didn't last as long as we hoped. Heffy's pain is back and she is not eating, so we will give her a regular jab of the same steroid, Depredil, and fluids since she didn't eat her food last night.

Poor dehydrated and salivating Heffy

We still hope eventually we can get Heffy less reliant on medication. Cats like Harry (who in general has very low immunity too) started out having serious gum disease like Heffy but now needs a very low dose of steroid after being on supplements. Mac too, is performing much better and needs steroidal jabs far less often now than before, even though he has FeLV -and- FIV! Supplements work.

But perhaps she will have to stay here longer than before. Well, we diffused Harmony essential oil blend (donated by cat angel Jasper) for her to feel more like she fit in with the rest of the cats, as it is recommended by vets to help integrate new cats. (Possibly might be useful for some of you out there too - see here on how to purchase.)

She is hissy again today but hopefully will be her usual (still shy but not aggressive) self soon.

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our POSB savings account 188-52652-7.     
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection
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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Love Kuching Project and The Water Dish are ending our formal corporate sponsorship with effect from today. We will no longer be their adopted charity and our corporate logos will reflect our brand as ‘Love Kuching Project’ instead of ‘Love Kuching Project by The Water Dish’. 

This is due to the fact that The Water Dish is moving away from the retail market and into distributorship and pet community development. Hence, we will no longer receive donations from The Water Dish as they progress in their business development. Adopters will also no longer get their own adopters' discount code to use in The Water Dish store.

They will also no longer be offering discounted bundled rates for donors to donate food and litter to Love Kuching Project online. We have lined up another pet supplier, Pawfection, who is able to fulfil this gap. You can start donating right away.

 

The Water Dish will however still keep the #pawcircle fund going, as this is in line with their new business development into the animal welfare and pet community. All #pawcircle fund donations via The Water Dish link above go towards our Veterinary Fund.

We will be going through a small rebranding to reflect our new status quo. We will also definitely continue to partner with The Water Dish for selected projects in the future.

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our POSB savings account 188-52652-7.     


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Adopt: Kevyn, rescued from road in Yishun after mother killed in road accident

"I waited for my mom for a few nights..."

Kevyn, rescued by Vernice from Yishun, was found on the road one night, and she picked him up because it was a dangerous spot for him to be at. The nearby senior citizens told her Kevyn's mother had been killed in a road accident a few nights before.

Vernice didn't know what to do, and hoped one of her friends would adopt him, but her contacts fell through, and her dog kept attacking Kevyn when she brought him home to foster. She ended up having to separate the two, Kevyn barely eating, the dog very frustrated. It was then that she brought the kitten to us, since the situation was untenable. He arrived at our foster home on 4 June, at the age of about close to 6 weeks, but with the body of a 4 week old kitten.

He ate to his heart's content, at first even fighting with his new foster sibling Lex over the food. But they eventually became firm friends who could eat together, and he became a cuddle bug who would purr with affection.

He is a white and black cat who always has this stunned expression:

"Huh?!"

Now 9 weeks old, he finally put on some weight and got vaccinated and vet checked. He used to be small enough to eat like a ruffian, inserting his entire body into the food bowl to eat. He is now a civilised gentleman.

Nice pose!

Another stately pose

 Of course, like any high-strung kitten, he loves to play.

BALL!

FEATHERS!

We also dutifully socialised him with others in the foster home, first off, the Socialisation IC, Scotty:

"Hi..."

Older foster sister Kieran also for adoption

Wanna adopt Kevyn? Find out how by looking at the right side bar under 'How to adopt' or click here.

Spread the word!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our POSB savings account 188-52652-7.     


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