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Met a stray cat that needs rescue? Go to our website to submit a Rescue Request
Want to adopt a cat from us? Here are the cats that are up for adoption!
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Wish to give to Love Kuching Project? Deposit to our DBS Current Account 027-907655-0 or find out other ways to give here


Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Rescue | Rehab | Bo's story

Meet Bo, one of our permanent residents at the cattery. Bo used to hang out at Botanic Gardens, and one day a regular LKP rescuer walking her dog noticed him looking very ill. She brought him to the vet where he was diagnosed as FIV positive with chronic renal failure.



 The high life as a park-dwelling delinquent just isn't for everycat.
An early picture of Bo in his carrier





When Bo first came to us, he was so stressed out that he peed himself and needed a bath straight away. Thanks to a wide gamut of supplements and several tenacious volunteers, he is now in a much stabler condition than when he first arrived, and he slowly started eating more and gaining weight and strength.
Look ma, no paws!

Bo moping because he had to take the pill that makes him better.
Here at the cattery, we manage his condition with Azodyl, a daily renal-specific probiotic pill. While Bo loves getting head skritches and will purr contentedly in a fluffy round cat-loaf when pet, he hates being handled, which makes baths and regular clinical care challenging. Initially we tried administering subcutaneous fluids, but Bo would have none of it and yowled, wriggled, bit, and scratched even the most experienced volunteers. Since coming to stay with us, Bo has also refined a staggering strategy to resist his medication, using his core strength to stay at the furthest part of his cat suite, and locking his jaw shut so we can't feed him the pill even with the pill-popper and the strongest neck scruff. A single foster care volunteer often has not enough hands to scruff Bo, pry open his mouth and put in the pill, but still we manage to (almost every day... some days we concede and mix it in with a bit of cat food). Luckily, Bo's kidney values improved on just Azodyl and supplements (we give him vitamins B & C, colostrum, lysine, aggression formula, echinacea, colloidal silver, astragalus, burdock, dandelion, nettle, fish oil, and more general probiotics).


Recently Bo developed a skin issue, where he started to lose fur in patches on his face and neck, possibly due to an allergy to his favourite fishy foods. 

Or is he just blushing??
Immunocompromised cats like Bo are prone to such issues, though, and we manage it with weekly medicated baths and daily topical medication. His skin has since improved a little, but for reasons unbeknownst to us humans, he seems extremely annoyed with his weekly spa experience. 


Have you ever tried to keep an annoyed, soapy cat in the basin for ten minutes as his medicated shampoo does its thing, then rinsed him off and brought him to be towel and blow-dried? It's a party.


Notwithstanding all his recalcitrance and grumpiness, Bo has grown on us. He's scrupulous with his litterbox and fairly tolerant of other cats' shenanigans. We love his silly-looking, protruding, crooked tooth, and how he demands treats by sticking his paw out to prod at unsuspecting passersby or muss our hair when we're checking on Ah Niu in the suite below his). He is often seen tucking his paws under and sitting or sleeping in a round fluffy loaf of cat, and despite what he might tell you about his weekly spas, they help keep his fur lovely and soft. 

Bo working it
Bo's funny tooth


Here's wishing Bo's coat of fur grows more evenly in 2016, and that he comes to terms with the benign daily necessities of medication so it's less of an ordeal on both sides. If you'd like to learn more about spotting symptoms of chronic renal failure, a common and manageable condition that affects ageing cats, sign up for our Cat Care talk with Dr. Dawn Chong on the 19th of December.



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

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Saturday, December 12, 2015

Juju and his out-of-protocol adoption

| Juju, next to his sister Splotch (previously Willow) |
Rashid and Diana recently lost their cat Jolie, to cancer. Then Juju, out of all the other kittens remaining while they were still alive, came to comfort Rashid. So Rashid and Diana, who is also our new Clinical Manager, decided that when Juju was available for adoption they would throw their hat in the race for him.

But in the light of all the kitten deaths we have dealt recently, we have decided to skip the adoption protocol and award Juju to Rashid and Diana. They had already been bonding with him a lot. It has been hard work, losing kittens to a suspected virus (Juju is being monitored too and is now already living with Rashid and Diana). They will be bearing the cost of Juju's treatment and care from here on.

Diana as our new Clinical Manager has had to work very hard during this trying time of volunteering in a new, more expansive role even while she just lost the cat she adopted together with Rashid. Looks like Juju had worked his juju on her.

Juju looking stunned
We apologise for moving away from our usual no-reservation policy for this case because of its special circumstances. No chope-ing is allowed because we have had the experience where the those who reserved the kitten never appeared. Our adoption policy strictly is such that applications for a cat with all Adopters' Questiionnaire answers must come after the the adoption post. It is hard to post Juju's adoption post after so many of his friends have gone over the rainbow bridge, the photos are really hard to look at. We seek your understanding that we have in this case awarded a kitten to an adopter out of protocol. We wish our Clinical Manager and her husband all the best with their new kitten.



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

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Come to our cattery for a cat care talk by our vet, have coffee, and cookies too!

| $20 per guest |
Elaine will be speaking on cat behavioural signs you should look out for to tell you that your cat needs to go the vet as it is unwell. Dr Dawn Chong will speak on one of the most common feline illnesses she sees in cats: chronic kidney failure. Diana and Rashid will lead a session on how to do subcutaneous injections on kidney failure cats. Elaine will also speak on holistic remedies for chronic kidney disease.

You will get a humble goody bag, barista made coffee and cookies together with the cats too, so it is a learning experience in a cat cafe setting.

How to sign up: It costs $20 per person for this event. Email  to find out if slots are still available, if so, then transfer $20 to our DBS current account 027-905975-3 and then go to a Google form link that Elaine will send you. You can sign up as a pair/group.

See you on Saturday. It will be fun and meaningful.

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

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Sunday, December 6, 2015

[Adopt] Bibi and Beanie, two girl kitties found at a dustbin in Ubi

Now 11 weeks old, fully independent when it comes to food and litter training, vet-checked and vaccinated, parasite-free, Bibi and Beanie are ready for adoption.To think that not long ago we were passing them among the volunteers to bring home to handfeed milk because they came to us at only about 3 weeks old.

Bibi (left) is the slightly smart one of the two girls

Bibi is the quick-thinking one and she is also pretty chill when it comes to affection. 

Bibi
Bibi being sayanged
Knows how to pose for nice portrait
We love Beanie's white socks, they make a tabby mackerel stripes more apparent. She came to us with a small abrasion on her right shoulder as a baby, which then turned out to be an abscess. It healed up with some wound care from the Foster Care Volunteers. .
 photo unnamed1_zps8il5ycw3.jpg
Beanie with a small raw patch on her shoulder

Here she is now, all ok
Looking curious (and a wee bit blur!)
Another "Where did it go?" pose
She finally catches a toy




Both girls are very active and enjoy playing with one another. We hope to see them adopted together; also because adopting kittens in pairs means less destruction to your home because they play with each other instead of with your furniture and household items. They LOVE to climb, so cat proofing of your windows is a must, and you should provide cat condos or cat shelves for them to use instead of your furniture.

If you wish to adopt them, see right side bar under 'How to adopt'.








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

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Donate us cat food and litter via Pawfection's revamped site! Free delivery to our cattery

A visitor to our site recently alerted us that the footer link of our blog posts for donating food via Pawfection has an error page.

This should be the correct webpage to donate to Love Kuching Project via Pawfection at charity prices with free delivery to our cattery.

We will amend the links to our blog post footers from now on!

Friday, November 27, 2015

TNR this Sunday at Changi Rd

This Sunday, we are going to be busy busy busy! We are coming to this alleyway in Changi Road to trap unsterilised cats for neutering.

(While, not far off at Lorong L Telok Kurau, we will be holding our first-ever popup cat cafe at The Garden Slug. Yes, catwork goes on 7 days a week.)


There are 11 cats in this area that need to be neutered. This will require 2 rounds of trapping at least.

Although there is the free sterilisation scheme SCSP, it does not apply to cats in spaces such as this not in an HDB estate. Hence there will be sterilisation cost we have to pay for this colony.


The tricky part about trapping the cats to neuter, is that there is a fence. The cats may not always want to come out from the end of the fence, or holes in the fencing, to the "human" side.

We hope we will have a successful TNR round for this cat colony this Sunday!


Thursday, November 26, 2015

Review: Nature's Baby Organics Silky Dusting Powder as a grooming powder for cats



We might have -finally- found a grooming powder suitable for use on the shelter cats, and is easy to procure: this product is from iHerb. Actually meant for babies, but ingredients are safe and even include extracts like echinacea and goldenseal. There are no artificial ingredients at all. Very hypoallergenic.

Costs S$9.27 before discounts and delivery charge.

Grooming powder is not only useful for combing out matts for a longhaired cat. After we bathe cats, some are not able to stay still to the end of the blowdrying session. Other wouldn't even let the hairdryer near them. For kittens we wet wipe daily because they are dirtier, powdering them after makes them stay dry.

[It is also a protip to powder white paws and other areas before a photoshoot.]

Buy the powder fr om iherb.com, and if you are a first time iherb customer, use our code AVA985 to get US$5-10 off your first purchase. This also gives us credits we can use to offset the supplements we buy from iherb for the sick cats.