Mr Glue who is named as such because when his caregiver first met him, he had glue on his back, came to us after being hospitalised for his fractured leg. He didn't actually need to stay in the clinic he was at; all he needed for the fracture to heal is cage rest. But we were out of space at the time, and so when we had a space freed up, Mr Glue came to stay with us.
We started him on supplements to boost his healing and help with pain. He took to his food well. His supplement regime consisted of a lot of anti-inflammatories like curcumin, colloidal silver and ashwagandha, among others that were for his immunity.
When we brought him to our vet for a review a week after he came to stay, an x-ray revealed that Mr Glue's fractured had healed very well. He could get his splint removed.
Vet removing his splint
He developed some pyoderma under his splint - itchy pistules that were inflamed. We used topical meds and a short course of antibiotics to get that healed up, and it did. We also had supervised walkabouts for Mr Glue to strengthen his leg again after not using it for a while. Soon, he will be able to go home to Macpherson!
Mr Glue and his now a-okay foreleg!
If all goes well, Mr Glue should be able to return this week to his friends and feeders at Macpherson. We are glad he is now a-okay!
Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or viaCredit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection
Apart from #nyanmade subscribers and #ERFund donors, all monthly donors' funds get channelled into our Boarding Fund directly, which includes paying for monthly rental. We are going to, paws crossed sooner than later, move into a bigger premises soon. And that means we have to be sustainable financially to pay our rent on time. We do not like owing money to those who provide us a service. Professionalism first!
Sneak peek of the new space
This means we need to grow our monthly Boarding Fund donations. Currently, we have $690 per month in standing instruction donations to our Boarding Fund. $490 goes to our current rental. Given that we are budgeting for a bigger space, we need as many cat angels as possible on board to pledge to give monthly to our Boarding Fund to grow this amount from $690 to at least $1,700 (budgeted rental and utilities).
What you will be giving to in pledging a monthly standing instruction donation to our Boarding Fund:
Rental of a bigger space that can house more cats including a quarantine area, an office space for Elaine. our full time staff and a meeting table for volunteers. Our Boarding Fund also pays for the following expenses:
Food, litter, cleaning supplies, pharmaceutical supplies such as saline and needles, supplements, essential oils, toys and treats. If your gift overflows beyond the rental and utilities cost, the money will be used for such necessities.
When do you start pledging a monthly standing instruction donation?
You can do so this month or start next month. If you intend to start next month and already know how much you will be giving every month, inform us that we will expect your donation to start in April instead of March, and how much, so we can do our budgeting. When you set up your standing instruction, you should include Boarding Fund or Rental in the transaction notes. Any transaction that comes to us as 'anonymous' automatically gets filed into general donations instead. If you need help setting up a standing instruction donation from your bank, let us know. Our account number is DBS current account 027-905975-3. We will help in any way that we can.
Let us know your monthly donation amount. Let us know early so we can make prudent decisions, If you want a receipt, please also give us your mailing address.
Pledge early, this will raise our morale, which we really - do - need, after seeing places where landlords reject us, or meeting landlords that accept cats but are offering too high rental prices. It has been a hard search and we need strength to go on.
Spread the word. A small monthly donation from your cat-loving friends can make all the difference in making our new cattery a reality!
Hurry, log in to your internet banking and get your phone ready!
*runs to finish line with Love Kuching*
Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or viaCredit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection
Beng, a cat that lurks around the pubs of Holland V, got into a cat fight and had a nasty wound on his neck. His caregivers brought him to the vet to get it treated.
Beng's wound
They didn't have anywhere to house him because we were full, but as soon as space freed up, Beng came over to stay.
By then, his wound had already cleared up and had very little pus although it was still swollen.
Beng when he arrived 7 March 2015
After a few days of treatment, there was no more pus, bleeding or scabbing, and our vet said he could go back to his 'hood, which he probably missed because he didn't eat very much while he was here.
Wound site clear
Beng came to the east of the island to recuperate and tomorrow is going back to the west side of town to hang out again. We are glad he recovered so fast! He misses the throngs of people who would sayang him as he is a very affectionate cat. Look out for him when you ever are in the Holland V area!
Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or viaCredit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection
Albie is an FIV+ cat that got bitten very badly by another cat so much that her wound festered. She spent a very long time in the clinic, costing her rescuer $3000+ until she found out about us, a centre that provides intensive clinical care. Albie came to us on 27 February.
Her wound was initially very bad.
Albie's bite wound
By the time she was discharged her wound had closed but the tissue under her wound was still tender.
We fed her supplements and cleaned her wound. After a vet check on our end, Albie was certified able to go back to Ang Mo Kio on 6 March.
Wound a-okay!
Albie didn't really enjoy staying indoors with us, often meowing a lot. We are glad she is now home.
Yay to recovery!
Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or viaCredit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection
GoNuts is about humans eating healthy, and this month, all the proceeds from the sale of their Ginger Nut Butter is going to our cattery building fund, #IF2015!
GoNuts is a Grace and Michael and their three demanding cats living in Singapore, and they love cooking and eating healthy food! Some people call it Paleo, or Primal, or the Cave Man diet, but these are just labels. They simply believe healthy food is minimally processed and as close to the source as it can get. Combined with regular functional exercise and rest is a great recipe for looking and feeling your best.
The Cashew Ginger was selected for the charity sale because of their ginger cat, Julius! This nut butter contains cashews, spicy ginger with a hint of organic honey - paleo, gluten-free and vegetarian. Cashew ginger is one of their most publicized flavours: it has been featured
on Sunday Times last December and just a few weeks ago on 8 days. Each jar is retailed at $10.
Julius
Each batch of nut butter is handmade
How to order GoNuts Cashew Ginger Nut Butter: Simply send them a Facebook enquiry! They also sell their nut butters at the Farmers' Market at Loewen Garden, Dempsey where artisanal food products are sold.
Do spread the word to those you know who like clean eating. They would surely be interested GoNuts!
Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or viaCredit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection
One of our Instagram followers,@cherylkwansyy, is selling hand-stitched lined notebooks to raise funds for #IF2015! At $20 each or $35 for two, this is cheaper than some branded notebooks, let alone handmade ones. It is like your Moleskine notebook, but more hipster. No one else will have the same notebook that you have because each one is individually made by Cheryl herself. And only 45 pieces are available, so hurry!
Only 45 pieces available
Only 15 pieces available per choice of faux leather cover colour
They are pocket-sized and can be bound close.The cover is not real leather, so it is absolutely vegan - no animals harmed in the making of your pleather bound notebook!
Choice of 12 colours for stiched book spine
This notebook would make a great gift to colleagues for work use and friends who love to write. You can instruct Cheryl to send it to them directly (via courier service) as a gift from you.
How to order
After you email Cheryl with the details necessary, she will reply you to acknowledge your order and how to transfer the payment. She will also give you an estimated date of delivery. Handmade, so you have to wait a bit for the fruit of her labour!
We love this notebook so much we even bought it for ourselves. So hurry and get a hold of one of these 45 notebooks now!
Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or viaCredit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection
A kitty we have now come to call Peanut, originally a stray from Pasir Ris Park, was discovered one morning on the 10th of February, to have a leg injury with bleeding. His rescuer Joe contacted us in the morning and we met Peanut and Joe at the vet to get the kitty assessed immediately.
Peanut from Pasir Ris
It turns out, after the nurses clipped away his fur around his back, that he had a very deep dog bite wound. The skin over the wound had healed over, but the muscle tissue underneath had festered away and got infected, some parts necrotic. He had to undergo a minor surgery to get the necrotic muscular tissue removed. We had to then give him daily wound care: debriding the wound with saline, expelling any pus, applying the wound with Manuka honey. The initial photos are a bit hard to stomach though, so we won't be posting that. The first week his wounds were so raw and some areas had pus that we had to expel.
Peanut when his wound was already healing
The wound slowly drying up
When Peanut first arrived, he didn't eat and didn't poop. We had to syringe feed him his food with supplements including curcumin and ashwagandha, to promote healing. Finally he learned to eat some on his own, and also dry food, and he got to pooping.
Peanut's supplements+food with some food from his rescuers
His rescuers came to visit him almost every day to see his progress and to get him to agree to eat. He is a large cat that due to poor appetite from the pain of his wound and not being at 'home' at the park, had lost weight and was constipated from not eating enough.
We are glad to report he is now eating very well and eliminating regularly!
The next treatment step for Peanut's wounds is to change from honey to Duoderm when the wound dries up, to encourage new skin to grow. Then, through a series of small surgeries, stitching the open wounds close to promote further healing, Yes, he will be with us for a while. We will see him through till he is well enough to go back to Pasir Ris Park. Apparently he is the ring leader in his pack...
Follow us on social media to track Peanut's progress! We love to share his, and other cats' stories, both good and bad, so that you know what is happening behind the doors of Love Kuching Project.
Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or viaCredit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection
Love Kuching Project gave a talk for volunteers of NTU Cat Management Network on Saturday on signs of sickness in cats.
Many cat rescuers would seek their gut instinct to determine if there’s something wrong with our community cats. But on occasion, gut instinct might not be enough; no matter how well we speak Cat, they can’t tell us directly when they feel sick.
So, here’s some of the signs we covered (and some other tips we gave):
1) Behavioural changes
Cats are not creatures of habit, but you can trust your community cat to be consistent; they will behave in a set manner.
Thus, behavioural changes can be easily detected in a cat, provided if you know the cat well. If your community cat is sleeping most of the time and you chance upon it sleeping - that would be normal behaviour; but if the cat is usually active and you find it lethargic, there might be a problem.
Aggression may also be a sign. Sickness is weakness - and cats in nature will tend to hide such weaknesses by protecting itself against enemies and predators. A sick cat may hence be more aggressive. If, for example, the cat is usually very shy or feral, then aggression may be a usual occurrence.
The same applies for shy cats - if a cat is usually shy, hiding would be part of its usual behaviour. There may be something wrong if a cat that is usually friendly becomes shy.
2) Visible third eyelid
Scooter, one of Love Kuching Project’s resident cats, in 2010. The white part is a visible third eyelid.
The third eyelid is present in cats - but it is usually hidden and invisible. When the third eyelid is visible on the inside corner of the eye, it is protruding, and a sign of sickness. The membrane may also be visible when a cat is resting or has just woke up from anaesthesia. In these cases, the eyelid will usually retract when they are alert or startled.
3) Dehydrated
Dehydration often occurs when a cat is unable to eat or drink due to pain in the mouth. It may also be because of more serious illnesses, such as kidney failure.
The pinch test is used to determine if a cat is dehydrated. A healthy cat’s skin will go back to normal when the skin is pinched and released; but a dehydrated cat’s skin will remain ‘tented’:
4) Conjunctivitis
Teo Heng, a former Love Kuching cat. Teo Heng suffered from flu, which caused severe conjunctivitis.
Conjunctivitis is when the eye is inflamed and produces discharge. The discharge may be clear, or pus-life. It usually indicates cat flu, which can be dangerous for young kittens and senior cats - as well as those who are immunocompromised (like cats with FIV).
Cats with cat flu will also sneeze and be feverish.
5) Fur loss and scratching
Fur loss, presenting itself as bald patches of fur - coupled with scratches on those bald patches - may indicate a skin condition. Most common skin conditions include allergic flea dermatitis and mites; which can be cleared by Revolution - medication that destroys fleas and ear mites.
Limping indicates injury - and cats who limp may have had a bad fall, or it may have had some sort of accident or trauma. The cat may also be unable to move one or both of its hind legs - this might be caused by slight paralysis from a spinal injury.
7) Drooling
Drooling is almost always a sign of gum disease. Like humans, cats with bad teeth and gums will also have bad breath. Gum disease can be treated either with medication or surgery - but if the cat is immunocompromised, gum disease will be chronic and require long term medication.
8) Flesh wounds
Flesh wounds can look like open wounds or bleeding puncture wounds, swollen abscesses (filled with pus) or large torn skin ‘holes’ in the cat skin, exposing flesh underneath. A wound that is not tended to can turn into an abscess - and if the abscess bursts, the cat’s skin will tear, requiring surgery to stitch it back together. As such, it is important that a cat with an open wound be treated for its wound as soon as possible, to prevent the wound from getting infected and turning into a abscess.
Swollen lumps can indicate other illnesses as well, such as tumours and hernias.
9) Colour of gums
If a cat is close enough to you and allows you to touch its mouth, checking the colour of the gums may also provide a good indicator of disease.
Here’s how you check a cat’s gums:
Take note when handling the cat around the mouth, however - if the cat has gum disease, it might feel pain and retaliate.
Here’s what you can do if you find a sick or injured community cat:
Find out if the cat has a caregiver. If you find the caregiver, inform them that the cat is sick, and ask for more information regarding its behaviour.
If you have a fosterer for the cat, or if you can foster the cat, you can ask for our assistance via the Emergency Rescue Fund. If not, Love Kuching can only take the cat in if our cattery has the space.
You can then trap the cat and bring it to the vet (ER Fund consultations are to be made at the Animal Clinic only)
Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or viaCredit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
DBS Current Account 027-907655-0 Email fundraising@lovekuchingproject.org after you give so that we can verify receipt and send you a receipt if you need one (not tax-deductible alas, as we are not a IPC).
How to adopt
Visit lovekuchingproject.org/adopt/ to find out more about the cats and kittens that are currently up for adoption, and how you can bring them home!
Adopting from Love Kuching Project will require an Adoption Fee from the adopters. This is to: 1) Prevent the pet from being abandoned again 2) Prevent the pet from being re-sold at a profit 3) Cover part of the animal's boarding expenses 4) Help us further our work in rescuing and re-homing animals-at-risk and unwanted pets 5) Cover potential veterinary costs of rescued and stray animals in our custody 6) Cover vaccination costs
