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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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

[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. .

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 Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection        

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

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!

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!

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.

Become a monthly Cat Angel this December, and get an orangeTag pet tag!

This December, create a new standing instruction donation to us, of $50 or more, through your bank's online platform, and you get a free orangeTag pet tag that is electronic scanning enabled!

We are referring to this orangeTags pet tag:

Smart Tag, Smart Pet
Posted by Smart Phone Enabled Pet Tag on Monday, March 23, 2015

Even if your pet is microchipped, having this on his collar will help regular passers-by contact you, the owner, without having to bring it to SPCA or a vet clinic to scan for a chip and pay for microchip scanning services. Having an orangeTag pet tag is extra assurance that your pet, if in the unlikely chance she gets lost, someone can contact you easily via the tag.

Close up of the pet tag

The orangeTag pet tag is hung on your cat's collar

orangeTags has partnered with us during the month of December, that every new standing instruction set up to donate to our account, at an amount of $50 and more, you can receive a free orangeTag pet tag. There is only a $10 handling fee to input your pet's and your details in the tag before they can send it to you.

Get an orangeTag pet tag as a new monthly cat angel!

We are in serious need of monthly donations. To upkeep our work, based on FY2014 figures, we need about $8,500 per month to do our rescue, rehabilitation, rehoming, neutering and outreach work. Many cat angels have already stepped forward to donate monthly but we are still below target. Paying rental every month is a scary affair. Sometimes, when we see our out-of-stock list of items, it also worries us that we can only wait till more funds come in before we restock items, like supplements.

The man-hours spent fundraising per month equates to time taken away from actually caring for our beneficiaries, the cats. But with monthly donations via standing instructions by your bank to our corporate account, we spend fewer hours on fundraising and more on cat loving. We need more of you to become monthly cat angels.

If you are a POSB or DBS customer, click here if you do not know how to set up a monthly standing instruction to us. Our account is DBS current 027-905975-3.

After u set up the standing instruction, take a screenshot to confirm you are recurring a donation of $50 or more to our bank account number. Send this screenshot to Elaine elaine@lovekuchingproject.com and she will arrange for you to have your tag made and sent to you.

This campaign is for the month of December this year only, so do make your donations in time!

Thank you for helping us love the cats in our lives and neighbourhoods.

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

Our Year-End Audacious Wishlist!

| Thank you cat angels |

We have been touched by many of you cat angels this year, thank you! For those of you who would like to give during the upcoming holiday season, here our year end wishlist items.

If there are any items in this list that you wish to buy for us, let us know! This way there will not be any double orders. Those items that you would like to either mail / courier to us or come in person with them, we will also give you our address. (We are a closed-admission shelter and visits are by appointment, so we cannot accept surprise drop offs of these gifts...)


Noticeboards
We have been shelving this overhead purchase in lieu of other expenses in boarding and veterinary needs. For now, we paste notices on the wall with scotch tape. We also lack a platform where we can communicate to guests a list of dos and don'ts when they visit.

We need 2 noticeboards, 60cm by 90cm, one in portrait orientation for internal announcements near the food prep area, another in landscape near the door so guests can read notices on it easily. The notice boards need to have a framed transparent door cover so that the roaming cats will not jump and tear at the notices, or be exposed to any sharp objects used to pin the notices.

Felt base, can be portrait or landscape

On this website Gaviton Events one noticeboard of the size we enquired is $178 per piece. This excludes delivery and installation at $30.

How to buy this for us: We will order the noticeboards and request that we pay them by a cheque or money order issued by you, while overseeing the delivery and installation of the noticeboards at our cattery. You can mail us the cheque or money order for the final amount we negotiate, or you can come and visit us when they install the noticeboards and pay them in person.



Scrub tops for our Foster Care Volunteers
Scrubs are useful outerwear tops that Foster Care Volunteers can wear to do their cat care work, without worry that they dirty their own clothes be it with physical stains, liquids or germs. We also want to get these scrub tops for them as a sense of identity because their work creates such high impact, so it is also a small form of volunteer appreciation.

Scrub top by RMF scrubs

We will add our Love Kuching Project logo to it as well. Delivery for 30 scrub tops to Singapore will be free of charge. The quotation they gave us is US$247.50 which is about $352.50. RMF scrubs are the cheapest scrubs available in the market by far. 

How to buy this for us: We can send you our logo and size requirements for the scrubs, while you email them with our order, and pay for the order using paypal or credit card. 



Young Living essential oils
Specifically, we are out of Purification blend, and Helichrysum. Purification is useful when there is a flea or mite or pest (ants, flies) situation in the cattery. It is also good for odour control in our air management when there are cats having diarrhoea; we can diffuse this in our water diffuster. Purification costs $40.79. Helichrysum is one of the three oils used for pain relief, something many of our shelter cats will benefit from. The three oils for pain relief in cats are Frankincense, Helichrysum and Copaiba. They can be diffused or made into a blend for topical use. They can also be consumed if the cat is okay with the taste. Helichrysum is $182.90 per 5ml bottle. 

Purification

Helichrysum

How to buy this for us: You can purchase Young Living essential oils through their website, or go to their office to buy in person. After procuring the oils you can send them to us or come and visit us with your gifts.







 
Pee Wee Litterbox with Hood
The roaming cats in the cattery share a hooded litterbox that is placed in our toilet right now. However, the clips that keep the hood intact with the base are broken, and have been for quite some time. Also, the door has long been lost. But the major thing is that because we use pine litter, it should be a litterbox that has a sieve bottom but our current one doesn't have it. We waste a lot of pine using this kind of litterbox. 

The ideal litterbox would be:

  PeeWee EcoHus

This fits our dimensions for the toilet area we set aside for the roaming cats' litterbox as well. 

How to get this for us: The PeeWee range of litterboxes can be found at many pet stores and you can approach your most convenient pet supplies vendor to get the EcoHus litterbox for us. You can either get our address via SMS and ask your pet supplies store to deliver it to us or come and visit with the gift in person. 



Microscope

3B Scientific Microscope

This is a microscope that can see oil immersion slides at minimum 40X. To a layman, this means that if we want to check what kind of skin problem, diarrhoea-causing parasite or infection, we can do it without going to the vet. Upon identifying the problem, we can simply administer the medication necessary if we have it on hand (and if not we can just buy it from the vet clinic without needing to transport the cat and pay for consultation).





Some examples of what we can identify: 

Demodex mite

If we do a skin scrape test and find this mite, then we can just treat the cat for this straightaway with lime sulphur baths; we have lime sulphur soap that costs only 50 cents per bar and works well for demodex mites. We can also concurrently apply Advocate, which we also have. 

Coccidia

If this is found in stool samples under a microscope when a kitten is having diarrhoea, it needs to go on Bactrim antibiotics to get treated before it gets too dehydrated from diarrhoea. Being able to identify the right infection the cat is having when there is diarrhoea, allows us to apply the right antibiotics immediately. Many diarrhoea problems won't go away until the exact antibiotic is given and there are quite many of them. 

If we get this we will print up a chart so we can refer the samples we see to the charts and identify the infections accurately. 

This item is on our Amazon wishlist so you can purchase it through Amazon. If you have any other alternative means because you are in a scientific research or similar industry you can also get it for us through your own familiar vendors. Our requirement is that it must be able to see 10X, 40X and 100X, and able to use with oil immersion slides. 

  

Nursing the Feline Patient by Linda E. Schmeltzer, Gary D. Norsworthy (Textbook)

This textbook is a comprehensive and accessible clinical manual addressing the unique nursing needs of cats. We are currently in the midst of building a Foster Care training curriculum for continual training of our volunteers as well as to improve on our training of new volunteers. There are many coloured, visual examples in the textbook showing, for instance, how to inspect the gums of a cat for signs of disease. It also gives definitions of the terms the volunteers will come across. It will serve as a good handy guide for learning about new "pawtients" with diseases encountered for the first time, so we can better care for the cat.

Nursing the Feline Patient

How to get this for us: This book is also in our Amazon wishlist so you can purchase through Amazon.. It would be a great companion guide to use alongside the microscope because it shows slide samples :).

And yes we do want the other things in our Amazon wishlist but these are the audacious requests, stuff that have weight and will really make a difference in the way we work for cats.

Enjoy giving this year-end season!