2012: Doing what we do, better

The new year is about doing things even better, about raising the bar yet again.

We expounded on our foster care work in the last 2012 post - about its importance, and also its great need for sustainability through your giving.

This need is still great, do take a look. We still need your help.

Foster care lies in the Heart quadrant

Now we we are looking at an aspect of the matrix - the Star - that costs far less money, but creates almost as much impact - cat care education. Cat care education is one of our 4 mission objectives and we believe in reaching out to all cat owners and potential cat owners in how to make their cats' lives - and the humans' too! - better. Loving the cats in our lives.

So far we have been sharing tips on cat care through online mediums such as our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Formspring and through emails and calls. Last year we also held a small informal gathering for cat owners where we shared cat care tips. We want to make an even greater impact in our cat care education this year. 

We would like to introduce two new Volunteers with Portfolios this year, who among other things, will be helping Love Kuching make cat care education even more impactful this year. We have our new Communications Volunteer, Sarah, and our Events Volunteer, Li Si.

A lot more brainstorming still needs to be done on the specific mediums we will be embarking on, but we will be getting better at our Star, because it is sustainable and makes an impact for cat welfare.

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7  
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme  
Give food and litter at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

Geylang food district - TNR round 2!

Covering the cat colonies of Geylang's food district, lorong by lorong!

We went back to our first site to trap the remaining cats on Wednesday, before moving on to the latest site we wrote about.

Turns out that there were more cats than we counted leftover at the previous site. 3 of them look almost alike, so we must have counted them as 1 cat!

Examining our trap, meow!

These cats were nearer to the coffeeshop than to the gambling den.

Yes, it is the same cat!

Another one being trapped

Here are the 4 cats we trapped at this first location.

White/black

White/black

White/black

White/silver

Who's still there at the gambling den / coffeeshop? The same mommy cat and kittens we saw.

Mom and kiddo

So then we moved to the next alley.

There, the cats were already waiting and hungry.

Hanging out at coffeeshop tables in the alley

Attracted by us humans with food!

"Where's the food!"

Some are less hidey than others

This kitty was very human friendly

We tried to trap as many females as possible first, but many of them were in hiding at this time of day. Those we saw weren't too keen on strangers, even the feeder uncle couldn't get close to them.

Preparing the traps

So we trapped a mixture of male and female cats.

Tabby/white

Black/white

Black

We will have to return to this site to get the remaining cats neutered.

Lots more to be neutered, here are 2

We will announce the date and time of our next round of TNR here over Twitter!

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7  
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme  
Give food and litter at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

Awesome office cat Duke @dukeorange supports our Sterilisation Fund for Geylang TNR

Duke Orange has endorsed our TNR of the Geylang food district stray cats! The kitty celebrity has decided to donate the proceeds from the sale of his 2012 Calendars to our Sterilisation Fund to help us continue our work in this area of Singapore.

A BIG THANK YOU TO DUKE. YOUR KINDNESS IS AMAZING AND KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES. MEOWWW. We love you Duke!

(Click to enlarge)

Duke Orange is really handsome and it will be a feast for everybody’s eyes to look at a new picture of him every month. Spread the awesomeness of Duke Orange! So please support and buy a calendar for yourself and as a gift for others!

The calendar is a desk sized 4 inches by 6 inches, comes with an acrylic stand, costs S$12 inclusive of delivery via regular mail in a padded envelope. If you already have the acrylic stand please indicate to us so, in the email to us (details below), so we can save on shipping and material cost. 

$12 is a suggested price by Duke, but you are definitely more than welcome to give more!


How to purchase Duke's 2012 calendar:

1. Email us at elaine@lovekuchingproject.org CC/ sterilisation@lovekuchingproject.org and CC/ dukeorange.cat@gmail.com
2. Indicate the number of calendars you wish to purchase, how much you have transferred, and the addresses the calendars should be mailed to. 
3. The bank account that you should transfer your payments to before you email us should be our Love Kuching account POSB savings 188-52652-7.

All funds received from the purchases of Duke's 2012 calendar will go into our Sterilisation Fund. We will publish on our blog the amount raised for our Sterilisation Fund by the sale of the calendars when sales have closed.

Side note: in our 2012 financial statement we will not be recording income received from Duke's calendars as Sales but as Donations as the merchandise sold does not belong to Love Kuching Project. Just a technicality for those of you who are into financial reporting on annual reports!

Not able to purchase? Click on any of the share buttons below this post to spread the word!

Wish to give without buying? Deposit into our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7 and text/email Elaine at 90880675/elaine@lovekuchingproject.org to indicate that you are giving towards our Sterilisation Fund.

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7  
 Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme  
Give food at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

More Geylang food district TNR needed

Investigation and reconnaissance of the next couple of lorongs in Geylang from our last site shows a great need for TNR for the stray cat colonies there. We need to act on one particular colony, fast.

Once again, to clarify we are not publicly announcing which particular lorong this is because this is a volatile area with high culling risk. Here are some pictures taken during the recce.

We couldn't capture all the cats on photos as it is a very dark alley. Upon manually counting the number of cats, the total was 17 in this alley alone. There is an elderly feeder who feeds the cats food scraps from the coffeeshop he works at nearby, on a nightly basis. He estimates the number of cats should be about 20. This colony is the largest by far in the Geylang food district. There are about 9-14 more cats in the next 2 lorongs which we will need to work on as well, but this colony requires much more immediate action.

About 3 rounds of trapping will be needed for this colony. The soonest we can conduct trapping and neutering would be after the Chinese New Year holiday.

But we need your help. As of now, our Sterilisation Fund stands at only $247.20 which is insufficient to conduct our first round of trapping. This is especially since we will need to neuter the pregnant females first and foremost. (It costs $60 to neuter a pregnant female cat). An estimate of about two-thirds of the cats in this lorong are females, many of them pregnant.


What you can do:
Give financially towards our Sterilisation Fund by depositing to our Love Kuching bank account 188-52652-7 and text/email Elaine at 90880675/elaine@lovekuchingproject.org to inform us that your gift is towards the neutering of these stray cats.

Do also click on any of the share buttons below this post to spread the word on this need.


Thank you for helping us help the stray cats of Geylang's food district.

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7  
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme
Give food at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

Report on first TNR of the year!

Geylang's food district, at a small alley where the cats have no feeder - we went there on Wednesday to trap them for neutering.

Hanging out outside a temple cum gambling den

We trapped 8 cats in total. But the spay/neuter clinic vet said one of the cats was not viable for neutering because he had breathing problems; he might die in surgery. He has been returned to the site un-neutered, but thankfully we trapped his surrounding female friends.

Tabby male that could not be neutered

Another cat we did not trap for neutering is a mother cat that is still nursing; likewise, the spay/neuter clinic will not be able to perform the surgery.

Lactating mom

One of her kittens, the rest were very scared

Throughout the trapping process we educated the gambling den folks about the concept of TNR, how neutering the cats will reduce the nuisance factors, and how returning them to their original site was far better than relocating them, because that would create a vacuum effect inviting more new cats to the area. We managed to convince them as far as possible. Some of the passers-by also cooperated during the trapping by not intercepting the cats entering traps, although we did have one passer-by that kicked a trap with a cat within. Geylang does have all kinds of people.

Most of the cats weren't too sociable. Only one was trapped by hand because she was very human-friendly. Likely the sister of the lactating mother cat.

"Hmm human, equals food?"

The cats' main food source comes from scraps thrown out by foreign workers, whose quarters' back doors face the alley. Other than that they don't have much loving human contact.

Back doors to workers' quarters

The human traffic here is quite high consisting of all kinds of characters, including the one that kicked our cat trap. Some are using the alley as a shortcut, some also stop to pray to the deities outside the gambling den.

Cat, at outdoor altar

We count a remaining of 4 cats un-neutered, including the mother cat, excluding the sick male tabby. But these cats have a very varied roaming area and would probably move off even further now that the neutered cats have been returned to the site.

Instead, we are in the midst of investigating other cat colonies reported at the same food district of Geylang, the odd lorongs.

This round of TNR cost us $390. Our Sterilisation Fund currently stands at $582.20 before we pay the bill. This leaves us with insufficient funds to carry out our next TNR at the other odd lorongs of Geylang. Do consider our Sterilisation Fund in your giving. To give, deposit to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7 and text/email Elaine at 90880675/elaine@lovekuchingproject.org to indicate that your gift is towards our Sterilisation Fund.

Meanwhile, here are the mugshots of the 7 cats we neutered.

Tabby

Tabby

Black

Black

Silver shaded

Tabby/white

Tabby/white

Great start, thanks to our volunteer @wisheswithwings. We look forward to more projects that would make a difference for stray cats in 2012.

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7  
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme  
Give food at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

2012: Investing in cat rescue work

It's a new year! Every year, we strive to be better at what we do, to be better at loving the cats in our lives and neighbourhoods.

This year, we want to begin with a first of a series of January posts sharing with all of you our vision and direction for 2012.

We based our direction for 2012 on an analysis of our core strengths and weaknesses. Using this matrix map for non-profits -

- we distributed our activities to identify which quadrant they belong to.

Today we want to share with you an activity that lies in the Heart quadrant. Being a Heart means the activity makes a big impact, but also spends a lot, and does not make a profit. Our main Heart is our cat rescue work in fostering rescued cats. Fostering and rehabilitating rescued cats expends both our Boarding Fund and our Veterinary Fund. Adoption fees and Sponsorships do not cover the expenses fully, but only partially.

In order to keep our foster care work sustainable, we need to reduce our costs. However, we do not believe in reducing the quality of care that we provide our rescued kittens just to cut costs. We are one of the few cattery environments that enhances foster care with supplements, effective alternative remedies, home and professional veterinary care and vaccinations, and quality food. We continue to deepen our knowledge in home veterinary care, and in managing contagion. We interact with and house-train kittens that are for adoption, providing sound advice to adopters on the kittens' personalities.

Upon brainstorming, we have outlined a few ways we can reduce our expenses on foster care. Here they are, and how you can help us with them.

1. Lower our financial expenses by giving more The Water Dish bundles of food (and soon to come, litter) for us. The Water Dish stockpiles the orders and delivers them to us in bulk, so we do not have to worry about food expiring. There can never be too much food or litter!
2. Lower our delivery expenses on supplements and essential oils from iHerb. To be prudent, last year we purchased our stock in small quantities, otherwise we would come up short on our Boarding Fund for other boarding expenses. In order for us to purchase in bulk so as to lower delivery expenses, we need more cash reserves in our Boarding Fund. We need your financial gifts to beef up our Boarding Fund to help us do that. 
3. Lower our financial expenses by giving donations-in-kind of boarding supplies. If we can eliminate using cash reserves from our Boarding Fund to buy boarding environment essentials, we can further reduce our costs. Boarding essentials you can give include:

• Jeypine hospital grade disinfectant or Dettol
• Bleach (generic)
• Kiwi Kleen multi purpose cleaner - refill bottles
• UIC or Ligent dishwashing liquid - refill packets
• Dettol air freshener spray
• Kitchen paper towels
• Huggies or Kodomo baby wipes
• Plastic bags (slightly larger and thicker than supermarket type)

To give financially, deposit to our account POSB savings 188-52652-7 and text/email Elaine at 90880675/elaine@lovekuchingproject.org to inform us that your contribution is for our Boarding Fund.

To give boarding environment supplies in item 3, text/email Andy 81277072/andy@lovekuchingproject.org to arrange a timing to bring them our foster home, and we will send you our address.


More in 2012 series: 2011 annual report, activities in the other quadrants from diagram above, and other improvements we are making for 2012. Keep a lookout!

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7  
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme
Give food at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

First TNR of 2012 - an alley in an odd lorong of Geylang

At an alley off Geylang Lorong 1X, where there are workers' quarters, coffeeshops, a private school and a temple, there are about 12 or more adult cats unsterilised. There is no caregiver here nor any feeder. Some of the cats are already pregnant. The human and road traffic here is heavy, and the area where the cats gather to eat food scraps is near the temple where the staff hate cats and have allegedly kicked them to get them away. The situation is dire and urgent.

[Note: map and exact location of area not included in this post as there is a high risk of human complaints in this area that may lead to culling of these cats.]

It will take at least 2 rounds of trapping to get all the cats along this alley sterilised. In the meantime, we have sufficient funds to conduct 1 round of trapping and sterilisation tomorrow [Edit: changed to Wednesday] night at about 8pm (when traffic is less heavy). We will report if there are more than 12 cats than initially sighted during the recce.

We need your help with the subsequent rounds of sterilisation for these cats.




What you can do:
Give towards our Sterilisation Fund by depositing into our account POSB savings 188-52652-7 and text/email Elaine at 90880675/elaine@lovekuchingproject.org to inform us that your contribution is towards the sterilisation of these Geylang Lor 1X cats.

Do click on the share buttons below to spread the word on this need.


Thank you!

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme
Give food at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

Your cats, your pregnancy, your baby

A disproportionate amount of cats are abandoned, re-homed or given away to shelters because of human mothers becoming pregnant. Is this necessary? Here is what we will find out, and what you can do about it.

The main concerns revolve around having cats around during pregnancy, and having cats around when the baby is born.

During pregnancy
What pregnant moms, their families, and their gynaecologists, will worry about, is the toxoplasmosis risk. Toxoplasmosis is caused by the parasite toxoplasma gondii, or T.gondii. T.gondii is not visible to the naked eye. Pregnant women infected by toxoplasmosis can suffer from abortion, stillbirth or cause a central nervous system infection in the baby.

Most adults in their lifetime will have been exposed to T.gondii and developed an immunity to it. The most likely way to be infected by T.gondii is to eat raw or poorly cooked meat, and unpasteurised dairy products.

How does a human get this from cats then?

First of all, the cat must be harbouring T.gondii in its system. This is through eating live prey such as rodents, and from soil that has been contaminated by T.gondii. And, like humans, they can also get infected by T.gondii by eating raw or undercooked meat and unpasteurised dairy products.

Once infected by the T.gondii parasite, the cat will shed it in its poo. In order for a human to get infected by T.gondii from a cat, she will need to eat infected cat poo.

Since the risk of a human eating T.gondii infected cat poo is not great, it is far more likely to contract toxoplasmosis from eating raw and undercooked meats and unpasteurised dairy products.

Here are the preventive measures you can take as a pregnant mom and cat owner.

1. Keep your cats indoors! This is to prevent him from hunting infected prey and being exposed to contaminated soil. 
2. You and your cat should avoid raw or undercooked meats and unpasteurised dairy products. 
3. If your cat is indoors and not on a risky diet mentioned in point 2, he is likely to be free from T.gondii. However, if you would like to play it safe, send your cat to the vet for a T.gondii lab test to confirm he is free from this parasite. You can also show the lab test results if you have a misinformed overprotective ob-gyn.
4. Do not eat cat poop. Also, wash your hands after clearing cat litter, wash the litter scoop, wear gloves, or second someone else to do litter duties.

With these preventive measures in place, you will have a safe pregnancy with your pet cats, toxoplasmosis free.


Having a baby around with cats
There are three main concerns parents of both cats and human babies have. One, whether the baby will be allergic to cat fur. Two, whether the baby, having a weaker immune system than adults, will catch any diseases from the pet cat. Three, whether the cat will show aggression towards the arrival of a new family member, a human baby. Let's look at these issues in turn.

I would like to quote from one of our adopters, Vivien, who majored in life sciences, on the issue of allergies. "Only 10% of an entire population of people are allergic to pets, cats in this instance. And of that 10%, an even smaller proportion are babies...An early exposure to allergens creates early resistance." Because the possibility of the baby being allergic to cat fur is so small, it is unnecessary to rehome your cat before the baby even arrives. In all our experience with families adopting cats, we have not heard of a single case of babies having cat fur allergies. Your cat is your child too, do act on facts and not impulse regarding abandoning your cat for the baby.

Feline diseases that can be spread to humans are ones like toxoplasmosis, explained above. The other zoonotic diseases that can be spread are also through cat-poo-to-mouth exposure. Ensure that your baby does not eat any cat poop or litter. House cats are unlikely to get any zoonotic diseases if they are indoors, and do not eat any contaminated food or water. Maintain proper hygiene in food preparation and clearing when it comes to your cat's food. Make sure your cat does not drink water from floor traps, drains and such, and only from his water bowl. Deworm your cat on schedule. (Even without a baby in the house, these standards should already be in place.) If you want to be even more cautious, if your cat ever gets diarrhoea (the most common symptom of an infectious zoonotic disease), after the vet visit and until the diarrhoea clears up, distance baby away from your cat.

When the baby finally arrives, will kitty and baby be able to get along? Will your cat attack your baby? It is possible that your cat will get stressed when baby arrives, but this can be prevented with proper preparation before baby arrives, not when. This article by Gary Loewenthal is chockful of advice on how to integrate a new human member to the family with your cat. Before you deliver, get kitty used to all the baby paraphernalia in the house. Reduce stress in your cat with remedies such as Feliway. Allow kitty to smell baby's clothes brought back from the hospital by another family member while you are still there. Reward kitty with treats when he smells his soon-to-be new sibling's clothes. This will ease your cat's apprehension about having his home 'invaded' and thus lower any aggression response. Do read the rest of Loewenthal's article for more details on how to connect baby and cat when you come home with your new family member. The main keys are preparation, and reducing your cat's stress and thus possibility of any aggression.

I leave you with this video to demonstrate that cats and babies can co-exist!


Further reading:
Cats and Babies by ASPCA
Prepare Your Pet to Welcome Your New Baby by Dr Karen Becker

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7  
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme  
Give food at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Grateful this Christmas ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Thank you cat-angels, who gave towards our cause this year through good times and bad, through financial contributions or donations-in-kind. We could never have done it without you.

Thank you supporters, who spread the word on what we do, expanding our outreach more this year than the last, turning us into a force of nature.

Thank you adopters, who have given our rescued cats safe, loving, forever homes. You make the meaning of cat companionship real, and your lives are living examples of the maxim, "Don't buy, adopt instead."

Thank you volunteers, especially our volunteers with portfolio, Liyin - Sterilisation Volunteer and Imran - Adoptions Volunteer. May we keep growing together.

Have a Blessed Christmas 2011.

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme  
Give food at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish 

Lockdown now fully lifted

Two weeks ago we had a lockdown because a lot of kitties fell ill with flu'. We suspected it was either bordetella or a mutated flu' viral strain. We confirmed it was a mutated flu' virus being shed by our chronic cat flu' carrier Napolean.

Since then, we began treatment of all the cats affected, disinfected the foster home, and quarantined Napolean. Only Lenny remains ill, probably because he is the youngest and his immune system the weakest. He is still undergoing medication.

Napolean was also treated to reduce his symptoms and is now no longer sneezing, which is one of the ways the flu' viruses get carried into the air.

As such, we are lifting the lockdown fully. Visitors should however avoid handling Napolean if they are going to play with the other foster cats or have cats at home, unless they bring a change of clothes (if hugs are involved). Chlorhexadine hand soap and hand sanitisers are available to prevent transmission of the viruses.

We are also accepting new rescues - 3 will be arriving tonight, story soon - as the situation is under control. This will bring our foster kitten population up to 9, with one 'ICU' case i.e. kitten needing medical care (Lenny), well within our threshold.

So, if you are intending to visit - and bring gifts from our Christmas Wishlist? Or adopt a kitty? - you are definitely more than welcome, and safe to!

Give financially to our cause by depositing to our bank account POSB savings 188-52652-7  
Sponsor a foster kitten's vaccination through our Sponsor-A-LoveKuching-Cat Scheme
Give food at charity rates through our corporate sponsor The Water Dish