Dior

Dior  (KN)

Dior began the RAPS chapter of her life when she came to us as one of 43 felines that reached us through the Canadian Animal Task Force Society – victims of a major cat-hoarding situation in Calgary.  Tame cats went to the Adoption Centre, kittens went into fostering, and all the others came to the Cat Sanctuary. The latter are the cats that base out of Pen 3, who were featured in a series of three blogs in October and November 2021. When the Alberta cats were settled in Pen 3 last year, they were placed there because they were all young, though not kittens – they were past the easy-socialization point, and we knew we would need to give them time to get used to us.  It became obvious that some socialization had already gone on (they had come from a hoarding situation, so they weren’t all true ferals) and it wasn’t long before the tamest pair, Shimmer and Finneas, found their own adoptive home.  

brother Finneas  (BC)

Others are ready for it – Lucius, Jason and Holly are all happy being handled, and some of the remainder might manage if they went to a new home with a buddy.  Right now, we are in kitten season, and the Adoption Centre is busy, but once the kittens are gone, it will be time to focus on the slightly older ones.

The Pen 3 party-ers - Cornelius, William, Jason, Jenkins & Baker  (LBF)

But the Pen 3 crowd are not the only cats who came from that hoarding situation.  One little tabby who arrived last summer was pregnant, and taken into care by Kati, our awesome kitty-fosterer. Kati takes most of the challenging fosters, especially where babies need to be bottle-fed, and she is endlessly patient with a series of night-feeds.  This little girl was called Dior, and she had come with a litter of kittens that turned out not to be hers (more night-feeds for Kati!) but was pregnant with her own family. When the time came, all did not go smoothly, and Dior had to be rushed to RAPS Hospital for an emergency C-section. Five kittens were born and nursed through the first crucial hours. More of their story can be found here. 

Dior  (KN)

Once the kittens were independent, they went to the Adoption Centre to find new homes, and Dior came to us at the Sanctuary.  It became obvious that she was not of the same mindset as Lucius, Holly and the others – she did not want to be bothered in her cage and resisted the efforts of the Kitty Comforters to coax her into interaction.  Once the cage was opened, she retreated onto the DoubleWide Deck with the other wary ferals, and avoided any encounters with us.  Now that the Deck has its own cat-door we occasionally find Dior out in the breezeway, but she’s not found her way to Pen 3, and we don’t know if there has been any recognition of her former house-mates.

Dior enjoying the sunshine  (KN)

Cornelius, in particular, is an explorer and often found around the Tea-room; he also shares with Dior the slightly shorter legs that are probably a genetic trait in some members of the colony. He’s a very social boy, but Dior doesn’t appear to be particularly friendly with either cats or people, so it remains to be seen if she will rediscover her roots or whether she is striking out for an independent life at the Sanctuary.

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Lisa Brill-Friesen, Brigid Coult, Karen Nicholson