A Gentle Tortie

 

Chelsea  (MW)

We sometimes label people as having “attitude”, which, for felines of course translates as “cattitude”. “Tortitude” is often affectionately attributed to a cat with a tortoiseshell or calico coat who displays extreme attitude. Torties are characterized as feisty, strong-willed furry-coated divas – and we’ve had our share of them at the Sanctuary. 

KitKat's morning yoga   (KN)

Our beloved KitKat, who has just passed, was very much the queen of the front courtyard; in the DoubleWide you will inevitably encounter Lunette (dubbed “lunatic” in her early days) and in the back courtyard, most of the cats know to stay out of the way of pretty, feisty Princess.  Long-term volunteers will have memories of Emily and Treacle, and many others who displayed various degrees of tortitude.

Toes  (MW)

But like many characterizations, it’s a fallacy. Sisters Blaze and Toes are sweet girls with not an ounce of sass, and the same can be said for little Chelsea.

Chelsea has a box all to herself   (GA)

Chelsea is another of the cats who came to us from Sammy’s Forgotten Felines, in Kamloops; she arrived in the summer of 2021. We heard that she had been sharing space with some leukemia-positive cats, but testing showed her to be clear, and it was decided to release her into the front courtyard. She came to us because she had been labelled as a feral, but her timidity felt more like shyness than fear, and over her time with us, she has become increasingly outgoing, approaching to ask for petting and coming for lap-time.

Courtyard play  (KN)

She bases herself around the Hill House, though she roams the front courtyard freely.  Physically she reminds me very much of our beloved Daisy, but without the chromosomal abnormalities – she’s small, with a shorthaired dense coat. Like so many other torties, she has golden eyes which “pop” against her dark colouring.  She tends to be a loner – she doesn’t socialize much with the other cats, but neither does she show any aggression to them; she doesn’t display any territoriality (unlike her Hill House predecessor, Treacle!). 

Pet me, please   (MD)

She prefers to be above floor level when asking for attention, and will “play cute” on the shelf to ask for pets; in the courtyard she can often be found on the ledges around the trees, and though not one for athletic leaping, like Melon and Honeydew, she enjoys some wand play if there aren’t too many cats around.

Catnip bliss   (KN)

We’ll be watching her this spring when we open to visitors again, and hope that her sociability extends to strangers; right now it’s probably too soon to think about finding her a home, but if the right person fell in love with her...

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Graham Akira, Melanie Draper, Karen Nicholson, Michelle Wright

Thanksgiving for Cats

Shy Malibu   (KN)

Back in the fall, Lisa and Ken spent quite a bit of time patiently watching traps.  

Can we trust you?   (LBF)

There are generally two circumstances in which trapping needs to be done. The first is when we discover a colony of cats who are producing kittens – and it only takes a couple of unfixed females, and we suddenly have a flood of felines. The fall colony was discovered in an industrial area – not a safe place for kittens – and it was important that they were brought in before kitten season extended itself yet again.

Truffle in his hideaway   (BC)

The second is when we discover a situation in which a colony is being claimed and “maintained” – but not really...  too many cats living freely inside and out, not enough food so they’re annoying the neighbours, in danger from traffic and predators. In this case it was largely a human hoarding problem, and a mental health one – and the best Ken and Lisa could do was to get cats to safety wherever possible. Other rescues were involved here, and RAPS has played our part in solving the problem.

Hissy Creampuff is calmer now  (BC)

In the first situation, trapping is largely a matter of time and patience; food resources for the cats are limited, and food offered is tempting, and brings them into the trap.  In the second situation, the trappers were handicapped by well-meaning neighbours (and probably the “owner” herself) who were feeding a variety of (not always cat-food) things, and causing the cats to turn their noses up at the food in the traps because they weren’t hungry.

Misty & Windy safe in fosterage  (LBF)

Patience and persistence usually wins, though. Through October, lots of little black kittens from the industrial area have come through the care of fosterers to the Adoption Centre and on to their own homes. They were initially given Thanksgiving names like Cranberry, Stuffing, and Turkey – and then moved on to other fall names: Hayride, Windy, Stormy, Misty, Moonlight... Foster-moms have been very busy, and are now taking that last painful step of sending their beloved kittens on to better things - a process made easier by the fact that Lisa takes wonderful kitten pictures!

Caramel's babies   (LBF)

One of this collection of hoarded cats ended up being whisked away and into fosterage. Pretty Caramel really wanted attention, and got plenty of it while she awaited the birth of her kittens.  With all that handling, she will probably go to the adoption centre with her babies when they are ready to find their own homes. Their sweetness is reflected in their names: Sundae, Donut, SugarCookie, Shortbread, ButterTart and CandyCane.

Misty & Windy have extra toebeans!  (LBF)

The cats from the hoarding situation are mostly adult, semi-feral or very shy, and have needed time to settle down at the Sanctuary.  Many of them also acquired food names: Cornbread, Truffle, Tater, Creampuff, Tamale...  A few non-food names also snuck in – beautiful Malibu can be confused with Creampuff as they bound across the front Courtyard until you see Malibu’s markings clearly.  Tater is doing no bounding – she is very shy and spends most of the time hiding behind the drapes in the ORA.

Creampuff & Cornbread  (LBF)

Cornbread is probably the youngest of the group, and loves attention but is easily over-stimulated. Her jumping and running rapidly changes to smacking, and it’s important to read her body language.  My own favourite among these cats is Truffle; he’s a handsome lynx-point who hangs out now in the yellow-door shed, but who is happy to emerge and visit with a human.  I think, as with many of this group, he prefers the crepuscular pattern of morning and evening; when I arrived early one morning last week, he and Cornbread were playing near the gate, and were ready for some fussing and attention; when I left, late morning, he’d retreated to his hidey-hole.

Cornbread loves to play   (BC)

Tamale is not very social; he hovers between the Hill House and the ORA, putting himself wherever the humans are not. Karen managed to get this wonderful picture of him with a distance lens; usually if he sees us around, he hides. But he’s interested; often I’ll be visiting in the ORA and look up to see him peering through the window from the Hill House.

Tamale  (KN)

With all these cats, we’re dealing with a mixture of ferals and strays. The ferals will probably remain wary, and appreciative of all the many hiding places we offer them;  the strays know about human contact and we hope that patience will eventually bring them around. Whichever way it turns, we are thankful for their presence with us, and grateful for all Lisa and Ken’s trapping efforts.  Thanksgiving is not just for one time of year!

Blog by Brigid Coult

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

Percival Snugglebutt

Percival Snugglebutt  (LBF)

When the first group of cats from the Kootenays came to us in 2022, it was clear that we had a pretty bonded clowder with strong genetic ties. It’s impossible to say how any specific cat in the family is related to another, but the majority of them are Himalayan in appearance, with blue-point or (more commonly) seal-point colouring.  I still have problem telling most of the girls apart!

Betsy, Zoey, Cleo  (BC)

Three cats stood out as different; two little lynx-points, and a blond boy with no tail. The two girls – Sweetpea and Curious – were both pregnant when they came to us, and in all likelihood, the sire was blond Percival Snugglebutt, (sometimes known as Big Daddy) because there were a few kittens who had his tailless gene.

Percival  (JS)

Like all the group, Percival was shy, and in fact only two of the group – little Sweetpea, and sweet Owen – have proved to be sociable. SweetPea got a lot of handling while in fosterage with her kittens, and has been adopted;  Owen has just decided that he likes this place and enjoys making friends, both feline and human – when the visitors return in the spring, it is possible that he will find a new home.

Percival with Owen    (LBF)

Percival actually seems to be closer to Basil than most of the others, but Basil’s a very timid boy around humans, and in his company, there’s a lot of hiding.  

Percival with Basil  (KN)

Luckily, Percival is food-motivated (if not to the same extent as Owen!), and when there are handouts, he can often be found hovering nearby. He’s still pretty tentative, and is one of those cats who takes awhile looking at the tidbit in question before deciding to eat it – which means that pushy cats like Pumpkin and Parry will often dart in to secure the prize.

Percival  (BC)

So far, I've not been able to get more than the occasional touch – he doesn’t much like petting, and he really doesn’t want to be touched with grooming tools, which is a pity, because he’s one of those cats whose fur mats. Like a number of other cats this winter, he will probably have to have a shave-job when the weather gets warmer. But the fact that he’s so often part of the handout crowd makes me hopeful that initial progress has been made, and 2024 may be the Percival Snugglebutt year to let go of some more of his feral fears.

Admire me!   (LBF)

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Lisa Brill-Friesen, Brigid Coult, 

Karen Nicholson, Justin Saint

Welcoming the Cranbrook College Cats

S'mores & girlfriend Twiglet  (LBF)

When the former Richmond Homeless Cats became Richmond Animal Protection Society, and then the Regional Animal Protection Society, we moved from being a very locally-focused organization to one that has links with rescues all over the place. Our work is particularly valuable to small rescues dealing with multiple feral cats; if the cats that come into their care cannot be tamed, very few of these places are able to offer long-term safe housing to the animals – they just don’t have the facilities. With the financial support of cat-lovers all over the place, we have been able to offer sanctuary to cats from the length of Vancouver Island, from Kamloops and Prince George and the Okanagan, and most recently, from the Kootenays.

Li'l Bit, high on her shelf on the deck (BC)

Sadly, there are still too many people who are careless with their cats, who allow them to wander, and who don’t ensure that they are spayed and neutered. And the result is colonies of cats who are born in the wild and who fear human contact. Ideally, TNR (Trap/Neuter/Return) can turn a growing colony into one that is stable and eventually disappears by natural attrition. But it takes patience, and it also takes local education so that the colony isn’t continually enlarged by dumped cats.  For more than ten years there has been a managed colony of feral cats living on the campus of the College of the Rockies in Cranbrook. Their volunteer caretaker took all the responsibility for their feeding, vaccinations, spay/neuter, and the College had agreed to provide access to some space for their housing.

Smudge is hiding in the same high-up corner
where Ringo, and then Hamlet, used to hide  (BC)

This past spring, the College authorities announced that the colony housing would be dismantled and the colony dispersed – though there was no understanding of what might happen to the cats. There was some local outcry; petitions flew around, the media got involved; eventually everyone was satisfied with the decision to relocate the colony into RAPS’ care. That’s not as simple as it sounds; we were talking about taking on up to 14 cats with consequent bills for food and medical care, but generous donors stepped up, donations arrived, and the cats came to us in two separate groups.

Spunky, Toffee (top), Smudge, Li'l Bit (bottom)
with Bernadette behind in the adjacent cage  (BC)

As with all newcomers, they were initially caged so that they could have all their medical checks and become used to some aspects of Sanctuary life. Because they were used to each others’ company, we put the first five cats in adjacent cages in the Double-Wide, and cut a hole in the mesh between them, so that they could move between the cages. They could choose whether to be up on a shelf or on the floor, hiding behind a drape or in the open. It rapidly became clear that though they had had contact with humans, they were very fearful and preferred to hide, huddling together for comfort. There was much hissing, which is less about aggression and more a fear reaction, and contact with them initially tended to be in the hands of the med-staff and the most experienced of the Kitty Comforters.

We think Foster, on the left, is the mother of Li'l Bit   (LBF)
They're glad to be back together again!

The first group of cats had their cage-stay and were released, choosing quickly to relocate to the adjacent DW Deck. This is an area well-suited to ferals, with lots of high shelving around the perimeter, and many places to hide. Ringo, Hamlet and many others have had their shy-time on the deck and moved on to other territory, or to comfortable interaction with humans. The College cats are still in the wary stage, preferring to stay right out of reach, but tolerating the regular advances of Lisa, who usually has tidbits for them. Li’l Bit (or Bitty) is not so little, but once you get past the hissing, she is a tidbit fan; Smudge, on the other hand, resolutely hides in the corner nobody can reach. Toffee made his way out via the cat-door in the corner, but must have had underlying health issues, because sadly, his body was found unexpectedly in the back pens.

S'mores, Twiglet & Purrl  (LBF)

The second batch of cats remained caged a little longer, but by their own choice. It turned out that Buddy was FIV+, and he is now living in New Aids. S’mores and Twiglet are most often found sharing a bed, and have proved amenable to a little petting; both seemed to enjoy scritches and they’re relaxed enough to accept food from the hand. Currently their cage is open, but they feel safest there, and are still allowing visitors to come in gently and offer pets; when they’re ready, they’ll probably make the move to the DW Deck with their fellow-Collegiates. Foster (who we think is Li’l Bit’s mother, has moved out to join her daughter; Purrl and Tabitha, both short-haired tabbies, prefer to remain in the now-familiar cage, with a drape behind which they can hide. Currently there are vacant cages, so we don’t need to evict them too quickly, and they still have access from one cage to another and can visit happily.

Spunky & Smudge  (LBF)

We’ll look forward to following the Cranbrook cats,  and watching as they take their time assimilating into the Sanctuary way of life. 

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Lisa Brill-Friesen & Brigid Coult

Two BIG boys

Mojo  (BC)

Tucked away at the back of the SingleWide is the office area where our Sanctuary Manager and Assistant Manager work. There are a couple of cages for cats who need more isolated care, but the rooms are also well-equipped with cat-beds, litter-boxes and all the necessary paraphernalia needed for resident cats. Sometimes the cats in question are there because they’re unsocial with other cats, sometimes there are health issues.

Licorice having a little outing  (KN)

Currently the two residents in question are Mojo and Licorice – both of them solid chonks. When we have cats that are overweight, it’s hard to put them on a diet, because so many of the general population would rather free-feed with kibble in preference to eating the canned food. And caging them means that they get very little exercise, so that a restricted diet doesn’t actually help much.  Sweet chonky Mya was adopted from the SingleWide by one of the volunteers and we hear that she has actually lost quite a bit of weight because she has to run up and down stairs to get her treats. 

Licorice  (KN)

Licorice has been with us for seven years, having been brought in as an unneutered stray. The testosterone might no longer be a factor, once his surgery was done, but cattitude remained part of his personality, and he picked fights with other cats and was often put in TimeOut to calm down. In recent years, Licorice has become arthritic, and no longer moves so well – and of course his lack of movement has contributed to increased weight.

Mojo, considering a lap-leap  (BC)

Mojo came to us in 2021 as a surrender; he was huge, and matted, and diabetic, and it was immediately obvious that he would need a lot of care. Since he arrived, he’s dropped from 30lbs to 17lbs, and his diabetes is now in remission. Because he is such a big boy, he’s not that enthusiastic about the concept of exercise; his idea of making an effort is to jump from the floor into an office chair and make himself comfortable there. Luckily Licorice is prepared to tolerate the company of his roommate – or perhaps it’s just that having a battle is too strenuous these days!

Both begging to come up  (BC)

So Mojo and Licorice have the use of the offices, which allows them to move freely, but they have a carefully measured restricted diet. Unfortunately, a lot of the administration in the last month or so has been happening out of the Adoption Centre, and nobody has been in the SW office, so the boys have less incentive to get up and move around. The Kitty Comforters have been making a point of visiting them, and if they’re in the right mood, getting them to play a little;  unfortunately, both would rather lounge around rather than play (Mojo likes feather toys when interactive play is offered). They are willing to make the effort to come up in a lap (both need a stool to make a halfway jump), but any amount of running is not on their agenda. 

Grass stems make a good exercise toy!  (KN)

We’d love to have them out in the courtyard – Licorice occasionally goes out for a short visit – but for now, KCs and feeding/scooping volunteers do as much as they can to keep these two stimulated and active to some degree, and we hope that the drop of a few more pounds might allow them to enjoy a bit more freedom when the weather is warmer.

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Brigid Coult & Karen Nicholson