Kamloops Catz 2: Lots of Orange

Persimmon  (JS)

In last week’s blog, the bonded cats from the Kamloops colony were introduced.  That's not to say that the other cats don't show bonds with each other;  there's a lot of crossing of groups, and assorted cuddle-puddles, but those five cats are the most consistent in their choice of company.

Persimmon  (VW)

Of the other darker orange cats, the dominant personality has to be Persimmon.  Right from the beginning, she was the brave one; though not tame, she was ready to approach us and allow contact. She’s probably the most identifiable of the long-haired oranges – the largest of them in both size and build. She exudes a matriarchal presence, though as far as we know, they’re all similar ages. She is probably also the most comfortable with being on her own.

I'm big, and I'm cute!  (KN)

Persimmon is ready to interact gently with visitors at the weekends, either from the cuddle-puddle in the Tea Room, or from a favourite perch on the cat-tree outside. She enjoys petting, and is not wary of strangers if they’re clearly cat-people.  Every now and then she will join the other cats in a wander down to Pen 5 for a little visit there, and then she’ll make her way back to her cosy bed.

Billy  (KN)

Short-haired Billy is her orange opposite.  He is something of a fraidy-cat. He prefers to avoid contact with humans, and manages by staying mainly in Pen 5, which especially in the summer becomes a playground for many of the Kamloops cats. 

Billy in his own home  (KN)

The shelves in the cabin are well-occupied, and Billy tends to be outside, sleeping in one of the straw-filled dog-kennels nearby. He is an observer rather than a participant, but can occasionally be drawn into play with a wand toy.

Cheeto looking judgemental  (KN)

The other two long-haired orange boys are Cheeto and Kumquat. Cheeto has the same sort of pointy face as dark brown Chaga – possibly they’re brothers. He’s all orange with a white tail-tip, and he has a tiny dot on his nose.  For me, Kumquat, who’s a little smaller, is “the other orange cat” – if I can’t positively ID him as one of the others, it has to be Kumquat. 

Kumquat (MW)

He’s a part-of-the-group boy, usually found in company with the other cats and often looks anxious, like Mercury (another orange boy but from a quite different colony, living in Pen 1).

There was one other orange girl – Ginger – but sadly, she passed suddenly last September.

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Karen Nicholson, Justin Saint, Valerie Wilson, Michele Wright

Most of the other orange cats are much paler in colour, so I’ve grouped them together in next week’s blog, which I’ve called Blondes have More Fun.

Sanctuary Salon

Lindor's shave-down helps him sleep cooler  (KN)

Cats are often characterized as being very clean – constantly attending to their own grooming, and occasionally sharing grooming with others. That being so, you’d think there wouldn’t be much for humans to do, to maintain that cleanliness. Let me tell you, it ain’t necessarily so!

Persimmon is a big girl - with or without floof!  (KN)

To start with, probably a third of the Sanctuary cats are long-haired. And as cat-owners will know, long-haired cats frequently need help with grooming. Those gorgeous floofy coats may look good, but run a hand over them, and you will find lumps and bumps of matted fur. Even the best-natured cats dislike having mats combed out, and when the cat in question is a feral who fears human attention, being brushed is not an option.  SweetPea (now adopted) loved petting, but her sister Curious still dislikes human contact, and when she got matted, a shave was the only possibility.

Curious still doesn't like humans  (BC)

Mats may be caused by a number of factors. The shed undercoat may become caught in the top coat. Dirt or natural oils may cause the hairs to mat. Urine or feces may create back-leg lumps. And all these factors may affect short-haired as well as long-haired ones.  Most dogs may be taken to a groomer, where they will stand while expert hands remove excess hair. This is not an option with the majority of cats, who take a dim view of being made to do anything!  So, what to do with all our matted moggies?

Jobie HATES being groomed and gets a lion cut each summer (MW)

As much as possible, prevention is a factor; most of the staff and the Kitty Comforters keep a comb or a deshedding tool tucked in a pocket, and grooming is one of the things that the KCs will offer to comfort a cat. But when there’s matting to deal with, it’s not comforting!  Scissors are not recommended; sometimes the matting goes right to the skin, and there is the risk of cutting the cat, and not just the fur. Occasionally the top part of a mat can be cut off and then the rest of it can be broken down – but that takes time and patience and a cooperative cat.

Higgins is a stray tomcat who came to us with
a number of injuries that needed shaving for treatment  (BC)

Occasionally a cat with mats is also scheduled for a dental procedure, or something that requires full sedation, and then the hospital staff can do an expert shave-job, producing a classic lion-cut.  But it’s not good practice when not essential, and the majority of the matted cats wait for a day when a couple of the Sanctuary med-staff can work together, and the cats in question are given an oral sedative that calms them somewhat without putting them out. Under these circumstances, the cut may not be totally elegant or complete – but at least the mats are out, and the cat is cool and comfortable.  

Perhaps Lindor's a little embarrassed
- but he's much cooler!   (BC)

Some of the trims are partial – most commonly the “sanitary” trims that leave the back legs free of  fur. This is especially necessary for some of the chonky cats who can’t always reach back there to clean.

Benny got a sanitary cut - no more dirty bloomers! (SL)

Other trims are minimal – Alfred is a short-haired boy, but had a couple of nasty mats on his rump just where he couldn’t reach them. For a while he was walking around with a bald patch, but the fur is growing in again.

Just one little matted patch needed a shave for Alfred  (BC)

There are a few cats that resist any attempt to make them feel comfortable. Feral Smithy has matted fur that becomes dreadlocks on a regular basis. He has been shaved before and was acutely embarrassed; mostly we leave him to cope unless we feel he’s suffering, and we’ll occasionally find what we call “Smithy’s beardy bits” in the back courtyard – as long as they’re not too tight to the skin, they will often work their way loose.

Smithy is not cooperative about grooming - or anything else  (KN)

When you find something like this lying around,
you know Smithy's shed a beardy bit!   (BC)

Now that summer weather has hit us, the staff are keeping a keen eye open for the ferals who are carrying extra fur weight around.  The Cranbrook College cats are now on the radar, but they are still not comfortable around humans, and the experience of being captured, dosed and shaved is not a pleasant one for them. Still, it’s better than carrying around lumps of fur that pull on their skin.

With a coat like this, Foster really needed a shave! (KN)

And she got it!  (KN)

The haircuts also have the added advantage of helping us identify previously identical-appearing cats. The Kamloops cats usually wander around together like a shoal of tubby goldfish – it’s really interesting to notice that some of them, like Kumquat, are really slim under all the fur that is now gone.

Kumquat is feeling much less lumpy  (KN)

Work with brushes and combs and deshedders will continue – but the shavers will continue to make summer life more bearable for the floofier cats.

An evening's cat-fluff!  (KN)

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Brigid Coult, Stacey Lambert, Karen Nicholson, Michele Wright

Floof on the Move

Mega-floof in Pen 6 (LBF)

In the early summer of 2021 we welcomed an influx of feral cats from Kamloops and it turned out that the majority of them were varying shades of orange, and many were long-haired.  They came to us as feral half-grown adolescents - living wild too long to be easily tamed.

Sharing a chair in pen 8  (BC)

After the mandatory cage-stays they were moved together into Pen 6. This enclosure has been the home for a variety of new groups of cats – a group from the Sunshine Coast in the summer of 2016 -  the ones we called The Candy Cats in the fall of 2017  -  the McLeod cats in the summer of 2019   – and now these Kamloops cats.  The last three groups have all been fearful ferals – only Skittles of the Candy Cats and Aphrodite of the McLeod cats broke out of feral behaviour to enjoy human attention.

Anxiously waiting for dinner  (LBF)

Pen 4 remains a closed pen for ferals, but we like to open up new colony pens as soon as we feel the cats are fairly settled.  Pen 6 has been open for some time, but the Kamloops cats initially remained very determined to stay inside its bounds or within easy reach. Sometimes in the evenings, waiting for dinner, they would move into the courtyard as a group, and then escort the volunteer bearing plates as food was delivered – it felt rather like wading through a shoal of orange fish!

Food is served!  (JS)

Two things have happened recently, and I suspect they’ve both affected the status quo. We’ve had a burst of hot days, and despite adding some shading to the area above the door, Pen 6, which is one of the smaller ones, has felt very hot. Hoses deliver misting around the perimeter, but when your fur is floofy, you don’t necessarily want to get it wet!  And another group of cats coming in – this time a colony from the Kootenays (details to come) – have necessitated turning the shy inhabitants of Pen 8 out. Most of them are fairly happy to relocate around the courtyard – they spend a lot of time there – but the three Candy Cats (Hershey, Butterscotch and Purdy) have relocated themselves back to their old turf in Pen 6, which is now starting to feel very crowded!

Claiming the bench in the garden  (LBF)

So the Kamloops cats have started to explore!  Persimmon has always been the bravest of them, and the most ready to accept human attention, but we’re finding the others in Pen 1 and Pen 5 as well, and recently a collection of them braved the Tea Room to find a cool corner on the stairs. 

Cheeto/Kelvin/Cheddar in the Tea Room (JN)

Black Chaga (black with a lot of rust colour in his fur) is also an adventurer and has been found in all sorts of corners.  Pretty grey Chamomile is now allowing herself to be groomed by Lisa, but others have needed more drastic shave jobs to cut out the mats that develop in floofy fur.

At night on the Pen 6 cat-tree (JS)

They have always enjoyed using the cat-tree at the Pen 6 door; frequently every level has mounds of orange fur taking up the space.  Now they’re expanding their territory to the group of cat-trees outside the tea-room, and there were eight orange cats and Chaga occupying the perches several days ago. Most recently, they’ve gone still higher, to establish themselves on the top of the adjacent food cupboard. 

Floofs on the roof - Cheeto, Cheddar, Persimmon
with grey Chamomile photo-bombing at the back  (JS)

 It’s very satisfying to see them feeling so much more comfortable in their wider surroundings, and more receptive to approaches from staff and volunteers, although they are still wary of contact with humans.

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Lisa Brill-Friesen, Brigid Coult, Joanne Nicholson, Justin Saint

Oodles of Orange

Billy, Buffy, Kumquat (LBF)

Pen 6 has become an important area of transition at the Cat Sanctuary. It’s a fairly small pen, but right at the beginning of the back pen complex – so there is lots of activity around.  Five years ago it was designated as the home for a colony of cats who had come to us from a Sunshine Coast shelter that was closing. We remember those cats with love – especially sweet Simba, and PawPaw

Simba and PawPaw (MW)

As they acclimated, or were moved to other areas, or adopted, we were able to move them out, close the pen for a clean-out, and prepare it for the Candy Cats’ arrival in the fall of 2017. With the exception of sweet Skittles, who has passed, these cats are still with us.  No orange cats in this bunch – the closest we have is the hint of gold in the agouti colouring of shy Hershey.

Hershey (LBF)

Two years later, the Candy Cats were moved out to make room for another influx of cats when RAPS trapped a total of nearly 60 cats and kittens from one colony.  Most of the kittens were fostered and adopted, but we had a group of teens who were too old to tame easily.  Most of them were black or tortie, but orange Mercury proved to be a very shy twin for Sprocket, living in the back courtyard.

Mercury (LBF)

These cats were very skittish for some time and it wasn’t until the following year that the determined work of the Kitty Comforters began to pay off. Most of them have relocated to Pen 1, and will likely remain semi-feral, and wary, but Aphrodite, the boldest of them, has found her own home where she can be tortie queen.

Aphrodite (KN)

And now Pen 6 is full again – and this time it’s an influx of (mostly) orange kitties from outside Kamloops, from a situation where TNR was needed, but in the end, the rescue felt that the cats really needed rescuing – and so they have ended up in our care.

Kelvin & Billy (LBF)

For the first few weeks there were just seven of them – Persimmon, Kumquat, Billy, Kelvin, Buffy, Goldie and a lone tabby, Juniper.  

Persimmon (KN)

Persimmon is the bravest of them, coming to investigate a visitor, talking and flirting. She’s something of a show-off on the shelf along the front wall.   Where Persimmon is, Kumquat is not far behind. Though he’s not ready for me to touch him, I know he’s allowed ear scritches from other volunteers. Kelvin will come and sit beside me, as long as I don’t reach out.  

Goldie, Kumquat & Billy (KN)

The others are all still very wary; they can be touched when they're tucked away in their cabin beds, but they now prefer to take cover in the many hiding places we’ve left in the pen. They particularly like the playhouse in the southeast corner of the pen, and are equally charmed by the prospect of playing on the tarp that protects the playhouse roof

Buffy (and Kelvin) camping on the tarp (KN)

They have just been joined by another five from the same colony: Cheddar, Creamsicle, Chamomile, Barley and Chaga (two more oranges, two greys and a black) - more introductions to follow in a subsequent blog!
We're all looking forward to getting to know them better as they become more relaxed in their new home.

Persimmon is already relaxed! (VW)

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Lisa Brill-Friesen, Karen Nicholson, Valerie Wilson, Michele Wright