With kitten season upon us, your support for abandoned and vulnerable cats is more important than ever.
When a local ranger brought Cherry Pie into The Cat Protection Society Shelter in a rusty old wire trap, she was in a very bad way.
Cherry Pie was thin, malnourished and riddled with fleas from her time living on the streets. Her hair was so wild and overgrown it was hard to see her wide, frightened eyes.
She was terrified of human contact and retreated into the trap whenever someone approached. I shudder to think of what she experienced to make her so scared of people.
Medical examinations soon after she arrived revealed that, despite being barely older than a kitten herself, Cherry Pie was also heavily pregnant with five babies.
Without urgent medical treatment and care, the Shelter vet team knew she and her kittens would be unlikely to survive.
Our vets here at the Shelter performed comprehensive medical examinations on Cherry Pie and put her on a course of antibiotics when she arrived. They also gave her all her necessary vaccinations and dealt with her fleas to make her more comfortable.
Our Adoption team then provided Cherry Pie with lots of patient and gentle care to slowly coax her out of her trap and encourage her to let down her barriers and trust people again.
Staff spent more and more time each day interacting with her, handling her and providing enrichment opportunities. Slowly but surely, Cherry Pie started to warm to the team.
There was a huge sense of joy and relief when Cherry Pie gave birth to five beautiful kittens. Continuing with the pie theme in honour of their mother, the Shelter team named them Key Lime, Lemon, Coconut, Custard and Banoffee.
But there wasn’t long to dote on the new arrivals, as Cherry Pie’s little ones needed urgent and round-the-clock care if they were going to survive their first fragile days.
Cherry Pie quickly proved herself to be a nurturing and attentive mum. Before long, both she and her kittens were healthy and strong enough to be adopted out to foster homes.
Once they’d been micro-chipped and desexed, little Key Lime, Lemon, Coconut, Custard and Banoffee were all taken in by foster families, where they thrived.
At 10 weeks of age, the kittens returned to our Adoption Shelter to be microchipped, desexed, vaccinated and given a clean bill of health – ready to be made available for adoption into their furever home. That came at a cost of $300 per kitten.
Cherry Pie went to live with foster carer Zach and Tameeka, who quickly formed a close bond with his furry new family member.
“Cherry Pie is an exceptionally loving cat who especially loves other cats and will be great friends with any cat she sees,” Zach says.
“While she is still warming up to being around people, she enjoys being around them, kissing against your leg, and peeking around corners to check in on what you are doing.”
Zach and Tameeka said that since coming to live with him, Cherry Pie is becoming stronger and healthier with each day. She’s even developed quite the appetite.
“She loves all kinds of dry food and any wet food with gravy will be appreciated as gravy is her favourite. She will happily clean up all the gravy.”
The Cat Protection Society depends on a group of wonderful foster carers like Zach and Tameeka to look after cats like Cherry Pie and her babies while they recover. They are cat-lovers just like you who provide round-the-clock and tender-loving care.
But providing our foster carers with everything they need comes at a high cost for the Society. There is the ongoing expense of providing food, medication, litter and enrichment to our foster homes. And in the next 12 months, we anticipate that we will need to care for and find homes for more than 400 kittens.
Then there are the costs of vet-checks, desexing and microchipping. All up, it costs on average $450 to provide foster care for a cat.
We simply cannot continue to meet those costs without additional support from kind-hearted people like you.
As you may be aware, the Cat Protection Society receives no government funding. That means we depend solely on the generosity of the cat-loving community to provide care and loving homes to cats like Cherry Pie and her kittens.
Will you donate to our Society this Christmas and help give vulnerable and abandoned cats and kittens like Cherry Pie and her kittens Key Lime, Lemon, Coconut, Custard and Banoffee a second chance at life and love?
| Here’s how a gift from you could help this Christmas: | |
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Can allow every kitten who spends time in foster care to have their very own bed, toy or comforter & essential food and toileting supplies |
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Will ensure that every cat or kitten who comes into our care receives essential vaccinations and is microchipped prior to being made available for adoption |
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Will help to offset the cost of life-saving surgery or medical procedures for cats in our care |
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Will allow a neonatal kitten to spend one week with foster care with all of the supplies to help them grow and thrive |
Any amount you can donate will help us prepare more cats and kittens for their forever homes.
Please donate to The Cat Protection Society this Christmas
to give vulnerable and abandoned cats a second chance at life and love.
Donate online
Donate using your credit card or debit card.
Your tax-deductible receipt will be emailed to you once your donation is processed.
Donate by post
To make a cheque donation, please make the cheque out to The Cat Protection Society of Victoria and mail to:
The Cat Protection Society of Victoria
200 Elder Street, Greensborough
VIC 3088
And include a note with your return mail address or email address. Your tax invoice will subsequently be emailed or posted out.
Donate over the phone
Contact us on 03 8457 6500 to make a credit card payment over the phone between 10am-4pm Monday to Friday.
Your tax invoice will subsequently be emailed or posted out.