Northamptonshire Animals Needing Nurturing & Adoption

We have not rehomed any animals this week but there is always another day, we are still trying to get rid of the cookies but it is taking longer than we thought, it is sad that people are finding it hard to look at the homes wanted cat page as we have soooo many cats looking for new forever homes and by putting that cookie on that page has just mean, so mean to the animals, why have you done it? Never mind, I thing we have learnt this year is people are not what they seem.

Our Craft Fair was quiet yet we managed to raise £252.60 not bad for a fun day. We met a lot of really nice stall holders and all have expressed an interest in coming back next year.

Our next event is our Christmas Party which is on this Saturday and the cost is £10 per person and £5 for children. We need to raise £6500 by Christmas and we have managed to raise £3363 so far and we have a lot of events coming up.

We still have kittens bad sadly not the kind people are looking for! We have Merlin and Spirit, Ghost and Shadow are in desperate need of a new forever home, so please try and help us with their plight.

Well we made an effort to cheer up everyone and we had fun trying.

Minx found a home and two little rats Murphy and Guinness have found a new home together. We have our raffle tickets for sale £1 per ticket first prize is a Philips DVD recorder, a meal for two is 2nd and there are approx another 20 prizes of many goodies so please support us, we only have 3000 tickets to sell and why should you buy our raffle tickets against the other thousands out there? Simple the animals need you to, NANNA will have over 150 animals staying with us this Christmas and they deserve a little something in there stocking, so come on dig deep and buy a ticket or ten!=7%gwz whoops kitten walking over keyboard!!!

Cat show tomorrow (18th) 11am start so why not come along? To late and you missed a fantastic day, check the photo's on See what fun we have page. Whilst we were there Oliver looked after the kittens and here is a photo of him taking his job seriously!

The plot thickens........ not only are they using our name NANNA, but they are using our photos too! They are re-homing this little chappie (left) as Billy but it is a photo of one of our cats living with Ann?

 

NOW WHAT? (23rd) We have an unexpected visitor to our home, in the shape of a RSPCA Inspector, he was following up a complaint they had recieved about the filthy dirty conditions and the poor conditions ALL the animals were in!

 

As some of you may be aware the RSPCA don't ring to make an appointment and they just turn up on this occassion it was 1.30 (Lunch time) and caught us doing our daily routine of scrubbing out litter trays, but all animals with food and water and not one of them stressing or wanting. So he left leaving us with a clean bill of health. He could give us no warnings or advise!!!!!!!

 

Thank you whoever you are for sending them out to us, it just keeps us on our toes and always nice to know we are needed for the animals.

You have, however, upset an awful lot of good genuine people, including the hard working volunteers here at NANNA, who feel that their hard work and dedication to the animals is being questioned by someone who felt they could not voice there opinion whilst here!  

 

Me, I just wish people would allow me to live my life the way I wish to live it, I don't wish to live in a house without these animals I wish to live in my home with the animals and of course my family. THE ANIMALS WILL COME FIRST, before holidays - before what people think, this is not a way of life it is my life! 

 

NANNA has been going for nearly four years and we have our second cat show coming up so please come along and join in. If you have had cats of us it is a wondeful opportunity to see all our cats again.

 

This weekend we have had some wonderful news, the three siamese have found a new home, and Peanuts and Pop and Tic-tac have found new forever homes meaning all our longest residents have found their new places. Tina also found new homes and Tally and Ho also got rehomed and two little girls who came in the morning got rehomed in the afternoon. Purrfect day!

 

We had two kittens dumped in a cardboard box down at Irthlingborough Lakes come in on Saturday and to say they were hungry is an understatement, they were STARVING! They tried to rip the packet of food apart before we could even open it. They have been checked over and will be up for re-homing this weekend.

Their names - Jack and Frostie

On 22nd we had two very pretty cats Dumped over our gate garden in open topped cat carries between 6.30pm and 9pm. We only found them because we had Keren staying for tea that night else they may not have been found until the following morning. They would have been out all night in the freezing cold with no protection or blankets. The person who dumped them could not use the excuse that my five Newfondlands were out there because they were in the house with me!

Their names - Ree and Cycle 

 

16/10/07

The debate continues..........

Your responses to my moan was 90% thought that the vets and people concerned, not that anyone knows who these people are, expect the people concerned,  were tossers, idiots, out there just for the money and some people do charity work for CV's and looking good! Ouch..... The only one who has critised the moaning has said that I should be able to put up with the critism as there are more than a couple of vets and not everyone is perfect or will agree with what we are trying to do. Keep those emails coming and I will keep telling it as it is. I personnally take my hat of to those people who work voluntarily with animals, it is not a committement but a way of life, but remember we are all trying to do the best for the animals and it is hard out there. We can't please everyone and besides the humans don't count!

 

Now for this week, we have rehomed quite a few and Frazzle has come home after being missing for 5 weeks so there is hope for Giles! Peanuts and Pop had been reserved and were on their way to their new forever home but did not get there because they new forever home changed their minds and said the timing was not right at the moment, it is a pity they had not thought of this before coming out on a Sunday, which is our day off, picking two gergeous kittens and getting us half way there before telling us! The two little tabby girls also lost their new home before being given a chance, but this perhaps is for the best as they are very shy and we are now getting purrs and headbutts from them, so, fingers crossed, this weekend they will purr their way into the right peoples hearts.

 

The three siamese have been reserved so fingers crossed for them too, they will be leavung us on Sunday. They have been with us a long time but there is always someone out there if you give it time and I was not going to split them up, they have already lost everything they have known and they were not going to lose each other.

 

Sadly one little kitten that was rehomed earlier this year has died from FIP, which is part of the corona-virus family, which 70% of cats in the world carry. NANNA sees this illness because it is stress related and of course any animal coming into rescue is stressed. I am designing a page which will answer some of the questions people ask about this illness and I am going to write it in laymans terms, leaving out the big words. Look out for this page to go live soon.

 

Some very sad news today (Wed) Charlie-boy has died, he was pure white long haired ferral cat who had terrible tummy problems, his favourite food was mice! He would not touch cooked meat or cat food only raw meat, hence his tummy problems. He was taken to the vet on Monday because he had blood pouring out of his bottom, placed on anti-biotics and pro-kaolin, he came home looking very pitiful. Today (wed) when he stood up he was looking better but it was still pouring from him, not the blood just pooh! So Michael and I both looked at each other and said a decission would have to be made. But that decission was taken out of our hands, because tweny minutes later he had been hit by a car and killed. Although Charlie-boy was deaf he always went to see my neighbour on the same side of the road as me, but he never went over the road! I do believe in fate and I believe the decission was taken from me to make it easier, however there is now another little basket laying empty in our home.

 

 

It may seem that we go through a lot of deaths, we do, but we could lose one every month for the next three years and still have some here. It is a numbers game the more you have the more you can lose, we just hope that the life they have had was a good one and someone has cried for them. Purrfect comfort for purrfect little souls.

 

NANNA has had a very bad year this year, we have lost two trustees and we have had a finacial struggle but we are going too keep it together, but please remember if you have had a pet from us or brought one to us, we still need your help! If you can do a standing order for just £3 a month it will allow us to be here next year and the year after, for all the animals who are heading this way. 450 cat have been through our doors this year and if we got £3 per month for each cat that you would give us £16,200 per year to survive.

We would still be going out dressed like this fund-raising every week, as we need between £2500 & £3500 per month to cover all our bills. NOT WAGES we don't get paid!!! This would also allow us too improve our pens, allow us to blood check for Fiv FelV and just take away some of the stress of where the money is coming from to pay the next set of bills. I know all charities are always asking for money, but please help a little local one to survive. We don't turn away any animal, we may ask for time to find space for them or even try direct re-homing, but we are here for them. Please help us to stay here. Just £3 per month will help us, if you can help, email me and I will send you a standing order mandate to you and don't  forget to Gift aid your donation. You can use paypal but we do get charged for this so we don't get all that you send, but something is better than nothing!!

 

I thought it would be nice to introduce to you some of my own animals and this week I am going to introduce to you Lucy my Springer Spaniel. Lucy is full of fun, she is Michael's dog although officially mine, she only has eyes for Michael! The story I am going to relate to you happened last year:-

 

One Saturday, Michael was moving 14 sheep over to Sywell, and he took Lucy (the springer) with him. On getting there Michael jumped out of the 4x4 (automatic) to open the gates, the sheep were safe in the trailer attached to the 4x4, Lucy was wagging her tail in the back of the 4x4, when all of a sudden Michael noticed the wheels on the 4x4 where moving the vehicle was going in reverse.

Lucy, in her excitement, had jumped into the driver seat and knocked the stick into reverse, Michael ran to the door but Lucy got there first and promptly hit the lock, which of course is a centralised locking system!

Tail still wagging she then locked the windows, luckily at this point, the 4x4 and trailer had got stuck in the mud, but the wheels where still going round and down!

Michael had to break a window to get into the car, on doing so he shouts, as you would, at the dog, who promptly pees herself on his seat.

We contacted the insurance company ref. the window and as a joke they suggested we got driving lessons for Lucy, but they don't think we would get insurance for her. They then asked, seriously, if at the time of the accident did the driver of the vehicle have our permission to driver the vehicle?

So we didn't know if Lucy would be done for driving without a licence, without insurance and of course they could have thrown the book at her and go for taking without owners consent!

One thing is for sure Lucy is 'grounded'. But who's the MUTT?

 

I thought you would like to know that whether we have four, three or two legs we are ALL as mad as each other! Never a dull moment.

  

10/10/07

Apologies everyone who has emailed asking what has happened to the weekly updates! I just have not had the time to update this page, but here we go and I am going to warn you now that I am in the mood for a good old moan, to help you I will put the moaning in a bracket, so you can skip it if you wish but remember writing it down always makes things seem better and you can always email your response! 

(The moan begins, apparently there are some people and vets out there who don't like what we are trying to do! They have disassociated themselves from NANNA's due to what? From what I can gather they feel that NANNA has a lot of illnes here. Yes we do have some illness and I write about this all the time on this page, we do not hide it nor do we cause it! We have been critised for rehoming (LAST YEAR) some kittens who had cat flu' and the vet's in question stated that these kittens should not have been rehome in their condition. We did rehome a litter of kittens who had cat flu' with the full support of NANNA and the full awareness of the new owners.

 

Just what would the vet advise we do? Turn the animals away? Put the animals down? What is the saying "We never put a healthy animal down?" What is an unhealthy animal? Cat flu', ringworm, coronavirus 70% of cats in the world carry this one! Flea alergy is another one, worm infested, old, three legged, one eye and there are many more conditions the list is endless, but all of these are treatable, except the old age! So do you put an animal down to improve on what people think? NOT ME, I will rehome an animal who is poorly where I believe it to be in the animals welfare to be out of the cage and in an one to one situation with their new owner but only if the new owner is prepared to take this on. NANNA has never knowingly re-home a sick animal, without first notifying and talking to the new owner.

    Purdy pictured below

One example was a little cat called Purdy, she came to us via another re-homing place and she was a nine years old, neutered and very fat tabby cat. Her new owner got worried because everyone who saw her stated she looked pregnant, for a cat to be nine and pregnant would mean a cat of very poor condition, not this cat she was lovely and healthy, but the lady took her to one of the vets that critises us and they stated that the cat was pregnant with up to 8 kittens and to confirm this they would need to do an x-ray which would cost £65! The lady was obviously furious with us and turned up cat in tow demanding we did something about it. Thankfully she did not have the x-ray done, but we did at our vets at a cost of £15-£20. Guess what? No kittens just fat!!!!!!!!!!! But sadly the lady was so destressed about the whole situation she decided against keeping the cat who ended up staying with NANNA a further few weeks until someone came along and took her as their pet. On speaking to the vet concerned she stated that she only thought the cat could be pregnant. No apology or any concern shown to the cat for what she was put through. 

 

It is always sad when one charity critises another but it happens and we are critised for not handing out other charity details! However why would we hand out other charity details when it is usually those charities who have given the people our details? We are apparently unhelpful to people who ring us, although we try never to refuse an animal and we will bend over backward to find space for them. Unlike  one charity, when a little dog who needed to find a new home and the owner was told, apparently, by a local charity that they could only help if the owner let the dog out and it was picked up by the RSPCA, Dog warden or police and they took the dog to the charity! Madness, this little pup could have been killed, injured or frightened beyond repair. But then if they are paid by the authorities to take in dogs then I suppose money counts!

 

If we can not help people we usually give them catchat.org details which will then list all the cat re-homing places in Northants not just NANNA's. But we alway say to ring us back if they have no luck and at least we do speak to most people and not just leave the ansa phone on!!!!!

 

NANNA is not perfect in any sense of the word, but the animals that come in to us are well looked after, they are given every opportunity to find a new home and NOT put to sleep to make room for a more appealing little face. Our kittens are re-homed in pairs for the welfare of the kittens, we have no money to get every cat vaccinated, blood tested but most have been vet checked.

 

We never turn our backs on our animals once they have left us, we live with ill cats in our home, or their home! Not everyone likes the way we live and would not live that way themselves, but that is our choice. We only take into the house cats that are poorly, not pedigree cats that look good or take in because they a white or whatever colour we may prefer. Animals don't lose their lives because they have come to us, they are not put down after being signed over to us. I will argue with ANYONE who says it's just another rescued animal, there's plenty more out there, put it down and move on.

 

My home is full of love and laughter from the animals & family I share it with. People are always made welcome at our home and our volunteers are treated like family, but it is always so called friends that stab you in the back not the animals so give me the animals and keep you can keep the friendship.

 

We are not paid nor is anyone who is involved in our charity, we are all volunteers, most of us pay to be involved, by buying food, litter, petrol, telephone calls, stamps, paper, ink, buying printers computers, cages, sheds, runs and anything else the animals need that the charity can not afford. I and every trustee NANNA has now, is there only for the animals, giving up everything for them not for what other people think!)

This is what matters!

 

Moan over so let's see what else has happen since last writing! Sadly many animals have come into us, but also many have found new homes we have set up an appeal to replace our outdoor pens for waterproofed ones that we can use during the winter months.

 

Old Rodders has died of old old old age, as an old boy, escaped got chased by dogs and badly biten and bruised by the attack and then got run over! £300 later his leg was repaired and he came and stayed with us and he has been given everything a cat could be given and even though he only had five or so years with us those years were purrr-fect for him. (I'll finish this over the next few days). 

 

Sorry it is always so upsetting to report when one of our little ones have moved on to chasing those butterflies in the sky.

 

We have in with us over 12 rats, 18 gerbils and degus, not to mention the many ferrets we have in.

 

Signing off now as the next week is upon us and this week is coming to a close. 

  

23/09/07

Since last writing we have had some really sad happenings, little Winnie had an incurable condition (FIP)and was heading for a lot of suffering so with guidence from the vet we had her put to sleep. We also lost Hazard who had a tumor.