Ben and Jenny

I always feel guilty if I don't do a proper blog for a few days, but then when I have a hectic week I feel guilty taking time out to do it, but as it's Sunday I can take a breather and reflect on the week that was. Do you know, it really has been a long and eventful week.

I don't even remember Monday other than the elation of having Jess the cat reserved. Jess had been waiting for a home since October last year. She was found heavily pregnant, abandoned in a property, with terrible gum and dental disease which resulted in all her teeth having to be taken out. She had clearly had a rough time and was so keen to be friendly but would so often recoil and be hand-shy. She is now such a different cat to the one that came in all those months ago, and although still a little wary at first, she loves a fuss and attention now. And yesterday I had the pleasure of delivering her to her new home. It's not something we do very often but the lovely couple had taken two buses to get to the cattery to meet her, so for the sake of an hour out of my time and increased comfort Jess, I played 'stork' and it was great!

Tuesday's highlight was undoubtedly Sandy the dog leaving our care to go to her new home in Peterborough. You may recall her story from a previous blog? She is a 14 year old staffie and at that age we feared she would spend her last months in kennels, but my mate Jemma worked her charm on her mum and Sandy has found a home for life down south. Magic stuff.

Ben and Jenny were my next highlight, although I don't want to get my hopes up too much just yet. Both have been foster bunnies of mine, who I inevitably fell in love with. They both came in at separate times - Ben was dumped in Heaton Park and Jennifer found stray with syphilis. The are both similar looking, I think it's called silver fox but I'm not sure, and they both have very similar personalities - confident, cheeky and very affectionate. Jenny only came in a few weeks ago and when she did I remember saying how cute the two of them would look together. Well, low and behold, a lady went to meet Jennifer, saw Ben too, and decided she'd like them both, together! Again, magic stuff, and it has tickled me that I have come up with 'Ben and Jenny' - I know, I know!

Other highlights have included the massive donation of food and toys by Supreme Pet Foods for our Rabbit and Guinea Pig Roadshow - approximately £500 worth - which all had to be unloaded off a pallet that could only be set down on the road, on double yellows, and resulted in a very frenzied flurry of activity so it didn't get 'booked'! But it was like the best ever Christmas, ever! There is so much stuff, we could change the future of bunny welfare with this lot.

I also had great fun yesterday doing a workshop for our volunteers for the roadshow, and I've got another one next week, which should be lively too. It was such a giggle and really motivational being around such dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers - but then we are lucky cos all our volunteers are so passionate about their role at the branch.

I suppose another highlight has been being able to admit 6 new kitty cats - 4 adult ones and 2 kitties! Of which Rosie above is one. Awww. She was again found heavily pregnant with an ulcer to her eye and in quite dishevelled state. We have had two more cats reserved this weekend too and with our bout f mild 'cat flu' seemingly coming to an end we will be able to get some more furries in this coming week.

But of course, as much I'm happily rolling out the positives there has been strong waves of crapness too. The 'low point' of the week was undoubtedly interviewing staff for redeployment in the branch, cos as you know we have had to make redundancies. Interviewing staff for their jobs was bad enough but when some didn't succeed that was just terrible. Breaking the news was even worse, but probably nowhere near as bad as how they felt and are feeling now.

My other true low point was Tyson. He is a rotti who was involved in an RTA and his owners never sought veterinary treatment for his injuries. Weeks later it was brought to our attention and when the inspector went to see him she had no choice but to remove him because there was a huge open wound that was badly infected. The poor lad has endured considerable suffering, made all the ore worse by extensive surgery at a cost of over £700. The inspector reckons that he has been licking his injury for weeks and so it has become habitual to do so and so he is now so focused on his injury that he has been shattering his buster collars to get to it.

Tyson is also very underweight and despite being an absolutely gorgeous guy he is in a terrible way. Our kennel people have been brilliant, and have been up throughout the night with him trying to take his mind off his leg but he is so distressed that we have had to result to mild sedatives at night time. But the inspector has also managed to find him a foster home so we are really hoping this will reduce his anxiety and fixation on his leg, cos all he needs is a good week of leaving his leg alone and he will be right as reign. Tyson leaves us on Monday to go to another branch, and we really hope he makes it through. The owners will be prosecuted for their neglect but as always, the punishment will be pitiful. It's times like these that frustration towards humans really kicks in.

So, next week is looming fast, and it's looking to be a 6-day week and working til late at least 4 of those days, so I'm going back to bed to ignore this little fact for a little while longer.......