Hi folks,

Well I'm back and still have all the bits (fingers, toes, noses etc)
that I went on my Pyrotechnics course with. :)

Many, many purrs for those who need them - especially KFC who is
getting extra special purrs from Miss Lily Whiskers and HRFL, and
Odessa. We're keeping both girls in our thoughts.

I now have a story to share....
In the UK pretty much every pet cat (a good 80%) are indoor/outdoor.
My street is a fairly friendly street in which the neighbours know
each other to say hello to at the very least, and have a fair idea of
who lives where with what pets, so if we see a cat out and about we
usually know where it lives. There are a number of ferals (about 15)
who live in our back lane who have been TNR'd and are fed &
vetted by a few of the house owners, myself included, but don't belong
to anyone. Quite often, we don't see them for a few days as someone
else in the street has fed them.

Some time ago, we had a woman, a known cat hater, who moved in at the
bottom of the street and she had a nasty dog that kept attacking cats
in her garden. Her son has also been known to shoot at the ferals in
his garden with an air rifle and I believe he was the one who shot
Miss Lily Whiskers last year. Recently, several of our ferals have
been injured. On 2 occasions, passing motorists have found the injured
cats on the side of the road and taken them to the ER vet who happenes
to have his very well known & large practice at the top of the street.
Unfortunately, because the cats were badly injured and because they
had no ownership ID, or anyone to be contacted in an emergency, they
were humanely euthanaised under orders from the RSPCA who became
involved before anyone noticed they were missing and could do anything
about it.

So, having lost these 2 furry friends, I decided to do a census of the
cats in the local area. I spoke to my neighbours and we completed a
file with the feral cats descriptions, photographs, and emergency
contact numbers in case one was brought in injured to the ER vet. As
an ammendment to the file, we included ID photos of all the *owned*
pet cats in the street with contact ID etc also.

We then gave the file to the vet so that he can use it for reference
in case another injured feral is brought in and also to the local
RSPCA inspector who is actually quite decent instead of a know it all
pig (which in itself is a novelty for the RSPCA) so that he knows the
location of the colony, its feline residents, and the human caretakers
and doesn't do anything adverse to them.

A few weeks ago, the local crank (old hag at the end of the street
with the vicious dog) called the council to come and get rid of the
nuisance cats who were raiding her rubbish at night. (It's foxes, not
cats who raid her rubbish, but hey, any excuse to blame cats, right?)
The council then called the RSPCA. The RSPCA HQ called the local
inspector to deal with "a nuisance feral cat problem" and told him the
location. It turned out to be our TNR'd colony. At the same time, the
vet had contacted the RSPCA to tell them of 4 poisoned feral
cats that had been brought in and that they had identified from our
colony using the ID phots and paperwork I had provided for them. They
had also contacted one of the caretakers (not me) who lives further
down the street, who in turn had also contacted the RSPCA about the
poisoning of a managed feral colony. Poisoning of domestic pets and
wildlife is a prosecutable offence in the UK.

So, it's all backfired on this evil hag. The RSPCA Inspector attended
her address to investigate her complaint about the nuisance cats, and
has instead ended up collecting the evidence he needs to prosecute the
b*tch for poisoning a feral cat colony. The vet was able to document
all his witness statements for court because he was able to ID the
cats in question, and because he *knew* of the cats and where they
*belonged*, he was able to get permission and hence finances to treat
them, so they've made a full recovery. The upshot of *that* treatment
is that 2 of them have tamed up sufficently while in hospital to
acually be rehomed as shy cats and they have gone home with the vet
nurse who looked after them.

And the evil hag from h*ll is being prosecuted by the RSPCA in court
under the Animal Welfare Act for causing unneccessary suffering to
animals. For once, the RSPCA is doing something constructive. :)

I'm chuffed to bits that a simple idea I had predominately to stop my
injured colony ferals being euthanaised before I could get to the ER
vet to make a decision on their treatment has been the lynch pin in
helping prosecute this b*tch. :)

Just had to share a success story. :)

Helen M