Summer rescues in Kitzania

This summer is considered the lowest in number of dumped kittens in Kitzania yet it’s high when it comes to losses of older cats (plus five-years-old) to accidents, illnesses, and disappearances.

However, I was blessed with three special rescues that started on the month of May with a two-months-old ginger kitten found by my cousin Taggy – the one who keeps beating me in reading competitions- while she was exercising on Al Shatti beach.

I received a call from her wondering about a kitten who’s following her “but can’t walk straight and keeps falling all over!”

Having zero experience in handling cats, I asked her to seek help around and take the kitten to the nearest vet as I wasn’t sure what he was suffering from. She did that and the vet diagnosed him with ataxia that caused him incoordination in movements and loss of balance.

Unfortunately, the condition was incurable yet the kitten was given some meds to decrease the imbalance effects. I decided to adopt him as Taggy couldn’t keep him and he couldn’t go back to the street with his condition.

She called him Bambini as the Italian man who helped her carry him kept calling him that. The minute Bambini set his paws in Kitzania, he experienced an overwhelming anxiety and aggressiveness that made him try attacking the other cats.

It was time for my usual 'integration' programme that includes putting him in the open cage in the garden to get familiar with his new surrounding and releasing him for short intervals to cope with the cats.

Within a month, Bambini got used to the place and was able to befriend a few kittens. Feeding time is the most fun time during the day as he comes running the minute he hears my voice.

In the course, he’ll be bumping into cats and sending food plates to the air with his drunkard-like clumsy moves. Thankfully, the cats got used to him yet are still anxious as they can’t predict his moves and who he’d fall on and crush next (the name Timber! Would’ve fit him better!).

The second rescue was of a month-old kitten that I adopted from the clinic. His story was an unexpected one as the person who rescued him from the street, paid a generous amount of money to the clinic to treat his eye and try to find him a home.

Now comes the twist: when the amount is over and the kitten has not been adopted then euthanasia is the answer. Arab staff grumbled about the European mindset that will always be a mystery to them: animals are God’s creatures and are provided for. Why do humans interfere, pick them up from the streets and later kill them?

I couldn’t agree more and seeing how active he was, I adopted him and named him Najman (two stars!). Najman and Bambini became inseparable friends, even though Bambini gets annoyed when Najman attacks his plate and polishes it off.

The last rescue was a two-weeks-old kitten found without a mother in a mosque in Al Ghubra by my relative. He didn’t know what to do with her so he put her in his Kuma and brought her to me.

I called her Silwan and she became my niece’s favourite kitten (her older kitten Lina is now an adult cat that Basma doesn’t recognise anymore and keeps looking for the tiny kitten version that she knows!).

After bottle feeding her and being indoors for a month, Silwan was released outdoors where she befriended Najman and like Bambini, she’s also annoyed by his voracious appetite! Welcome to Kitzania, my little summer rescues!