Sunday 15 November 2015

As One Door Closes...


Meet Bilbo, who saved our sanity in the wake of losing Stanzi.


He came to us as a stray, shortly before we had to say goodbye to Stanzi. He had been sleeping on our log pile for a week or so during the day and we assumed he was just put out in the morning and let back in at night.

But he was clearly hungry so we started feeding him. We put a strong paper collar on him with a message, in the hope of finding out where he came from so that we could express our concern. The next day when he arrived there was no sign of the collar.

The weather suddenly got much worse so we built him a shelter next to the log pile and continued feeding him. We took him to the vet's to be checked for a microchip, nothing.

One vile, stormy night he was outside our front door literally begging to come in. So in he came, and the rest is history. Having checked the lost and found for several weeks, and having placed an ad ourselves with no response, we came to the conclusion that he had been abandoned.

He was clearly traumatised by the treatment he had received before being taken in by us. His behaviour led us to believe that he had been kicked, if not worse. He used to go and hide under our bed every evening. He was a bundle of nerves, jumping at the slightest thing. He had nightmares; oh, those were so distressing to witness!

Well, there is a special place in hell for people who mistreat animals.

He is now, nearly a year on, a happy and well adjusted cat but those first few months were an uphill struggle. Now, he brings joy and love into our lives every day.

I'll leave you with a couple more photos of our darling boy and will be back later this week to start posting again about my crafting adventures.

Cuter than cute!



Tissue frenzy!






With Great Sadness

3 plus years is a long time to leave a blog; I've been meaning to revive this since the end of last year but have been putting this post off for reasons which I will now explain.

On December 27th we had to have our beloved Stanzi put to sleep. She was 17 and had developed irreversible kidney failure. Our wonderful vet was very honest with us; she said that we could possibly keep her alive for a few more months by sending her to their hospital for treatment but her quality of life would never return. Basically, we would only be keeping her alive for us, not for her.

It was an unbelievably hard decision to make. She had been our only cat for several years and her loss hit us both very badly.

We decided to have her cremated, something we have never done with other cats who have passed. We are glad that we did because we will be able to have her with us always when we eventually move.

Bless you Stanzi, you will live in our hearts for ever.