Below are some of the cats at Sunny Harbour who will need feeding this Christmas and at least 5 of them probably for the rest of their lives.
Donations in £1 chunks for any of the cats would be so appreciated by Sarah
Please put the amount you are donating and for which cats.
Donations should be submitted at the end of the auction and details will be given of how to do this
Why are we called Sunny Harbour Well, in truth it’s quite simple although it does confuse folks who think we should be by the coast!
The Sunny part of our name comes from naming the rescue after one of our charges from a few years ago who has never ever left our hearts and has a very special place at the Harbour. A little boy by the name of Sunny Jim who despite a valiant fight died just short of his 1st birthday leaving a devastating hole in our hearts as he left to go to Rainbow Bridge. He remains here at the Harbour close the house watching over Colby, Joey and the others.
The Harbour part of our name is because the definition of ‘harbour’ is a place of safety and refuge, which we think sums us up very nicely and so Sunny Harbour Cat Rescue was so named!
Cats Who Need FeedingPenny
Penny 17+yrs arrived with us on the 22nd November 2008 after the death of her owner. Penny and her life long pal Monday had lay with their mum until she was found and then found themselves looking for somewhere to live as the lady’s family was unable to keep any of her 7 cats. Penny & Monday were like an old married couple and sadly with the passing of Monday a couple of months ago Penny has come to rely on Cassie as her companion.
Penny is a sweet old lady who likes to mother everyone and make sure that life is OK and no one is left out. When she arrived with us she was extremely underweight, depressed, refused to eat and on top of all of this we discovered a bad heart murmur and hyperthyroidism. She was started on medication and a decision made shortly thereafter to have surgery performed to remove one of her thyroid gland in the hope of taking some of the strain off her heart. Penny recovered well from the surgery and has gone on to do wonderfully and is very much loved by us all. She is quite the character and such a happy wee soul. In fact I’m sure you can see her smile.
Cassie
Cassie a beautiful little dark torti came to Sunny Harbour on the 1st June 2008 after her owners took her to the vet to be euthanized as she was being bullied by other cats in the household.
Thankfully for Cassie they took her to our own vet who contacted us to see if we would be willing to take her in for rehoming, which we did.
On her arrival it was clear that Cassie was an extremely nervous cat and truth be told was scared of her own shadow. On top of this she was exceptionally skinny and trying to get her to eat anything was a huge chore of encouragement. Eventually we found the ONLY thing she would eat in the first month was raw chicken!
After rehoming unfortunately for Cassie our instructions on how to integrate Cassie into the home were met with resistance once she had been placed and over the course of the next couple of months sadly, her new owner did more harm than good and Cassie was returned to us in the November of 2008 more anxious than ever.
As a result of this Cassie was returned back to foster at Sarah’s mums house where she has remained to date. After a week or two back in foster her urinating stopped and there have been no further episodes of urinating. Her eating did suffer slightly and it was a case of much perseverance once again to try to restore her eating habits to what they were. They will never be great but at least she will at least eat enough now to sustain herself!
The attempt at rehoming Cassie highlighted how fragile her state of mind is and therefore we made a decision that Cassie will now remain under the care of Sunny Harbour for the remainder of her life, where she is at least happy, content and has quality of life.
Sheba
Sheba is quite the little character and first came to Sunny Harbour in April of 2009 as her owner was no longer well enough to care for her.
A sweet little girl she wasn’t with us long and a wonderful new home came up for her in the May. All went well until a change of working hours meaning that Sheba was on her own for longer and a case of stress urinating kicked in. Despite taking on board lots of advice from us and trying everything possible, with current working hours they decided it wasn’t fair on Sheba and she was returned to Sunny Harbour.
Sheba was with us for a couple of months this time round while we investigated possible causes i.e. medical or behavioural. The verdict was behavioural, she is a stress urinater.
This in mind her urinating did cease completely after a day or two with us so a decision was made to put her forward for adoption making it very clear to potential adoptee’s the need to take things slowly and gradually and to avoid any undue stress. A home came up for Sheba which sounded ideal and so we placed her into her new home along with a 3 weeks supply of Zylkene just to be on the safe side.
After just 2 weeks in her new home her new family decided to ignore our advice and let her outside, took her to be microchipped and got loads of building work done on the house and didn’t give her any Zylkene to help. The upshot of this for Sheba was stress, then urinating and then, back to Sunny Harbour it was for Sheba though of no real fault of her own.
Sheba is currently back with us and is living with Penny & Cassie while we monitor her in a quiet home environment to see how she does. So far we have not had any issues but will be continuing to monitor her over the next 2 – 3 months before making a decision on whether she resides with us permanently or we attempt a further very cautious rehoming.
Sam
Sam was collected from the bottom of a garden with his sister and mummy on the 9th September 2009 at only 12 days old. A cute little bundle of fluff this little family were returned to Sunny Harbour to grow up safely with mum.
Sam has had a rollercoaster of a ride in terms of his wellbeing and has scraped his way from deaths door to continue fighting. That said over the last week or two he has begun to deteriorate again, for unknown reasons at the current time. Even trying to get him to eat can be a huge ordeal and often results in us having to syringe feed him to get anything into him.
He is now 12 weeks old small for his age and barely 0.5kg in weight.
The future is still very unsure for little Sam and as a result he will remain under our care until such times as he is out of the woods and we can be sure that he is going to be fit, healthy and most importantly survive to live a happy, full life.
We hope and pray every day that this little fella will make it through.
Louie
Louie came to us after being found wandering the streets with a bad limp. We were contacted in a last gasp hope of help from his finders and although we were full to bursting we called in a favour or two to make space for the little one.
The injury is an old one to his knee, which has self healed and caused a callous to form over the knee joint itself therefore causing a degree of stiffness and a limp through impaired range of movement.
Louie is a great little cat who is as equally independent. Although he is up for adoption just now we expect him to be with us for quite some time. Despite lots of interest his leg injury is putting a lot of people off adopting him unnecessarily and so we expect him to be here for a while yet.
Belle Picture at the bottom
She is 5- 8 years old and a red Persian. We inherited her from our previous rescue work after caring for her following her arrival paralysed from the neck down. 3 years on she still has issues with the co-ordination of her back legs and they can be painful and she suffers with regular urinary infections hence she will now live out the rest of her life here at the Harbour!
Mimi 
Torti & White female cat who came to us after being turned down by other rescue’s as she was being fed by neighbours and deemed ‘healthy’. Most likely a lost domestic but we have been unable to trace any owner. Showed signs on arrival of having had kittens fairly recently judging by hair loss around nipples, although no milk production and no spaying scar. She has been brought in for her safety and we suspect that she may well be pregnant again and so she will be here until such times as she either comes into season or we have a confirmed pregnancy.
Honey 
Dark Torti female who we trapped after a report of her having kittens at the bottom of someone’s garden. On arrival we found that she had 2 kittens approx 12 days old (one of which is Sam and the other, Dolly sadly passed to Rainbow Bridge at 6wks). Mum remained with us as we were unsure as to whether or not she had been caught again and was spayed by us a couple of weeks ago after coming into season. Although she is now available for adoption we need to find her a ‘specific’ indoor / outdoor home which to date has not arisen and we are doubtful she will find a home until the new year.
Gizmo 
Brought in for aggression issues, although realistically he is just a typical 15 weeks old kitten but ill advised owners have unbeknown to them encouraged the behaviour rather than helped to stop it. Bearing in mind we cannot home him with children and we are working to correct his behaviour and how close we are to Christmas we would fully expect him to still be here til the end of the year / New Year.
Misty 
Most likely a lost or abandoned domestic Misty is a sweet wee girl of around 8 year old, grey and white who after living at the bottom of the garden in the hedge all summer we were notified of her and made arrangements to bring her in just a couple of days ago. Whilst not impossible it is unlikely that we would find a home for her before closing down adoptions for xmas.
