Trying to pick up the shattered pieces of a life back in New Zealand comes with some compromises. One of which is that we have no home of our own. We know what it's like trying to rent a place with pets. It's quite frankly a nightmare. In the UK all the houses that accept pets are pigsties. Totally grotty. The only real solution is to rent a place that doesn't accept pets, and try to go about making sure they don't do any damage to the property whilst you're there, and hide them when the landlord/estate agents are around. You cant do this with dogs because they are foulest creatures on the planet, and those people that don't really know about cats just think of them as animals with claws that scratch everything. Well, cats don't scratch everything if they are trained properly, and if you provide scratching posts. As long as you keep the house clean from cat hair, they can be pretty easy in this regard. However this doesn't stop the fact that most of the time, you can't hide pets from nosy landlords. Anyway even though we lived in a house for a year that doesn't accept pets, we did pretty well to hide our cats. And the house was cleaned before we left to the best standard we could achieve.
A few years ago we looked at rentals in New Zealand after our 1 year lease at Ayr Street came to an end. Nowhere did rentals that accepted pets, and all the landlords were locals that lived nearby. This is one reason we can't have cats anymore.
The other reason is that we have no time for them anymore with Mioni in our lives. Yue, our tabby, begged for alone time. Every cat is different and this cat loved having us around without the other two. He was a totally friendly cat who begged for a fuss and headbutts when alone with us. We would give him this time during the evenings. But once Mioni was on the scene, he acted aloof, just the same as he acts with Calcifer and Hermione around.
Hermione loved Mioni, surprisingly, and Calcifer didn't really get on. All cats loved their interactions with us before Mioni was born, but they couldn't get the lap time and the fuss they desired anymore.
The last 5 or so months with our cats was disheartening. Calcifer was depressed and bored, Yue was messy in his litter tray in protest, and Hermione was actually not so bad.
In December we looked at the adoption process in the UK and most of the organisations have bad reviews. We contacted Blue Cross and even visited them, but they wanted money from us to re-home them, plus they had a policy that those that give up their cats have no say in where they will go, with no contact ever again. It's horrendous. There is simply no human element. And who spends money to give away their pets? For fuck sake. Most people get money back by selling them. We were aware of Dunedin's Cat Rescue charity and knew how they ran, which is far superior than that.
Simply put, there was no way we would leave the cats in the UK under these conditions.
Sabine was in contact with a lady here in Christchurch that runs her cat adoption business from her own home. After an extensive phone call and even meeting her yesterday, it reaffirmed our decision of bringing our cats into the country and putting them back into adoption from here. The lady's policy is that previous owners are allowed to have updates and even a say in who can re-home them, and what sort of home the cats need. Calcifer and Hermione need a home together as they are brother and sister, Yue needs a home that doesn't have other pets nor children, and all 3 of them need to be with a family that can give them the time they need.
Our cats arrived at Christchurch airport at 4pm this afternoon at the Air NZ Cargo building. The lady was there too. We had to wait until roughly 4:30pm before we had them. The lady took them back to hers and we followed some minutes later.
At her place she allocated a bedroom for them and we were allowed to spend a good amount of time seeing them. Typical cats, they didn't care about us. They were too busy exploring the room. They looked great though. Very healthy. Yue was hiding under the bed for the most part.
Kitty Haven is the name of this lady's business. They will be in a household full of other cats up for adoption, so they certainly wont get bored. We are allowed to visit them and even have a say in who will eventually own them. So that's that. Sabine is very upset. She bonded very highly with them, especially Yue. I bonded with the cats too, but this will be harder on her.
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