Hi to everybody at Keringa
Just a quick catch up and thanks for the photo’s you sent !
Our babies doing well. When they arrived, they had no space outside for them, so had split them 3 (Bear, Fatboy, Silly) and 2 (Gizmo and Angel) and were in small tiled areas indoors. It was tiny (about the size of your “indoor” section on your kennelling, perhaps even smaller) and they didn’t know what was happening, but what choice did we have. After about a week they moved them into a room (also indoors) – it kind of looks like it may be a surgery or something similar, but the area is huge, so they put them all together and the change in their behaviour was almost immediate. We came armed with igloos and scratch posts and they were very happy – it looked like we had bought the entire stock in Perth ! There are boxed files on a table in the room, and of course no guesses who sleeps on top of the boxes, but Mr. Monster Gizmo !
The visiting is permitted Monday – Friday between 1.30 and 3.30 (no Saturdays), and it takes us an hour to get there each way, so we try go 3x a week, but it’s really far, so sometimes only 2x. It’s just that by the time we’ve visited and driven there and back it’s almost 4 hours out of our day, but the good news is that they only have 3 ½ weeks left and they come home. You had said we get them on 27th Dec, but they say 28th Dec, apparently they don’t count the day they fly, so they added on a day – my heart was broken, I had been dreaming about the 27th, but what can a desperate Mom do !
To give you an idea how far it is, some days you see kangaroos in the fields (does that give you a good picture?) It’s in the bundu.
We have already bought ourselves a house (with a garden) – part of the motivation with the purchase of the house was the garden for the cats – I mean how ridiculous ! We moved in yesterday (Monday), but with no furniture, so are camping on a mattress in the meantime and should get our furniture on 27th Dec (so will have 1 day to unpack before kitties see their new home). We can’t wait for that day .... it’s going to be the best day of the year for us.
About 2 weeks ago I was visiting my lot, when a new arrival (straight off the plane) came into the quarantine, and I recognized the poor little thing, it was Kashmir. When I called him he came out of hiding and I can’t help but wonder whether he didn’t recognize my voice. He was petrified, but ate immediately. They moved him so I haven’t seen him again because I never go outside to the actual kennels, because mine are in the 1st class luxury indoors. Today when I went to visit, I again recognized a cat that had just come in (literally had only been there an hour) and it was that sweet little Ju Ju. Also so nervous and again came out of the cocoon when I called him/her. It’s amazing though how resilient they are to the changes and the flight. We didn’t sleep the night ours flew and started crying when they phoned to say they all arrived safely ... we were finished.
Don’t know if you remember, but Angel had that big lump on her eye. That was gone when she arrived. It must’ve popped on the flight from the pressure. She looks beautiful, but she is the most fed up with the quarantine and is not a happy girl. I did tell her today that it’s not long now, but I reckon she doesn’t believe me !
I promise to send pictures once they home and happy again. Can’t believe almost 7 months have gone by, but now that we almost at the end, it’s been worth the agony and so glad we did it.
Once again a big thank you to everybody at Keringa, you are an amazing team of people and in the beginning, without the patience of Colin listening to heartache stories, and us almost deciding to take the cats out of quarantine and him convincing us it will go quickly and the cats will adapt, we wouldn’t have made it!
Lots of Love to you all !
Michael & Nadja Latta & of course the 5lattacats
