Photographs © CatsHope™
Tami: Lost and Found Part 1 — The Family That Came Home
The Family That Came Home – Page 1
When Tami first came into my life, I was in recovery from Cancer, and had never intended to have a house full of cats. At the time, I thought I would have my three whities, Mimi, Tara, and Angel. That was all. But life—and cats—have a way of changing our plans.
Tami had already known what it was to have a home and then lose it. She had been kept by someone, then abandoned. I began feeding her, and eventually, she came into my care.
By then, she was pregnant. I took her in because I could see she was about to give birth and her only available choices were the drain or the carpark. That was the evening of the 14th of December 2020. She was a fully grown mature cat and has all the appearance and qualities of an American Short Hair striped mackerel tabby. I presumed she must have been about three to four years of age then.
On the evening of the 17th of December, Tami gave birth to five beautiful kittens, and excitedly, the event was recorded on my telephone. The entire birthing process took several hours. From the beginning, she was a proud mother. She watched over her babies, cared for them and raised them with a quiet confidence that was entirely her own.
Two of her kittens eventually found homes. That left Tami with her three remaining babies: Cougar, Simba and Rockie. I still believed that the best thing I could do was to find them a good home of their own. And I thought I had.
“Tamara’s Brood”
5 Kittens born on the 17th December 2020 named Tigger, Kopi, Simba, Rockie, and Cougar. Tigger and kopi were adopted at 4 months old and were renamed Issey and Akira by their adopters. Their stories can be found on “Featured Adopters”.
Photographs © CatsHope™
A Home for the Whole Family
The prospective adopter—whom I shall call Mr. P—lived in a landed property. He said his family had as many as twelve cats there on the property before, and they already had another cat living on the property when we arrived. It seemed like he and his family had experience and would know how to care for cats. The family seemed to offer something many cat rescuers hope to find: a home with space, where Tami and her three babies could remain together as a family. But there were adoption conditions which I named.
The cats were to be kept safely within the grounds of the property. They were not to be allowed to roam freely outside.
They were also to receive the veterinary care they needed. The kittens were still young—only about four months old—and required deworming and treatment for mites, as well as sterilisation when appropriate.
They also needed to be properly fed according to the schedule I had indicated and slowly reduced if they wanted to change the number of wet meals per day.
At home, the kittens had been accustomed to several wet-food meals throughout the day, supplemented with dry food. They were young and growing, and their feeding routine mattered. They had still been nursing at three months old, and I was gradually weaning them with frequent, appetising meals. My vet had told me that young kittens may need to eat as frequently as every two hours. In practice, I offered them food about every three hours, following the feeding routine I had used since Mimi. The cats were fed every three hours throughout the day, from around 6 a.m. until midnight, while they were being transitioned to being weaned.
When they left, I sent them with a box of canned food and a large container of kibble, a cushion, and feeding plates. I believed I had done what I was supposed to do. I believed I had found them a home. So life moved on.
While Tami and her three babies were living with Mr. P, another abandoned kitten came into my care—a little ginger kitten named Kimi who was roughly the same age as Tami’s babies.
I had no idea then that the family I thought I had successfully rehomed would soon be coming back.
Photographs © CatsHope™
The Phone Call
About two months later, Mr. P called me. Cougar, he said, had not come out for feeding for three days. She was missing. That was worrying enough.
But as we spoke, I learned something even more disturbing. Tami had been missing for some time. He said that Tami had rejected the babies and had been aggressive towards them. As the conversation progressed, I had my suspicions of what might have happened.
I went to the property. I called for the kittens. And they came. Not one. All three. Cougar had not disappeared after all. Cougar, Simba and Rockie came when I called them. And then they simply flopped down at my feet.
I can still remember the sight of them. They were exhausted. They were in terrible condition. These were not the healthy, well-fed kittens I had entrusted to someone else’s care. Something had gone very wrong.
“Tami—When I was Lost”
Photographs © CatsHope™
What Had Happened?
I began asking questions.
The more I discovered, the more distressed—and angry—I became. The feeding routine the kittens had known was gone.
Instead, Royal Canin dry food, apparently supplied by a friend, was being left outside in the back garden. The feeding area was exposed to the elements, and ants were getting into the food.
I was told that the feeding bowl was washed every day. But washing a bowl every day is not the same thing as making sure young kittens are actually eating enough.
There was no proper feeding schedule. There was no one ensuring that each kitten came to eat and consumed enough food. They were being given canned food only once a day, and it was not the food they had been accustomed to or would properly eat.
These were four-month-old kittens.
At that age, they had come from a home where they were accustomed to several wet meals throughout the day, supplemented by dry food. A kitten’s feeding schedule is not something that can simply be skipped. And the consequences were now lying at my feet. But feeding was not the only problem.
The veterinary care I had stipulated had not been carried out. The kittens had not received the agreed treatment for worms and mites.
They had not been sterilised.
And the family had not been kept safely within the grounds of the property. They had been allowed to roam thus the illusion that Cougar had gone missing. Though the kittens stayed together within the compounds. Tami was missing.
Article by Tiffany Argent,
CatsHope™ Ambassador
