A blog about cats and missing bits!

I realised the other day that most of the blogs I’ve been posting recently have been serious and quite dark on occasion? To be honest, I’ve been in a fairly dark place so it’s no wonder I guess. Also, I believe in total honesty when it comes to my mental health, if I can share those dark feelings, maybe someone reading won’t feel quite so alone? The more we talk openly about mental health in its rawest sense, the sooner more people understand and attitudes will change.

I’ve written a series of blogs on Passive Suicide and there are more to come, I believe people need to recognise the signs and be more aware. Passive suicide can very easily become ‘active suicide’ but the danger signs can be quite subtle, that’s why I’ll keep writing, so expect more serious articles. But, in the meantime, something a little bit lighter!

If you follow my posts you’ll know that we rescued 7 abandoned cats/kittens last year and ended up keeping them all, I guess that was probably a forgone conclusion as we’re all as soppy as each other. Having said that, they are all such beautiful, friendly cats that I think secretly everyone is actually glad that we didn’t try to re-home any of them. I certainly don’t regret the decision!

Anyway, as responsible pet owners we were very keen to have all of them neutered, we definitely don’t want to add to the existing problem so it was a no-brainer. The 2 older cats were spayed within a couple of weeks of finding them as they were old enough but the kittens had to wait and the wonderful vet that checked them all over for us when we first found them participates in the free neutering service in February and was very happy to do the rest.

The 2 girls went in on Tuesday and came back in great spirits and none the worst for wear, you’d never know they’d had an operation at all apart from the shaved patches on their sides! Good start!

The 3 boys went in on Thursday and also came back looking happy and relaxed and also none the worst for wear. That is, until they’d been home a couple of hours and I walked into the dining room, all 3 had their back legs in the air licking the part where their balls once were looking distinctly bemused. (Sadly I didn’t have my phone on me to take a picture, it would have been a classic!)

It had to be done, there was no choice, but I have to say I felt very sad for them. After all, they had no forewarning, no idea what was coming and just left with an ’empty’ feeling where once their bits resided. Mind you, had they known our plan I doubt we would have seen them for dust anyway so probably just as well they had no idea.

The whole thing just left me wondering whether blissful ignorance is occasionally a good thing? And maybe at 6 months they’re too young to really care anyway? Who knows? Sadly we can’t ask them, all I do know is that all of our older cats were neutered at the same age and it doesn’t seem to have caused them any lasting harm and no more babies to add to the problem.

We never know what’s coming next in life and maybe it’s just as well? We might think twice about our actions if we knew!

Film: Kingdom of Us on Netflix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc8_spETMBY&t=19s

TED Talk: Why my autistic children don’t need a cure on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xts1F-PoUNA&t=24s

Book: Unravelled on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unravelled-inspirational-story-journey-darkness-ebook/dp/B00L1ENC0O/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1551617110&sr=8-1