Your Cat September 2023

When you get up to make tea and come back to find someone in your chair… does this happen to you?! In this issue, we have twoYour Cat Good Causes stories — we bring you exciting news about a Your Cat sponsored Scottish Wildcat (p10) and our donation to Stourbridge’s local RSPCA branch (p32). While these gestures may seem small in the grand scheme of things… “every little helps”, as they say. We hope you also feel that pride too, because it’s you, our dedicated community of magazine subscribers, that make these donations possible. Your support means the world to us as we create this magazine and contribute to our Good Causes projects, (if you’re wondering how to subscribe, turn to page 35 for details! ). Speaking of our wonderful…

I inherited my obsession for felines from my mum, and my first cat was Marigold who was a seal point Siamese, given to me for my 13th birthday. She was beautiful… very cheeky, totally adorable and had the whole family wrapped round her little paw! She became the grand matriarch of our feline family, living to the amazing age of 23. “My other obsession is art. I studied at degree level and began specialising in painting cats around 17 years ago. These days, my time is spent primarily working on commissioned pieces, which are an extraordinary privilege and pleasure to do. With my style of imagination-based art, we have a great time working up the narratives for each cat’s portrayal to ensure I capture their character just right and within…

LARRY (ALMOST) MEETS THE PRESIDENT US President Joe Biden visited British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for a short (and hopefully sweet) meeting in 10 Downing Street, in July. Larry the Downing Street Cat was eager to make appearance on the red carpet and welcome the President, but unfortunately, found himself being removed by security! Only a stone’s throw away Two years ago, Margaret Whitehead experienced the heartache of her beloved cat Frank going missing. She held onto a glimmer of hope that they would one day be reunited. Fast to summer 2023, a stroke of luck came their way. A local resident of Bourne, Lincolnshire, posted on a Facebook page about a cat found in an empty skip, striking a familiar chord with Margaret. Margaret recalled, “Frank used to have…

Saving Wildcats (#SWAforLife) is a project dedicated to Scottish wildcat conservation and recovery, aiming to prevent the extinction of Wildcats in Scotland by breeding and releasing them into the wild. The project has already established a conservation breeding for release centre for Wildcats at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s Highland Wildlife Park and began releasing Wildcats into the Cairngorms National Park in June earlier this year. Embo is one of the Wildcats in the centre and father to two Wildcats that have been released into the wild over the past few months. This year, he is also a father to one female kitten who was born to mum, Torr, in April. This kitten is likely to be released into the wild in 2024! Keepers describe Embo as a great…

How rare are outbreaks of this virus? Fortunately, they are relatively rare. Feline coronavirus is very common, but only a small number of cats infected by this virus go on to develop Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). FIP is caused by variants of feline coronavirus, which are created through individual mutations. These types of mutations, the load of virus, and individual cat immune system factors determine if the cat gets FIP or not. Sadly, we do see occasional situations where the local strain of feline coronavirus circulating combined with a lot of cats who may be at‘risk’ due to their age, health status or other factors leads to an outbreak of disease. Generally, FIP is reported at around 1% of the feline population, but in these outbreak type situations 40-50% prevalence…

We all do our very best for the cats in our lives. We take care of our own, contribute to feline charities when we can…and some of us really do go the extra mile. How does it feel to get an emergency call and go out, perhaps at night, in the rain and the cold, armed with a trap and a can of tuna? Someone who knows is Londoner Barbara Read, who founded Hackney-based cat rescue Feline Friends back in 2013, and - helped by her team of fosterers - has been offering sanctuary to feral, stray and unwanted cats ever since. “I just couldn’t give up, so many cats out there need us!” “The gully was rapidly filling with water, and the little family was cold and soaking wet”.…