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~ A New Home for Cookie ~

It was about three months ago that the little tom cat suddenly appeared in our back garden. He was in a poor shape and it was obvious he had been involved in an ‘incident’ of some type. He had broken teeth, walked with a limp and his Persian coat was a matted mess showing he had been a stray for some time. He needed help and we decided immediately we wanted to adopt him. We knew it was not going to be easy as we had done the same thing 5 years earlier with another cat who is now an intrinsic part of our family. However, things were going to be much harder this time as we were about to move house but did not know the date of exactly when.

Cookie - Sporting his new 'Lion Cut'

After about a month, this new cat was coming on well and had taken up residence in a makeshift cardboard box home we made in the back garden to give him some warmth as it was still very cold. We were gaining his trust slowly through gentle care and plenty of food but he was still very nervous and had the habit, as a tomcat does, of scenting everything in sight. When we finally were given the date of our move we knew we faced a major problem, we could not leave this cat behind as he was still in need of attention and he relied on us. We could not take him with us immediately because we knew he was not ready to settle at the new place and no-one would be at the old to look after him.

We had a real problem, we needed someone to take him into care and get him fixed up by a vet while we moved. This is when we contacted RATS to see if they could help us and luckily they had a spare place with a lovely lady called Jane. As we were already in the process of adoption it was fair that we would pick up the vet bill, but they would very kindly look after him for a couple of weeks until we had moved and got settled ourselves. Until then we had not given him a name, we hadn’t wanted to until we were confident of a happy ending, but he needed one to go into RATS care. My youngest daughter immediately conjured up the name ‘Cookie’ which seemed to suit him well. Early on the day of the move, we managed to get him in the cat box and deliver him to Jane. She had already arranged for him to see the vet the following day.

We moved and a couple of weeks later we were ready for Cookie to be introduced to our new home. We returned to pick him up from Jane and he looked like a different cat. The Vet had given him a full MOT including neutering and dental work, he no longer had worms and his limp had disappeared. He looked totally different and quite funny as he had needed a ‘lion cut’ to remove his matted flea ridden coat which could not be salvaged, leaving just hair on his head, tail and feet, but it will all grow back eventually.