No vets here...

If you were wondering how the volunteers in Athens manage with boarding the cats at vets whilst they are being sterilized, they don't. One one of the trips to drops some cats off down town I got invited into the building to help take the cats upstairs. Expecting a vets office or similar,it turns out the animals are kept in an empty apartment which someone has kindly given over for the group's use. The cats stay in their carriers for the duration of their stay, a long way from the nice cosy vets office and warm, lighted holding pens of the UK vets where the FCW guys usually stay. The cats are operated on and then transferred back to the carriers, with a kind of diaper on the floor of the carrier to soak up any spills. I did see one guy who had had an operation on his ear and he was in 2 transfer cages which had been strapped together to give him more room. These guys are really operating on a minimum budget and making ends meet as best they can. It may not sound ideal from our POV, but the cats ARE getting treated and this is better than not being done at all. The room was clean, didn;t smell, and I have no impression that they are treated with anything but love and kindness whilst in the apartment by a rotating procession of volunteers who come in to clean and feed. This is the outer room and you can see the double cage on the right of the picture

Here is the inner room, you can see the carriers lined up,each one with a cat in. The black and white cat out of cage at the back of the room has recently been taken in after her owner, and old lady, died. The cat was going to be put down and they are currently trying to find her a new home.

These guys should get a medal for doing what they do under such difficult conditions. You would only do this out of love, people come by all hopurs of the evening to let the volunteers in the drop off cats and collect them to return them to their respective neighborhoods. Anyone still wodnering why they need more people chipping in their time to help????

Had enuff of Greece...

Okay, finally the amount of cats and kittens is taking it's toll and I need to get out of here. The more you are here, the more the size of the problem hits you. There are cats with kittens, sometimes just one kitten, sometimes more on every street. Hearing about it is one thing,the reality is something else. This mum [foreground] and kitten were on the grounds of the Acropolis and the kitten, whilst healthy looking, was meowing for attention/food. As usual Mum had a calm resignation about her.

This second pair appeared a bit older, say 6 months-plus and could have been siblings or mated. They were play-fighting in the sun as people walked by. One German women then called them over with some meat she had in her bag [?] and the ginger guy tucked in.

I'm ready to rip up all the 'cute'cat postcards and calendars, proclaiming Greece loves cats. BULLSHIT. The absolutely hypocrisy of it. If this country loved cat it would not say 'Ooohm, it's not natural to neuter the poor thing' and would chop ginger toms balls right off! This is the only way to help these guys. Stem the population explosion, stem the suffering, stem all the endless dead and dying cats as a result. Vivi and the guys can only do so much and it is not enough. I am not sure it ever will be. They can help a few, but not the many. This thing needs to get a lot bigger before it can reach enough animals to make a difference. Read my next post about today's trapping fiasco, to get an idea of what they are up against....

Trapping begins....

Well we got off to a slow start... 1 cat. The little black guy below to be exact. Got a bit worried when for the next 30 minutes no-one went in a trap. I brought some dried food but the cats were too impressed and even ave the impression they were not that hungry. As luck would have it and old lady push a cart turned up and out popped the cats [this is not the woman we had thought would turn up as she got taken into hospital today]. She dropped down a bunch of spaghetti and meat balls the cats wolfed it down! Seems I have been using the wrong bait. Had a bit of a mis-understanding with the woman when she kept trying to put a whole load of food at the mouth of the traps and I tried to explain it should only be a little and at the back.... She then walked down the road and all the damn cats followed her like the pied piper! Put a crimp in the old trapping plans. It was slow going until she came back and now dropped a slew of sardines and other fish bits..... out come the cats again. Anyway, cut a long story short I got 7 cats, with 2 more escaping as I tried to transfer them from the traps to the carriers - these have SIDE OPENING DOORS on the front... check the picture. I had to completed remove the door and then once wedged the trap against the absk opening., use the trap sliding door once the cat was in the carrier. Then I had to re-insert the door onto it's hinges BETWEEN THE FRONT THE CARRIER AND THE CLOSED TRAP! I didn't realize how easy I had it back home. Anyway 2 particularly big and feisty buggers squeezed between the carrier front and the trap as I was trying to put the door in place. I left the final 2 big cats in the traps rather than transfer and one of them was BIG BUGGER! If you look at tghe photo's you can see how run down the area is, without the support of people like the old lady these guys would starve... It's around 9.30pm and the cats have been dropped at an empty house, still in carriers/traps, and we went back at 9 to collect them and take them to the vets. All starts again tomorrow and will be taking some tuna and sardines with me :+}

Acropolis cats

A few cats roaming around the Acropolis, up by the Parthenon they were pretty tame and you could stroke them. Most looked well fed, if what I saw was anything to go by a diet of insects such as butterflies! Yes one guy actually stalked, caught and ate a butterfly. At the foot of the Acropolis

round one side is a wall-off area where about 3 adults cats and a good dozen kittens were. The area didn;t looked used and was chained up. The guys were just screaming out for someone to go in there and TNR. It broke my heart to see the kittens frolicking with each other in the grass without a care in the world, but some of the older ones already had a world-weary expression as if they knew their fate ahead of time.....

GREEK CAT SOCIETY link

Okay, thought it would be useful for you to see where and the reason I am going to Greece: http://www.greekcatwelfare.moonfruit.com/ If you can help with any kind of donation or just spreading the word about the plight of these cats, it would be appreciated.