Your Cat Good Causes has donated a supply of brand-new Rosewood Pet Products cat beds to Changing Lives at Carrington, to provide the cats in their care with a comfortable safe haven as they recover from trauma.
Image above: Ruby waiting to be collected by her forever family.
Changing Lives at Carrington, based in Manchester, began rescuing animals in 2020 as the covid-19 pandemic led to a dramatic increase in the need to save, care for, and rehome animals. To date, they have successfully rehomed more than 1,400 animals, with even more pending on their waiting lists.
Nicole McGawley, the centre’s manager, said: “The success of our rescue centre is attributed to the dedication and hard work of our staff, volunteers, sponsors, and members of our community who endlessly help our rescue centre to care for these animals. We are currently operating with 30 plus volunteers who work on a shift basis to ensure the animals are well cared for and have constant interaction throughout their stay with us.”
Nicole has been a driving force behind the success of the centre. She is passionate about caring for animals and will always endeavour to love and nurture suffering animals.
“Currently, we are at bursting point with so many animals in need of help. However, the best bit about having so many animals is that we get to see them go to their forever homes. Running an animal rescue does have its ups and its downs but all of us at Changing Lives at Carrington agree that it has more ups than downs, along with the great satisfaction of knowing that genuinely, we not only change lives, but we save them too!” Nicole continues.
As a registered Community Interest Company (CIC), Changing Lives at Carrington do not qualify for the grants and funding that registered charities are able to apply for, therefore there is a requirement to raise funds to cover the costs of equipment and veterinary care needed to look after all the animals the centre supports.
Without donations from the public, the centre simply would not be able to operate and sadly, would not be able to continue to contribute towards making animal welfare better in the UK.
Suzanne Fry, volunteer at Changing Lives at Carrington, said: “Currently at Carrington, we have largely cats, followed by rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, and giant land snails. We have recently rehomed four degus and in the past, we have taken in dogs, tortoises, a pigeon, and even baby chicks!
Image above: Squiggles in one of the newly built pods.
“Originally, we started out with donated extra large animal crates; these were OK for the short term, but offered restricted space to each animal. We successfully fundraised enough money to have 12 custom-built wooden pods made that would mean each cat would have a lot more room to move around while keeping them safely contained in their own area that they could feel safe in.”
Suzanne feels that the rescue centre and the comfort of the animals has drastically improved since these pods arrived. Each pod is large enough to comfortably hold either a single cat, a pair of cats (as they get a lot of duos surrendered), or are suitable for a queen and kittens.
Suzanne continues: “The next successful fundraiser enabled us to raise enough funds to purchase 16 isolation pods for the cats; these are smaller in size than the wooden pods but they do have removeable walls that enable us to double or triple up the pods to make the space bigger or smaller dependent on the animal’s size and need.”
These isolation pods are also custom-built and mean they can now isolate any sick animals to prevent the spreading of any illnesses or diseases. These pods are also used to isolate any new arrivals from the other animals for a two-week period to ensure any sicknesses can be identified and treated before introducing the animal to the main pods with all the other current residents.
“We are overwhelmed and grateful for the very generous donation of new pet beds from Your Cat Good Causes. This will help us to keep the cats comfortable and warm during their stay with us. Some cats will often hide in their beds for the first couple of days while they adjust and in some cases, recover from some sort of trauma so their beds become their safe haven.
“Although we remain extremely grateful and always will continue to be in need of donations of items such as beds from the wider community, we normally get these second hand and the life we get out of the donated beds is normally quite minimal dependent upon the condition.
“The brand new Rosewood Pet Products beds from Your Cat Good Causes will mean we can get the full life cycle out of them without having to worry about needing more to replace them for quite a while yet.”
Image above: Ruby in early stages of labour.
Case study: Ruby’s story
The donation of cat beds from Your Cat Good Causes and Rosewood Pet Products will help keep cats such as Ruby comfortable as they rest and recover at Changing Lives at Carrington. Suzanne Fry tells Ruby’s story:
“Ruby came to the rescue after being a stray for a few months. She had residents in the area who would feed her regularly. They noticed her belly was beginning to grow and took Ruby to a local veterinary practice where they confirmed she was pregnant.
“Ruby was not microchipped and since all attempts to find her owners had failed, this is when we got the call asking if we could take her in. We were advised by the veterinary practice that if we couldn’t find space at the rescue for her then she would likely have to be euthanised as all the rescues were full to bursting. We were at full capacity ourselves, but we couldn’t let this happen so she was welcomed in to Changing Lives at Carrington.
“Upon arrival, we knew Ruby was close to giving birth and decided to place her into the care of one of our fosterers.
“In the next few days, Ruby gave birth to six kittens. One kitten was still born, and another appeared to be the same, but with a little help, he took his first breath! The whole litter was extremely small and around a little over half the size they should have been at birth.
Image above: Ruby's litter.
“We quickly visited the vet’s who suspected they all had Fading Kitten Syndrome (FKS). It was now a 50 — 50 chance as to whether these babies would survive, but we had to try.
“Despite round the clock care and lots of sleepless nights hand rearing, one by one we lost the whole litter within a week. We were absolutely devastated. One kitten, who we had named Will, had to be helped over the Rainbow Bridge by our vet, as he seemed to be visibly suffering.
“Ruby became noticeably depressed and unsettled by the loss of her kittens. With lots of love and affection, she returned to the most lovable girl who was always very proud of her big bushy tail — if you didn’t get whipped by her tail then it wasn’t a good day!
“Ruby has now been adopted by the perfect forever family and she has settled right in and made herself at home.”
To find out more about the amazing work Changes Lives at Carrington do, and see how you can help, visit www.changinglivesatcarrington.uk
