Teen volunteer Tristan cares for cats for his Duke of Edinburgh award – part 5.

This post has been written by Tristan Goodway-Sims who is undertaking a volunteer placement for a Duke of Edinburgh award

It’s time for me to say a reluctant goodbye to Honey, Harissa, Hazelnut, Halloumi and Herbie. Mum Honey’s kittens are now eight weeks old and looking back at photos we have taken it is amazing to see how much they have grown since they came to us six weeks ago. The time seems to have rushed by!

My six months volunteering with CP is part of my Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award and I have been missing from fostering duties for two long weekends, as I have undertaken a practice and final assessed three day/two night expedition so my mum was on cat duty. Walking an average of 10km a day, sleeping four sweaty, snoring boys to a tent and eating cold noodles for breakfast made cleaning up cat poo seem like paradise. So here I am sitting at home with my blistered feet typing this with kittens jumping all over me.

Tristan leaving for his Duke of Edinburgh three-day expedition 

Honey’s kittens developed so much in their final two weeks with us. They became far more confident at climbing and tried this at every opportunity, jungle gyming up our curtains and from shelf to shelf.  They were far more reckless trying to jump across huge gaps and managing to reach the window sill which they were excited to find allowed them to see our whole close where there was a lot for them to look at. Between us mum and I followed CP’s socialisation chart and ensured that Honey and her kittens were exposed to lots of things including; household noises like the vacuum cleaner, washing machine, TV etc as well as handling, playing, being brushed, visitors, different types of cat litter, cat carriers, car journeys, the list is long!

At eight weeks we reluctantly packed up Honey, her kittens and all the completed paperwork and returned them to the dedicated team at Cats Protection’s Bridgend Adoption Centre where Honey was spayed, the kittens vaccinated and everyone put up for adoption. We always type and laminate a notice for our foster cats’ and kittens’ adoption pens as this helps both CP staff and potential adopters identify which kitten is which and understand the different characters of both the mum and kittens and hopefully secures an effective match with adopters.

Lana and her kittens waiting for their new home

Another mum cat and litter were waiting for us when we returned Honey and her kittens so in my next and final blog I will be introducing Lana and her kittens, Logan, Libby and Lottie and looking back over 2015’s kitten season fostering for CP.

Read Tristan’s previous post in the series here.