28/04/11: Luki and Mimi are now about 2 years old, and I have new photos.

They LOVE their cat tree, and I love the poster behind it with photos of this beautiful pair. It seems pretty clear that their family adore them.

04/06/10: One of the best things about finding our strays homes in Germany are the great photos we get back of them looking SO happy and relaxed. Sometimes we are really lucky and the new parents continue to send photos.

These are new photos of Luki and Mimi (now Lucky and Mandy) some 8 months after they were adopted, and I think they look 2 VERY contented cats.

AND if you want to see more photos of Luki & Mimi just follow the link!

Amazingly after 18 months of re-homing cats and kittens, and lots of great news and photos from Germany, some people still doubt whether our strays are REALLY going to loving homes. Well here are 4 more fantastic pictures.

I would say that Luki & Mimi are looking pretty contented and well loved.

This beautiful pair are 2 of a litter of 4 rescue kittens from last summer.

An update is long overdue. I have been away in the UK for 2 weeks, with at times patchy internet access, and this week my priority has been getting the cats sorted over updating my blog. However I hope to be back on track soon, as I have lots of great photos to post and updates from the last transport of cats to Germany.

On October 8th Mimi & Luki, Lutz, Snoopy & Luke, Goldie and Gizmo all travelled to new homes in Germany, along with 3 of the cats that we were looking after from the dog sanctuary (protectora). Reports on all of them are great and I have already posted pictures of Lutz and of Mimi & Luki in their news homes. Please search or click on their names in the Tag cloud for more about each of these Almerimar cats.

The last week, since I have been back in Spain, has been extremely busy as we are getting ready for transports to Germany next week and in November and hopefully December.

Yesterday Pam and I were at the dog sanctuary with vet Miguel and 7 of our cats for various vaccinations and one sterilisation. All went fine but we have decided that 5 cat boxes in one go is too many, particularly as we have to run the gauntlet of the dogs who show a very unhealthy interest in the contents of our boxes. Poor Elka who works up there carried the boxes through individually and became so hassled by the dogs jumping at one point that she dropped Britta and babes! Thankfully the box stayed shut and disaster was averted!!!

Next week will be another busy one, so look out for the re-start of my phlogs for regular updates from Monday.

We have slightly extended our work recently in partnership with the animal protectora. Jos runs it principally as a dog rescue, but recently more and more cats and kittens have also been left there. As there are no proper facilities for cats, they end up in small cages in the surgery room while Jos, Lisa and Karin try to find homes for them. Jos and his vet Miguel are a huge part of what we already do, providing at cost veterinary treatment for me, and transport for our cats to Germany. We however are much better able to foster and find homes for abandoned cats, so I am trying to reciprocate effort and take as many of their cats as possible.

This puts further strain on our foster homes, but as most of these cats are from homes and are lovely tame creatures, it is also very rewarding. It also make our relationship with Jos and the protectora much more of a partnership which I like, so we will continue to do all we can. Little Elsa, who will feature on the blog on Monday, is our latest rescue from Jos, and I think you will understand why we couldn’t leave her up there all on her own!

Meanwhile on the fund-raising front, look out for posters from Monday. Saturday 31st is the next booksale, and as Pam tells me her customers are always asking her where the money goes and what we have achieved, I thought I’d give a quick update on Almerimar Strays’s success since we started about 18 months ago.

To date we have found homes for 62 cats and kittens, 11 locally and 51 in Germany. 2 of them are still waiting for a permanent home, but they are enjoying life with their foster mum, and who knows, maybe she will decide to keep them in the end.

In addition we have sterilised 6 other cats and 3 dogs, and have rescued another 4 dogs, the last not being too shabby for a group of cat lovers. SO I’m already up to 75 animals helped, and that is without counting the 17 additional cats and kittens that we are currently fostering, which brings it up to 92!!! I am even impressing myself here. It is a lot of work but I for one love it, and to anyone who still thinks that we are not making a difference to the overall problem, then I would say: check out the happy re-homed faces on the success page on this blog.

To each of those lovely cats we HAVE made a huge difference, and we will continue to do so for as many others as we can. SO please support the book sale next weekend, and if anyone thinks they could help with fostering, I would love to hear from you.

For more background and information about our work, please read the Al Strays 2009 article at the top of the home page. Thank you for your support so far!!!

Check out these happy cats.

Luki and Mimi also travelled to Germany on the same transport as brother Lutz. These 2 were always particularly close, so we are happy that they have found a lovely forever home together. For earlier posts on them, please click or search on Luki, AND enjoy the lovely photos.

Further to my last post, more pictures have come through today, showing me homes and friends that are waiting for our cats travelling to Germany this week.

Beautiful Lutz is the brother of little Chivers, and his new friends look pretty cool cats.

Meanwhile beautiful Goldie has a new toy boy, Leo, to meet in her new home, where her new parents love ginger cats!

AND it looks rather a nice home she has landed herself!

And finally, Chivers and Lutz’s brother and sister, Luki & Mimi, also have a lovely new home waiting. Check out this final photo of what their excited new parents have bought them! Surely this dispels ANY further doubts anyone may have about the intentions of these lovely German people. All I can add is LUCKY CATS!!!

Thought it was time for a quick update on all our foster cats … we currently have 18! This includes a beautiful new 6-week old kitten that Jean and George have taken in, and that I have yet to meet.

Firstly Nicola and Erika continue to do a fantastic job, currently fostering 11 cats! Tommy is our big loving FIV positive tomcat, who is still waiting for the right new home. This has proved difficult over the summer due to holidays and kitten fever, but I am hoping for some good news soon. I love this old cat, but he is a small risk to other cats so really needs to live alone, and he needs an owner with the resources to treat any ailments fast, as he is immuno-compromised. He is becoming our toughest to re-home and our most expensive rescue to date, but I for one think he is worth ALL the time and trouble.

Then there is Keba, the very nervous siamese, and her 4 rather wild kittens (1 tabby girl and 3 black siamese, we think boys), rescued from Darsena 2. Gizmo, mentioned in the latest phlog, is the most aggressive of the 4 but amazingly due to some rather nice photos I managed to get of him, he appears to have a home waiting in Germany already! We are finding this hard to believe as we are not even convinced that he is tamable yet, but his prospective owner understands wild cats, has 5 other big cats and sounds perfect. Now we just need to catch him again and take the little ‘devil’ back to Karin and Miguel to start his injection.

I also heard today that Snoopy (who bit me yesterday!), and his slightly sweeter brother Luke have people interested in them, who also understand and accept that Snoopy is still a little nervous.

Meanwhile Baby Felix and little Pippa continue to play and grow, and Lutz from one of our earlier rescue litters has joined the throng, to help balance out the wild and tame kitten numbers, and protect the smaller ones from Gizmo! He will be off to Miguel on Monday for castration, and being a rather beautiful half siamese (new photos to be published tomorrow), I am sure he will find a home soon.

Pam still has Ginger Jasper, who may actually get to stay if he makes friends with her 2 older female cats. Capone her younger boy already loves him; they play lots and Capone, who had grown into a rather fat lazy cat, is already losing weight!!!

Jean and George meanwhile still have Luki and Mimi, the sister and brother of Lutz, little ginger Goldie female, who will travel to her new home in September (photos to be published tomorrow), and the new kitten.

And finally, Pedro and Pablo who we took from Jos’s dog rescue, where they got stuck in a small dog cage, having been left by their owners, are off on the transport to Germany this Thursday, initially to a foster home. These 2 are not strictly Almerimar cats, and Jos has sorted all their vet treatment, but I was happy to be able to help them with foster home here, and send them to the great girls in Germany, who I am sure will find them a great home too. Tracey and Kev, and now Dawn and Nick have found these 2 adorable.

Ok that’s all for now and 18 is quite enough, and are stretching our resources. Pedro and Pablo go on Thursday, but we have yet to rescue big Beau, the last cat from Calle Alcor (who will go to a rescue home in Almeria initially), and Lucia the remaining rock cat, a pretty white female. In addition, Jos has 5 more darling tame kittens about 2 months old, sitting in a big cage in the surgery, desperately wanting to get out, and whom I would love to help. A shortage of foster homes is the biggest problem at the moment, so if anyone can help even for a couple of weeks, please do get in touch.

AND if you would like to read more about the cats mentioned in this post, please click on their names if they appear in the Tag Cloud or use the search facility.

These are new photos are of Luki and his sister Mimi looking quite grown up. They are now 5+ months old and are beautiful, big strong kittens … very tame and friendly. They were our June rescue kittens and have now been with us for over 2 months, and you can see the changes, when you compare these new pictures with the little cuties below!!!

Luki and Mimi should travel to Germany on Wednesday or Thursday of next week, we hope to a home together.