Cats In Need
By Allan Hillier

Kylie was rescued at 6 weeks old after being discovered in a street alongside one of her dead siblings

You will often see me marching with the Birmingham Irish Pipes and Drums or may bump into me wearing my blue and yellow Cats Protection top.
Cats Protection is a national charity with two branches in Birmingham – North Birmingham and South Birmingham. Both are run solely by volunteers.
You may see the distinctive yellow and blue Cats Protection gazebo at some of the summer fetes at which the band plays, raising much needed funds to carry on their work of rehoming stray cats & kittens and trapping and neutering feral cats
There are always many moving stories throughout the year and the plight of Kylie is just one extreme example.
Kylie was found on the street in Witton lying alongside one of her dead siblings at the age of 6 weeks. Due to a very bad strain of cat flu both of her eyes were distended and very cloudy. After emergency vet treatment she was taken to a volunteer fosterer who had to administer eye drops every 2 hours, day and night, for the first week. Further professional opinions were sought from opthalmic vets and eventually it was decided the left eye could not be saved and was removed. At this stage the right eye looked nearly as bad and we all thought we would have a blind kitten to rehome!
Fotunately, kittens apparently have excellent corneal damage recovery and the right eye slowly started to return to normal size and became relatively clear
Four months on Kylie is now a healthy juvenile and has a good 50% of normal vision from the right eye. She was very fortunate to be adopted by her volunteer fosterer and now happily lives with her 3 ginger tom ‘uncles’ who are very protective and tolerant of her. Losing her left eye and having limited vision from the right eye has not stopped her climbing trees and generally getting into mischief.
It has been a very busy kitten season this year due to the warm weather so, if you are looking to home a cat or kitten please ring our adoption line for details – 0121 353 4649.
If you are unable to home a cat or kitten but want to help our work there are a number of sponsorship schemes available, the most common being sponsorship of a cat cabin. We also need fundraisers and help manning phone lines.
For further information telephone
0121 377 6302 or email catsnorthbham@hotmail.com.