Coming back at ya with some fresh adoption success stories from fosters adopted from the Cat & Craft Cat Lounge.
Hopefully you’ll recognize a face or two from a previous visit!
MR. OLIVER TUNA TANK
He’s doing great and still losing weight! My girls love him, he’s a good boy, and he’s very sweet. Please let everyone know he’s well loved and taken care of.
Oliver’s Family
PRISCILLA
She’s doing fantastic! She pretty much got here and has not blinked twice at the craziness of all the animals in this house. We all love her! Here she is right now. 🙂💞
Priscilla’s Family
DUSTY AND ALEJANDRA
Dusty and Cookie (Alejandra) are doing great!
They are so precious and adorable. Initially, although very friendly, they did not like to be held. Now Cookie never leaves my lap and Dusty reaches up to me to be held.
I have so many pictures, I annoy my family with daily Snapchat’s of their shenanigans.
I swore I would never have those large cat towers in my house, but now I have two, LOL!
Dusty and Alejandra’s Family
BUBBLES
Bubbles is doing amazingly well. 🙂 We love her so much. She’s so affectionate and talkative and makes us laugh. She loves chasing her springs and other toys, and takes turns sleeping on the kids’ beds.
Bubbles’ Family
GAZPACHO
We named him Haru and he loves his big brother Kinji so much, lol! Haru is a big part of our lives, thank you so much for letting us adopt him! 😭♥️ We knew he was perfect for us the moment we saw him. Thanks again!
Gazpacho’s Family
ANYA
All is going well. Cashel absolutely loves Anya (Ocha- Japanese for Tea since we got her at the Cafe :))
She really is the perfect cat for Cashel and us and we’re loving having her. Thanks for checking in!
Back again with even more updates on how Cat & Craft foster cats are doing in their new homes.
We’re so grateful for the the support of our community and the adopters who have given these furriends a forever loving home.
SUNNY
We adopted Sunny at Sunny, at just over 11 pounds, has no trouble holding his own with our 17- and 18-pound Ragdolls. He has so much energy that he literally bounces off the walls sometimes! He loved the spring toy he played with at Cat & Craft so much, we got him a dozen more, and he can play for hours with them! He’ll even play fetch with us, taking turns bringing the spring back to one of us, then the other, and so on.
He loves to eat, will try anything once, and has tried to eat all kinds of human food, including Sriracha, lettuce, shredded wheat cereal, almond milk, fresh basil, root beer, you name it!
He’s a lap cat, and will even sleep on us at night. He makes little chirping sounds all day long, slightly different depending on what he’s doing. We know when he’s curious, hungry, excited, or has to use the litter box just based on how he chirps.
Sunny’s Family
BB
She is amazing and everything I wanted for my cat Max. He loves her and she is the perfect companion.
I love my panthers! She definitely runs the house and made herself right at home! Thank you! Have a happy new year! ❤
BB’s Family
Tom Collins
Bo Diddley, formerly the cat known as Tom Collins is doing great! He’s a great cat with tons of personality and affection 😊
Tom Collins’ Family
Thumbelina
Happy Holidays!! She is a wonderful addition to our family. She settled in quickly and we absolutely love her. She’s the sweetest! Thank you and LYFF for giving us the opportunity to adopt her.
Thumbelina’s Family
Vanna
She is doing great! Feel free to share our stories and photos from Instagram, their IG is @svenandrobbie. Her and Sven are like besties now!
She’s so spoiled! Thank you!
Vanna’s Family
Rey
She is doing great, she is settling in with our resident cat and they are starting to play together and are always close by. Please feel free to share these pics and let everyone know she is doing well. Still a cuddle bug, she loves sleeping with us on the bed.
She also loves being high up on the cat trees.
We are so happy to have her as part of our family!
Rey’s Family
Grasshopper & Guinness
Grasshopper and Guinness are doing very well and fit right in with the family.
I’ll try to get a photo opp with our Saint Bernard. Guinness has decided they’ll be friends whether the dog has interest or not, lol. They’re very sweet cats.
Grasshopper and Guinness’ Family
NOVA
We LOVE our Nova girl. She is full member of the family now 🙂
Nova’s Family
Deedee
Deedee is feelin’ right at home in her new furrever home with family after only a few days!
Happy New Year everyone, and what a great new year it is! If you follow along with us on social media you saw Oliver – The Tuna Tank himself – met his new dad and went HOME yesterday to begin enjoying his brand new life.
Here’s a quick recap of his journey from when LYFF Rescue stepped in to help him out, and brought him to us:
Oliver was surrendered to an area shelter severely overweight. This photo of him was taken at the shelter and he was just shy of 30 lbs! That’s too large to fit into a cage, so LYFF Rescue pulled him and brought him to Cat & Craft.
Once he arrived we settled him in and got him started on a strict vet recommended diet and exercise program. When cats are overweight it can be dangerous to their health if they lose weight too quickly, so it was a slow and steady approach throughout his time with us.
And yesterday was finally Oliver’s big day. A kind gentleman felt drawn to him and contacted LYFF Rescue. They sent him to us so that he could meet Oliver in person and it was obvious to all of us that Oliver had met his forever person. While he’s always been a friendly cat with us, this was the first time we saw him knead his bed in happiness while being petted, and he even started licking his new dad’s hand.
When you are around cats a lot you tend to learn the signs that they are truly content, and it was written all over Oliver’s face. So we sent him home with his favorite bed, his favorite pickle kicker toy, and his special food.
We are so excited for him and will be sure to share updates on his new life when we get them. Happy tails Oliver!!
As a collective we not only approach the end of the season of Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa and others… we also approach the end of the year and the end of the decade.
We tend to associate negative thoughts and emotions with endings, often because there are many endings in life we do not choose, or cannot control.
Or a time simply comes to a close and we can get lost in nostalgia of the happiness that such a time carried – feeling sadness for what we once had and wishing it would return.
But each ending makes way for a new beginning – it’s the Circle of Life.
Native American and Peruvian cultures use a Medicine Wheel to illustrate this ever continuing cycle of life and the spiritual realms at work beneath the surface.
The four directions are each tied to a season of nature and a time in life. The North represents Winter, our elders, their wisdom and death… which gives way to the East and Spring, with it’s rising sun of a new day and new beginnings.
Death is not viewed as an endpoint only to be mourned, but the fertile ground where new creation can prepare to be born. Green tree leaves of summer turn bright colors in autumn, before they die and fall to decompose into the soil of winter. As tiny organisms return them to energy for all that grows with sunlight, new leaves burst forth from the tree again in the warmth of the spring sunlight.
Such is the circle of life.
In my world, this time is teaching me the lessons of change. I’m experiencing the transitions of death as we said goodbye to our beloved Guinness on Sunday December 22nd (that is the same day spiritual teacher Baba Ram Dass passed by the way, so I’ve had many imaginings of their two bright spirits sharing wisdom and laughter together wherever they may be).
Guinness was a witness to my life for almost my entire adulthood, spanning nearly two decades. The bond created over such a span of time imprinted itself on my heart and my soul, and it will remain with me for the rest of my days.
Grief can be hard and heavy, but as a good friend once told me “sadness is proof that love is real and true”. If you are also dealing with the grief of a lost pet there is a great article by Julie Axlerod here that may help you understand the process and be patient with yourself during this time.
And for those of you who have followed us along our Cat & Craft journey this year, you may remember sweet senior Autumn, whom we fostered at the cafe over the summer.
She too passed this week, peacefully surrounded by the love of LYFF Rescue volunteers and her foster family. I’m certain Guinness and Rugby, and all other lives we’ve collectively loved and lost were there to welcome her back into the limitless freedom, love and light of all that exists beyond what our eyes can currently see.
And as the circle of life continues, perhaps each has been called home to begin a new season of life and love.
Much love to you at the close of this year. And here’s to the new beginnings ahead.
If you follow us on social media or have visited Cat & Craft recently you know who I’m talking about.
Weighing in at 28 lbs on arrival, he was the biggest cat Andrew and I have ever seen.
This good buddy was rescued by LYFF after being marked for euthanasia at an area shelter because – wait for it – he was too big to fit into a kennel. I’m serious. Other than his weight, vet check showed him to be 100% healthy (thankfully).
How does a cat get to be 28 lbs?
Hard to say but my guess is his previous owner just kept refilling his food bowl and perhaps he was left alone a lot. Cats can learn to eat their feelings just like humans.
But, he ended up at a shelter because whoever his previous owner was couldn’t care for him anymore – which was a good move so he could get the help he needed. The shelter networked with rescues to find a place for him, and good ol’ Oliver Tuna Tank made his way to Cat & Craft.
As it turned out, the Cat & Craft Cat Lounge is an ideal foster environment for him. Here’s why…
We have paid staff to monitor him 12 hours a day 7 days a week.
They ration his special, vet-guided diet meals
He gets hourly walks across the Cat Lounge, and more recent strolls on the cat wheel.
In the time he’s been with us, he’s down to 21 lbs as of today!
This would be challenging for a lot of home foster environments because most folks have jobs and kids and other daily responsibilities that get in the way of being a feline personal trainer.
We know he’s going to make the purrfect addition to someone’s family, and until then we keep loving him and supporting him on his journey to a healthy new life.
I mean, he can finally jump up on the couch and stretch his arms over his head… who knows who long it’s been since he was last able to do that!
If you’re scratching your head thinking “Why wouldn’t they just adopt a cat from Cat & Craft?!”, well here’s why…
The Backstory
Back in June of 2017 we fostered two semi-feral tortoiseshell gals for LYFF Rescue.
Both were on euthanasia watch due to “abnormal behavior”, which only meant that at 6 weeks old they had not yet become fully comfortable being handled by humans.
Baby Letty (left) & baby London (right) intake
That’s understandable… I mean imagine that you were born into a family of gorillas and they were the first things you ever encountered when your eyes started to focus – you’d quickly learn that gorilla’s were not an immediate threat to you.
However, if you had never encountered a gorilla until well into your humanhood – and suddenly you met one that wanted to pick you up and hold you – you’d very likely fear for your life!
It’s a similar story for feral and semi-feral cats and kittens.
So, after two weeks of patience and lots of “purrito” wraps our frightful little gals turned into lap kitties! (not too ‘abnormal’, right!?)
baby Letty (left) and baby London (right) after two weeks
Both gals were available for adoption through LYFF, and very quickly someone was approved to adopt London.
We then adopted her sister Letty (aka our first “foster fail” lol). We often thought about London and wondered how she was doing in her new home, hoping she was well.
Now Here We Are
Then three weeks ago we got a note from LYFF that London’s family could no longer care for her and would be returning her.
It was Andrew who was first to say “we’ll want her back!” and now she’s officially a member of the Vaught household.
We are still in the process of re-introducing her to the family, but she’s been pretty cuddly with us so far.
For a scare-di-cat, London sure loves belly rubs
These things can take time depending on the dynamic of other cats and family members involved.
I do think London feels a sense of familiarity with us and our home, but I do not believe she and Letty remember being best-friend sisters.
Hopefully in time they will enjoy each other’s company as much as they did when they were little!
Our other dudes – Guinness and Elvis – have already welcomed her back into the fold with open paws.
