Hank’s Story

Meet Hank, a 4 year old boy weighing in at a whopping 8.5kg! Hank was part of stray colony living in Herne Bay, Kent. Some of you may have seen the M&M kittens we had in; these were Hank’s grandchildren! We also trapped his daughter, son and brother who received their medical treatment and are living at a lovely feral cat sanctuary.

Hank arrived to our Founder, Natalia, in a very aggressive state. He was spitting, hissing and biting. Upon assessing Hank, Natalia’s first action was to allow Hank to calm right down and acclimatise to being inside (something he had never done before).

To begin this process, Hank was placed in a 12ft cat run; kitted out with cat trees, toys, heated calming bed, calming diffusers and sprays, and really high value cat food. Natalia then slept on the sofa alongside his run for 2 weeks in order to allow him to get used to her presence. Rehabilitating a cat that has not had human contact for their whole life, is a long and slow process. Natalia is now several weeks in with Hank and, on Christmas Day, he was ready to come out of his calming run (once she knew he will not attack anymore) and into a full room.

Hank has now begun taking food from Natalia’s hand and has stopped attempting to bite her. This is fantastic progress for just a few weeks and we really look forward to showing you how he develops as time goes by. Slow and steady wins the race with feral cats!

Kent has a significant problem with large numbers of stray/feral cats and we aim to improve their welfare. On average, we set about 3 traps a week. Many other charities also reach out to us about strays they have trapped, but cannot facilitate their rehabilitation as their centres do not have enough time to put into them. Caring for cats is costly and time consuming as we have to trap them, pay for them to be checked out by a vet, and then they are vaccinated, neutered and chipped.

The average mature cat can have 3 litters with a total of 12 kittens per year and each generation that follows. This means that 2 unneutered cats can turn into 49,000 kittens! By neutering and rehabilitating Hank we have stopped him creating hundreds and thousands of stray cats around the county!

If you can help us to transform the lives of these cats living on the streets, please send us a donation. Every little really does help. Thank you.