Give Nicky's stray cat colony a Christmas Miracle!

It’s been almost a year since I met wonderful Nicky. She is an angel for the stray and wild cats in the area where she lives.

Nicky has always loved animals, and when she moved houses she didn’t know that soon she would find herself looking after a large colony of stray and wild cats.

It started when she spotted several small inbred cats on her street that were in quite a poor shape and she started feeding them. More and more hungry cats started coming every night, and in the matter of few weeks the colony size grew to over twenty! It was breaking Nicky’s heart to see them like this and she was worried sick that next season there would be even more kittens. She was at loss of what to do.

Nicky has worked very hard all her life. The nature of her work included a lot of physical labour. This has resulted in a number of ongoing physical ailments, as well as several painful surgeries. Nicky can’t work now due to her health, but that didn’t stop her from spending most of her non-existing income on food for her cats. However she couldn’t possibly afford the vet bills to spay/neuter all of them and to treat them for different health conditions.

Nicky’s daughter contacted us for help when we had just started our rescue group and it was one of our first big projects. We did it at the start of the year with help from another wonderful Dunedin charity PetFix, who helped us meet the cost of the project. The expense was way too much for us alone.

We were trapping, desexing and providing any necessary treatment to all Nicky’s colony cats from February to March of 2015. The number of cats was close to 20, not to mention friendly cats and young wild kittens that were removed from the colony and rehomed. We thought we had the problem under control, but recently Nicky needed help again.

It wasn’t like she was back to square one, but about ten more cats have appeared since we last saw her, and all of them had to be desexed. So we started trapping and desexing again. Some of the cats have joined us here, you may recall them from recent posts such as ones featuring Mr Big and Lolita.

All of this made us realize that Nicky needs the continuous support of our Dunedin cat loving community. She gives every minute of her life and every last cent to these cats. Nicky made shelters for the cats in the hedge where they are usually hiding, plus one of our friends built another wooden box shelter for them. She turned her small porch into cat shelter as well. She would love to keep them inside, but being wild they are not keen to get too close to humans and feel more comfortable outside. She is trying to tame them every day, so it will be easier to handle them.

We often hear from people: ‘I’ve got two cats, I can’t afford to keep any more”. Well, Nicky has been feeding about 25 – 30 cats every day on her own, without any help and she doesn’t have much of an income at all! They are her priority, she will make sure they’ve got food first before she will buy something for herself.

Nicky constantly worries that one of the cats will get sick and that she won’t have the means to take them to the vet. Taking care of 30 cats is a big undertaking. All of them need regular flea and worm treatment which isn’t cheap. They also need good nutrition to maintain their health. Trying to meet their needs would be a struggle for anyone, let alone for Nicky, who has limited means.

But she is a trooper, she is not giving up. Those cats are her life and the happiness for her is to see them well fed and healthy. It’s strange how we never see wealthy people deny themselves luxuries in order to help animals in need, yet people like Nicky are happy to give more than they can afford.

I wonder if we could all stretch out a helping hand, and make Nicky’s Christmas of 2015 one to remember? Can we collect enough money to set up an account for her at our vet so she can relax and sleep at night, knowing that if anything happens to one of her cats she’s got money to be able to treat it? Can we collect enough food to last Nicky for at least few months, to let her spend a little bit of her money on herself this Christmas?

This beautiful woman truly deserves recognition for being such a selfless individual. A truly rare thing nowadays.

Now is the time of the year when we all are busy buying presents to lavish our family and friends! In the generous spirit of giving let’s make Nicky’s Christmas a truly bright one! Let’s help one of the truly amazing angels among us!

What do you think New Zealand cat loving community? Can we do that?