This morning, at 6.45am, I went to SS18/5A to meet up with Francis, the cat-feeder. My friend, Bro Chim, had already spoken to Francis earlier and he was interested in doing CNRM for the cats that he feeds.
There was no one at the playground yet. So, I walked down the road, just to see how many cats I could find.
Here are two...
They looked at me. They weren't afraid.
Then I went up the playground and these happy cats came trotting towards me. How silly of me...I hadn't brought any catfood along. But then again, I also did not want to introduce them to a new food and create a disturbance to their diet.
No food for us?? They walked away, and I felt so bad...
Soon, a kindly gentleman came to the playground with a bag of something. I walked towards him and he smiled, but hurried over to the cats. Ah, this must be Francis.
It was...
Here's Francis feeding the cats.
Francis is an electrical engineer who works fulltime with a heavy work schedule. Yet, he finds time every morning to feed these cats before going off to work. He's been doing this for years.
He pre-packs the kibbles in newspapers and the cats have a pack each. Some share. After feeding, Francis cleans everything up.
Many years ago, Francis and his wife had a dog, and after the dog passed away, he didn't want to keep a pet anymore as the attachment is there and it's really hard for him when a beloved pet dies, so he decided to help these street cats instead.
Currently, three cats have "adopted" them, so they live in his house. These have been spayed. He even bought a cage and carrier just to get these cats spayed.
I told Francis about what we do, and he said he could try to catch the cats and bring them to our vet for spay-neuter.
Francis told me how the cats are related, too. There was a mother-cat there, and her daughters were there too, all eating in Francis' "soup kitchen" at the playground. And the mother-cat has given birth two times already.
Francis is soft-spoken and is a man of few words. But one could see kindness in him.
Soon, Bro Chim arrived and Francis went off with him for their morning walk. But before that, Francis' wife came by and we got talking.
This is Mukda, Francis' wife. She's definitely an animal-lover, too. By the way, she's of Thai origin. Mukda said initially, they used to send kittens to a local shelter, but was so sad that the kittens were all put down. They've stopped doing that now.
Mukda also told me about how some people are so unkind to stray animals.
Well, yes, it's quite the same story everywhere. It takes all kinds to make the world. We can convince some, but not all, but that should never deter us from doing what we think is right.
We'll just have to do our best.
I had a long chat with Mukda. She is clearly upset about the cruelty she had seen, but she is pleased that we're providing this help for the strays.
Well, never mind what others do. That's their karma. We'll do what we think is right and hope it catches on...one day. Education by example is always the best.
I took my leave as it was getting late. As I was driving off, I saw this white cat in one of the houses. I happened to know this house-owner and I don't think it's his cat. Ahh..another stray.
Help is on the way, kitty....
In fact, I was on this same street yesterday, and I talked to another resident. He said mother-cats have often given birth in his garden. He had given the kittens away to friends who live in the flats who wanted pet-cats. But he told me about one chap living somewhere there who got so angry with a cat because the cat kept poo-ing in his garden, one day, this chap whacked the cat...and killed the poor thing.
That's the thing with humans. They don't quite empathise that animals do not know any better and that the cat didn't poo out of vengeance or hatred, but purely out of ignorance. Do you punish someone because something had been done out of ignorance? But humans are unforgiving, and they will kill out of hatred, but only if the victim is smaller than them, and defenceless.
It's sad...
Furthermore, do we know what makes a cat (or any animal, for that matter) happy or unhappy? If we don't, then can we expect a cat to know what makes us happy or unhappy? And we claim to be the more intelligent spesies? What can be so intelligent about us if we cannot even empathise that animals cannot understand what we want of them?
We dump our garbage into the sea, poison the fishes and that's ok? A cat poos in our garden and that's not ok?
But I digress....
I hope, with the help of Francis, we can get as many of the strays spayed-neutered on this street. I don't know how the rest of the neighbours would respond, though. Bro Chim had forwarded my email to the neighbourhood e-group but not a single person had responded. I suppose no news can be good news? At least there was no violent objection, and that's good enough!
Well, one step at a time....
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