So you are a cat lover. What’s love got to do with it?
So you are a cat lover. What’s love got to do with it?
Nothing really. It’s about kindness.
“Villa Kitty is a place of peace and joy, a haven that can weather the toughest of times and the saddest of moments, and all thanks to a team of dedicated people who work around the clock to ensure that the cats and kittens brought into Villa Kitty are loved and cared for whilst they await adoption.”
That was written in 2012 and in the years since we have been delighted to meet so many wonderful people, families who’ve adopted our beautiful Bali cats and kittens. Sadly however the calls for help continue and every day brings yet another report of kittens found dumped. Babies who should still be with their mothers. Some of these mites are as tiny as the little boy who arrived at Villa Kitty yesterday, covered in maggots. He was dying. Our vet called me to the clinic to speak to the grieving people who had found him. They agreed we must allow him peace from his suffering.
Let me introduce you to the little ones we have taken in since June 1. These precious infants are being cared for in our nursery: Veetee, Vogel, Vegel and Veebee, Wassim, Waldo and Wendy, Wobbe and Wolfe, Wenzel and Xabi, Wazuzu, Whizzi, Woody and Woosie, Wynona, Wiola, Winnie and Wookie, Woopsie, Wissel, Wono, Xavalicious, Xabo, Xema, Yole, Yana, Yapper, Yanko, Yanni: all June arrivals, nineteen of these little ones being bottle fed by our one Nursery vet assistant each eight hour shift.
We have a further 23 babies in the section where the kittens are held who have had their first vaccination and are waiting for approval from our vets, before migrating to the Quarantine building in order to continue their vaccination journey.
So many newborns are finding their way to Villa Kitty, so many maimed adult cats and even mothers and their babies. If we were to find cause for the explosion in numbers you could lay blame on the tourist boom. Kitten dumping and cat abandonment is so rife that compassionate tourists are compelled to deliver these distraught and panicked felines to our Foundation.
How to spoil your holiday in one easy step: come to Bali, this island of the gods, and stumble across a desperately sad kitten, crying out to you for help. Our numbers have soared due to these visiting guardian angels, but we’re grateful for their kind concern.
Not all are delivered with love and care. The number of kittens anonymously dumped at our entrance has also increased. Some are even dropped inside Villa Kitty’s entrance in tiny new cages, the size more suitable for a rat than a cat.
Villa Kitty staff work 24 hours a day caring for our residents but Bali has a catch up and clean up job to do and this requires mass sterilisation of her feline citizens. Thanks to your past generous donations, individual and collective, we stepped up the number of free sterilisations performed.
However, it’s not enough. We sterilise and vaccinate free of charge the cats and kittens of the families who cannot afford to pay. You’d be surprised by the donations they scrape together, which might be a mere quarter of what the vaccine costs, but a precious amount of money for a local. It is only because of your support that we can subsidise the sterilisations and vaccinations, but since they alleviate misery, it must be done.
At the time of writing, since January 1 2023, we have received 637 kittens and cats, and yes, an additional few puppies, 6 to be exact. This is the highest number of kittens ever to come to Villa Kitty. Some say: stop. You cannot take any more cats and kittens. But where are they to go? The only way we can hope to have an impact on the upward trend is to accelerate our free sterilisation programs. This is a long term solution and a costly one.
Please, will you help us avoid unnecessary, unwanted births and abandonment?
Villa Kitty is committed to this fight: be a front line warrior with us and donate now.
Thank you,
Elizabeth Henzell
Founder
Villa Kitty Foundation