The brave garage cats
A flood of cats that seems to have no end
“Hello, please excuse me for disturbing you so late, but I hope you can help me,” came the voice of an animal lover from Gut Aiderbichl employee Bianca Pöckl’s mobile phone. It was half past five in the evening and an eventful working day seemed to be coming to an end. But animal emergencies don’t know the end of the day and so they reach us on the way home.
The animal lover described the following situation: Her parents-in-law discovered kittens in their garage around midday. Nobody knows how and when they got there. Nobody knows where their mother was and whether she would come back. Hard to know what the best course of action is here.
The animal friends decided to wait for now. Maybe the mum would come back. Well, hours later, the mother cat was still nowhere to be seen and it was time to act. The animal friends took the kittens out of their hiding place and put them in a warm box. And now what?
“Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can read.”(Mark Twain)
Employee Bianca sought advice from her colleagues at Gut Aiderbichl Henndorf and asked for help. Never before have we received so many requests for help regarding cats in need as in 2024, and more are coming in every day.
Veterinarian Dr Marianne Wondrak and animal keeper Sabine Mosboeckhofer couldn’t help themselves and agreed to adopt the kittens.
Then everything happened quickly: Bianca picked up the kittens and drove straight to Sabine’s house. “The poor things are freezing cold and are only a few days old” was the first diagnosis from Dr Wondrak, who examined each of them carefully. The treatment plan was now clear: each one would be given one or two kittens and warm them up with their own bodies. Cat milk is given in small doses, every hour, throughout the night. Not manageable for one person. So a “kitten service” was quickly set up among the animal carers, checklists drawn up and everything necessary gathered together.
You can only see well with your heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Bottle-raising baby animals is an incredible task and responsibility. And there is always the realisation that all efforts may not be enough. For a long time, you cannot be sure whether each of our fosterlings will make it. One of the kittens fell asleep peacefully on the very first evening and her little heart stopped beating. Many things can happen that nobody can expect and that you are helpless in the face of.
The other four kittens are busy drinking, seem fit and delight our keepers every day. And because Halloween is just around the corner, the kittens have all been given suitable names. So they are keeping their fingers crossed for Moon, Spooky, Vampy and Casper that they will grow up to be gorgeous tomcats.
