Latest / Paws Between Us - Pet Stories, Welfare and Building A Bond / Cat Show Live: A Day of Pet Rescues, Charities & Community

Transcript

Cat Show Live: A Day of Pet Rescues, Charities & Community · Paws Between Us - Pet Stories, Welfare and Building A Bond

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Paws Between Us podcast, co-hosted by best friends Natalie
• 0:04
  and Sasha. We're lifelong animal lovers and proud pet parents.
• 0:08
  Between us, we share our lives with cats Weaver and Murray
• 0:13
  and Betty the pug. In each episode, we'll dive into the joys and
• 0:17
  challenges of living with our furry companions, sharing honest stories, laughter,
• 0:20
  and sometimes a few tears. We'll also bring in special guests,
• 0:24
  people who are making the world a better place for their pets, to offer
• 0:28
  expert-backed tips and proven practices for keeping your pets
• 0:31
  happy, healthy and loved. Please note, some episodes may touch on
• 0:35
  sensitive topics or contain strong language. Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:39
  Thank you for joining us. Hey now. Hello.
• 0:43
  How are you? Yeah, good. How are you?
• 0:46
  Good. Yeah. Had, um, had Pilates this morning.
• 0:50
  I wanted to tell you a little story actually. So, we went to Pilates and
• 0:53
  we were all talking about the doom and gloom of life. AI, war,
• 0:58
  Prices increasing, scammers. Oh, it was very depressing.
• 1:02
  But then somebody mentioned their puppy Spencer, and I
• 1:06
  was like, how is Spencer? And the conversation turned immediately around and
• 1:10
  we were like, oh! She was like, he's amazing. He's my angel. He makes every
• 1:14
  day better. I love grooming him. He comes and sits. He's very,
• 1:17
  he's very intelligent. He's so clever. It was just so cute.
• 1:21
  It completely changed the feeling in the room. I loved it. So,
• 1:25
  that's just a lovely little kind of snip
• 1:28
  it into the joy that animals bring and make every day wonderful.
• 1:32
  Yay. That, I mean, that just sums up why we do what we do
• 1:35
  or why we're doing this podcast. Yeah. Exactly.
• 1:40
  Lovely story. So what breed is Spencer?
• 1:43
  I don't know. She said he was a terrier. I can't remember. She said he's
• 1:47
  got quite short legs. That's all I remember. But he loves being groomed and she
• 1:51
  sort of gives him little spa treatments and takes very good care over
• 1:54
  grooming him very delicately and giving him a massage. So sweet.
• 1:58
  She's really, into horses as well, and she says she gets lots of joy
• 2:02
  from being up and around the horse in the fields and how
• 2:06
  the horse interacts with her daughter. And she was just
• 2:10
  talking about the bond that they have, and it just sounds so amazing and
• 2:14
  really beautiful. I really love horses, actually. I've kind of always been drawn
• 2:18
  to them, and I love it when I can see a
• 2:22
  human and a horse bond together. It's so cute. It's so nice because you don't,
• 2:26
  I'm not around them as often, so I know the bond between cats
• 2:30
  and their humans and dogs and their humans, but not see it as often with
• 2:34
  a horse. But when you see it, it's like, this is so beautiful. And horses
• 2:37
  are so magnificent. I love them. They are. We do have a guest actually
• 2:41
  planned to come on the podcast in the future who has a love
• 2:45
  for horses. And also, yeah, she, she has horses and she rides them, I think,
• 2:49
  every morning before she goes to work. So clearly she gets up
• 2:53
  quite early to do that. Yeah, they are. I mean, yeah, it's just wonderful.
• 2:56
  And just going back to the grooming Spencer point, it's really good to
• 3:01
  get your puppy used to being groomed at an early age, 'cause it makes life
• 3:05
  so much easier for the groomer, but also for the, the dog,
• 3:08
  'cause they just know what to expect and they're really familiar with it. That was
• 3:11
  one thing I learned when I was doing my grooming training is
• 3:15
  the more you can encourage puppies to come in when they're little
• 3:19
  and just have a sniff of the salon and get
• 3:22
  used to being brushed and touched, and, uh, it just makes
• 3:26
  like it such a better experience for them. Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:30
  Over time. So she's doing the right thing.
• 3:34
  Great. Yeah. Same with cats actually, get them used to it quite young.
• 3:38
  My cats have always loved being brushed. I think it's a bit like, you know,
• 3:41
  they groom themselves and their mummy cats groom them. So I think
• 3:45
  if you get the same sort of rhythm and a similar sort of process,
• 3:49
  I think it feels quite soothing to a cat. It's quite nice. Yeah.
• 3:52
  Doing it from a young age. Cool. And, um, on the topic of
• 3:56
  cats. Yes. We are just back from
• 3:59
  the Cat Show Live at the NEC in Birmingham, aren't we? And I think we
• 4:02
  are both buzzing about the day that we had. Firstly, 'cause we were together
• 4:06
  and it was so nice to actually see you in person, Nat, but also just
• 4:09
  to spend the day in the company of lots
• 4:14
  of beautiful cats and lots of beautiful people that are making the world
• 4:18
  a better place for cats, either through the work they're doing with their products
• 4:22
  or their services or the charities that they represent.
• 4:25
  So yeah. Yeah, it was such a— it's another feel-good moment, I think,
• 4:29
  wasn't it? It was, it was. And it was like you say, it was
• 4:33
  great because we had a whole day together. Sasha stayed over, we made smoothies in
• 4:37
  the morning, and we listened to '90s R&B in the car on the way there.
• 4:40
  Yeah, thanks for driving, I really appreciate it. I love the music,
• 4:44
  you have great taste in music. Thank you. That's another career
• 4:48
  side note of like maybe you want to be a DJ one day, but hey.
• 4:51
  But yeah, no, it was great. We were— we got there plenty of time.
• 4:54
  I was keen to get in early, and we were lucky to have media passes,
• 4:56
  so thank you so much to Sam and the team at The Cat
• 5:00
  Show Live for giving us those passes. It made the day so much easier for
• 5:03
  us and so much more enjoyable. We got to speak to lots of people and
• 5:07
  see lots of different things, and this was our first one at
• 5:11
  Birmingham. So yeah, it was great. It was a great— I was, I was expecting
• 5:14
  to be exhausted at the end of the day, but I was still quite buzzing.
• 5:18
  The exhaustion hit on the Sunday, and I was so
• 5:22
  tired Sunday, and I can't imagine what the events team
• 5:26
  were feeling and maybe still are feeling at the moment. It was a
• 5:29
  Massive, massive undertaking for sure. It was. It is funny you
• 5:34
  say that actually, because I was the same. I, I got home after you dropped
• 5:38
  me off and I was like, I'm not tired at all. I just feel
• 5:41
  on top of the world. My feet aren't hurting. Yeah. I just don't feel like
• 5:46
  I've spent 8 hours walking around without sitting down much
• 5:50
  and could have kept on going, but yeah.
• 5:53
  And I ended up going that evening to the cinema. And so,
• 5:57
  by the time I got home, it was about midnight, and it was
• 6:01
  a long day. And like you, yeah, Sunday, I woke up really shattered.
• 6:04
  And I also thought, I wonder how the stallholders are feeling,
• 6:08
  having sort of packed away and having
• 6:11
  been there all day. I'm sure they had an early start that morning.
• 6:15
  And, uh, it was quite nice because we had the media pass. We turned
• 6:18
  up a little bit early, didn't we? And it was just really nice to see
• 6:23
  Everything just coming to life that morning and everything,
• 6:26
  you know, as people started, more and more people started to turn up
• 6:29
  and yeah, it was just, we sort of had that behind the scenes glimpse,
• 6:34
  if you like, early on before the public
• 6:37
  arrived. So that was really good. Yeah. Thank you to Sam. Big shout out to
• 6:41
  her and her team for inviting us and just making
• 6:45
  the day so wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. It was a bit like a
• 6:48
  behind the scenes and we were lucky to catch some of the early presenters
• 6:53
  and listen to some of their stories. And I know we're gonna be getting hopefully
• 6:56
  somebody on later on in the show, which will be excellent. And it was a
• 6:59
  good way to orientate ourselves because it got so busy later
• 7:03
  on. I kind of wish in hindsight we'd gone to see the cats early doors
• 7:07
  because later on they were the busiest section.
• 7:10
  We just could not look down the aisles 'cause there were just so many people
• 7:14
  just swarming around all the gorgeous fluffy kitties.
• 7:18
  But yeah, so we did do a lot and it was great.
• 7:21
  I'm looking forward to going next year. I definitely want to turn up
• 7:26
  at Birmingham next year. But they are going to doing a London
• 7:29
  show. So people, if you want to go next year, we'll tell you a little
• 7:32
  bit more about it. But if you want to go next year, there's a London
• 7:35
  event in May, and then there's another Birmingham one in September 2027.
• 7:40
  So get your tickets now because I think they're on offer. So go and get
• 7:43
  a discounted price. Yeah. Yeah. So the event was, we'll give you a little coverage
• 7:47
  of it and we can tell you about some of our best bits. We've been
• 7:49
  able to get a few little interviews with some of the stallholders. So we've got
• 7:54
  an array of like innovative innovators.
• 7:57
  We've got breeders, business owners,
• 8:01
  charities. It was all really good. We got around a few little, we couldn't do
• 8:04
  everybody. It was so busy. And obviously the stallholders were talking
• 8:08
  to the public and trying to, you know, make sales and spread the word.
• 8:12
  So it was quite, it was quite busy, but we got some great interviews.
• 8:15
  Um, yeah, Sash, what were some of your highlights?
• 8:19
  Yeah, I mean, there were so many, but I think there's just sort of a
• 8:24
  couple of things that I want to do a shout out for, and we didn't
• 8:27
  actually capture the clips from them because we were, I think we were
• 8:31
  just so busy chatting, but we attended, didn't we, a wonderful
• 8:34
  talk first thing by a guy called Jed
• 8:38
  Khan-Borsop, who I think he was doing the opening
• 8:42
  talk first thing in the morning, and his talk was called
• 8:46
  Visibility Equals Validity: Cats, Disability, and the Power
• 8:50
  of Being Seen. So Jed was very much talking about rescue
• 8:54
  cats, disability, accessibility, representation, caring,
• 8:58
  acting, grief, healing, and the incredible decade that he shared with his
• 9:02
  own cat son, Kingsley Jr. And he also reflected
• 9:06
  on life with his first cat, Kingsley Sr.,
• 9:10
  and the feline rescue journey that runs through his family and all
• 9:13
  the wonderful work that his mum did back in the '80s with Um,
• 9:18
  rescue charities. So, we're hoping to get Jed
• 9:21
  on this podcast to talk to us a bit more about some of those topics.
• 9:25
  So, there was lots of topics that he covered that I've just mentioned.
• 9:29
  We're hoping to get him on the podcast in the future. So,
• 9:32
  yeah, thank you, Jed, for your wonderful talks. Really great to hear from
• 9:36
  you. And that kind of got us set up for the day, didn't it?
• 9:39
  And actually, we planned to do more talks and we were so busy
• 9:43
  chatting to the stallholders, we didn't actually attend any others, did we? So,
• 9:46
  no, no, I'm a bit gutted about that. About that because I think there
• 9:50
  was just so much to do that, yeah, we'd listed lots of like talks,
• 9:54
  presentations that we wanted to listen to, and we never made
• 9:58
  it. So no, we didn't. You know, maybe next time. I mean, it is interesting
• 10:02
  because I think going in as, um, sort of half cat
• 10:06
  mum and half podcast animal presenter,
• 10:10
  I had 2 hats on. And I was like, the cat mum of me wanted
• 10:14
  to pull me over and just talk products and toys and climbers,
• 10:17
  and then yeah, listen to some of the presenters. And then podcast head was
• 10:21
  like, ooh, let's get some great interviews. Let's see what innovations are happening. Let's kind
• 10:25
  of network and see who's doing what and why they're here. And it was
• 10:29
  like, I don't know which hat to wear today. So, I would've loved like
• 10:33
  a cat mum day and then a podcast day. Yeah, I mean,
• 10:36
  that's a good point. I think I wasn't there as a cat mum,
• 10:39
  but I was there as a cat mum maybe one day.
• 10:43
  And I was, you know, it gave me lots of inspiration and things
• 10:46
  to think about if I do ever get another pussycat in my life.
• 10:50
  But yeah, it was wonderful to see all all the cats, but also
• 10:54
  to meet so many of the stallholders. And like you, I sort of was a
• 10:57
  bit torn about where I was gonna focus my time and energy
• 11:01
  that day. But, um, the day went so quickly. And then the
• 11:05
  other good thing that we, we got the opportunity to meet up with a wonderful
• 11:09
  couple called Laura and Matt, who we have
• 11:12
  connected with through socials and their social account called
• 11:16
  Flock and Clowder. And we've been in touch with them for a while because they
• 11:19
  are going to be coming onto the podcast very soon. But we got to meet
• 11:23
  them in real life, didn't we, at the lunch break? That was cool. So big
• 11:26
  shout out to Laura and Matt. They have 4 acres
• 11:30
  of farmland in Lancashire, and they are very, very focused
• 11:35
  on life with their rescue cat, their rescue chickens,
• 11:38
  and some of the beekeeping that they do. So yeah,
• 11:42
  it was just great to hear a bit more about Laura's experience of her
• 11:46
  rescue cats or their rescue cats. So that was really nice to see
• 11:50
  them in person. And then, yeah, I think It was just a wonderful mix
• 11:54
  of charities,
• 11:57
  businesses that are doing some great things for
• 12:01
  cats with their products and services, but also just to hear some of the individual
• 12:05
  stories. So wonderful to hear from the founder of My Three
• 12:10
  Cats, who set up a cat sitting business from
• 12:13
  scratch and to see how that's like grown from strength to strength
• 12:17
  and the journey that she's been on. I know we are going to hear from
• 12:21
  her, aren't we, on this podcast, because we we did capture her story and a
• 12:25
  bit more about what My Three Cats does. So that was really great and that
• 12:28
  made me feel really inspired. So yeah, let's let her tell us
• 12:32
  a little bit about her story right now. We can kind of clip her in
• 12:35
  and she can sort of give us a little introduction to what My Three Cats
• 12:39
  is all about and like why she set it up. Okay, so, uh, yeah,
• 12:42
  hi, my name is Wendy and nice to meet you. Uh, we are
• 12:46
  My Three Cats. We are a specialist, um, cat sitting service.
• 12:50
  Um, so our main business is based in Warrington up in the Northwest.
• 12:54
  Um, we started out, uh, just as me doing
• 12:57
  a bit of cat sitting, um, but nearly 10 years ago now.
• 13:01
  Um, and to cut a long story short, it's grown,
• 13:05
  um, incredibly well, incredibly quickly,
• 13:09
  and very, um, to the point where we've now got 350+
• 13:13
  customers in Warrington and a team of
• 13:17
  nearly 20 cat sitters. Um, and we
• 13:21
  our clients just seem to love the fact that we are, um, cat only.
• 13:25
  We're specialist cat, um,
• 13:28
  cat sitters. We, we've never, we've never looked after dogs,
• 13:32
  um, because— not because we don't like dogs, uh, dogs are great
• 13:36
  too— but we believe that, um, there's not as many, um,
• 13:39
  specialist cat services out there. So we've always only focused on
• 13:43
  cats. Um, so yeah, it's grown and grown,
• 13:47
  and to the point where we were getting for our services outside of
• 13:50
  Warrington, in other towns. Yeah, okay.
• 13:53
  Um, so a couple of years ago we made the decision to franchise
• 13:58
  our business. We didn't really know whether we were gonna sort
• 14:01
  of get any interest because although it's our passion and our
• 14:05
  clients love us, we sort of weren't sure whether that was going to replicate into
• 14:09
  other towns. Um, but it turns out that there is just as much
• 14:12
  demand for cat specialists and sitters in
• 14:17
  other towns as well. And in the last 12 months, we've now got 5
• 14:20
  franchise partners in other towns across the UK as well.
• 14:24
  So, um, yeah, these, um, these other amazing,
• 14:28
  um, franchisees are also going great guns in theirs. Yeah, we're here, we're back
• 14:31
  here again today to sort of say thank you to, uh, where it all sort
• 14:35
  of started last year. But like, what do you do to make sure the cat
• 14:39
  sitters are like the best people. Yeah, so I, I have always
• 14:43
  had a very, very, very strict,
• 14:46
  um, sort of, um, vetting policy when it comes to my
• 14:50
  own cat sitters within my team. Yeah, so at first it was very
• 14:54
  difficult to sort of let go. I suppose any business
• 14:57
  owner has this issue when it's your own business baby.
• 15:01
  Even, even delegate just a cat— what people would say is
• 15:04
  just a cat sitting visit. That's my reputation as as a
• 15:08
  non-cat person often seems to say to me,
• 15:12
  it's just a cat. It's not. It's their— it's like you say, it's their baby.
• 15:15
  Yeah, it's their everything. So, and obviously there's a huge element
• 15:20
  of trust involved. You're essentially letting strangers into your home, your house.
• 15:23
  Yeah. So for me, anyone that I take on as a cat
• 15:27
  sitter has to have that extremely high standard that I
• 15:31
  expect, that I would give myself. So Yeah, I've got, um,
• 15:35
  very high vetting standards. Each of our cat sitters, whenever I take anyone
• 15:40
  on, they would shadow me at first anyway. We do,
• 15:42
  um, a meet and greet with each new client. Um, so we come
• 15:46
  and meet you first. That's like a free visit to come and see
• 15:50
  you. We come and meet you, meet your cat, go through their entire routine,
• 15:54
  where they eat, what they eat, their litter routine. There's lots of
• 15:58
  routines. Lots of poo talk. And what's been the favourite thing of today?
• 16:02
  What have you seen or done or learned or Today, I mean, this show is
• 16:05
  just the best thing ever because it's
• 16:09
  just a combination of cat people, cat products,
• 16:14
  cat businesses, and cats. So there's cats over
• 16:18
  there as well. Having said that, I've still not managed to get out and about
• 16:21
  as much as I wanted to, although we've got some of our
• 16:25
  franchisees with us this year, so I have been able to at least get a
• 16:28
  bit of lunch. But yeah, it's amazing.
• 16:33
  A wonderful community of cat people, uh, all in one place.
• 16:37
  So thank you so much, my 3 cats. Thank you very much.
• 16:43
  So that was, yeah, that was great from Wendy. Um, I loved hearing about how
• 16:46
  she, she actually quite inspired me to think of maybe taking a new career down
• 16:49
  that path, actually. I was thinking the way she's established that with such kind
• 16:53
  of like robust sort of process to make sure that she's got the right
• 16:57
  people in, I thought was really good. And I really liked that approach. And we
• 17:01
  also spoke to some, uh, one of the things I was really interested in was
• 17:04
  some innovations that were coming out. And again, um,
• 17:08
  a company called Purrwave connected with us on socials and we thought we'll
• 17:12
  pop in and see them for sure. And there was just this lovely lady who
• 17:15
  was telling us again about her personal story about why she developed this piece of
• 17:19
  technology to try and help nervous and anxious cats. And the science behind it
• 17:23
  and some of the research they've been doing was just really inspirational. She was just
• 17:28
  so passionate and was driven by a personal story, which really
• 17:31
  resonated with me. We also did a quick interview with her so she can tell
• 17:35
  you a little bit more about her story. So Purr Wave is a speaker,
• 17:39
  a tiny speaker that purrs, and it's designed to help keep
• 17:43
  cats calm when they're stressed. So if they're at the vet or, you know,
• 17:47
  if they've, if they've been left home alone because you're out or whatever,
• 17:50
  or just if you want to give them a bit of a relaxing vibe.
• 17:53
  You know, if they're chilling out at home, it's kind of like having nice relaxing
• 17:57
  music on for them. Yeah. And the idea came, um, when my
• 18:01
  elderly cat at the end of his life was rather ill and he—
• 18:05
  I wanted to find a way to comfort him. And you know the way cats
• 18:09
  will purr next to you when you're, um, when you're ill. So I thought maybe
• 18:13
  if I purr for him and I tried just going,
• 18:16
  that did not work. I do that. That did not work. So I
• 18:21
  started playing like a purr track through my Bluetooth speaker and he
• 18:24
  would just lie on it. He loved it. And then when I was at the
• 18:28
  vet, he used to howl like a maniac. And then I tried playing a
• 18:32
  purr into his carrier and he just stopped meowing.
• 18:36
  And the vet was A, very relieved and B,
• 18:40
  amazed. So I said, oh, maybe I should just make this into a product.
• 18:43
  And the vet said, yes, make it into a product that you can put on
• 18:46
  a cat carrier. Yeah, so that's what we're doing. Amazing. Is there any science
• 18:50
  behind it? Yes. Like that you've learned to help you know that
• 18:54
  this will be a benefit? We have got so into the science
• 18:58
  of purring. Good, good. And we would love to actually,
• 19:01
  if we get big, we'd love to fund a lot more of it because I
• 19:03
  think it's quite lacking at the moment. But what we do know is that
• 19:07
  cats purr between 25 and 150 hertz, very low frequency.
• 19:12
  They also have special purr for humans, which is a solicitation
• 19:17
  purr that has a higher frequency that we can hear better. That's designed
• 19:21
  to manipulate us into doing whatever they want. And it works? It works? Yes,
• 19:24
  it works. Um, but we also know that they purr when
• 19:28
  they're injured, when they're ill, when they're anxious.
• 19:32
  And so is there a different frequency to those?
• 19:36
  Um, well, different to the solicitation one, but we don't know whether there's different
• 19:40
  frequencies And we'd love to do some research into that. Yeah.
• 19:43
  But what we do know is that, you know, because we know it's a healing
• 19:47
  frequency that's used in human medicine, by the way,
• 19:50
  to repair bone tissue, bone and tissue and whatever. What we assume
• 19:54
  is that they're using it to speed up their own healing. That's what the science
• 19:58
  tells us. Yeah. That makes sense. So, but I think that's why it's
• 20:02
  such an appealing thing for cats who are ill or anxious or tired
• 20:07
  or whatever. Yeah. It's soothing for them. Amazing. So how can
• 20:11
  people get involved? Like, what's, what stage are you at? How can people help?
• 20:15
  We've, we've just spent quite a lot of time and money making a prototype,
• 20:19
  which we're really happy with, but it is still very much,
• 20:22
  um, using our own cat's paws, that sort of thing.
• 20:26
  Okay. What we need to do is to be able to do the sound engineering.
• 20:30
  We need to be able to do, like, refine the acoustics,
• 20:33
  refine the materials, refine the design. Okay. Testing all of that stuff,
• 20:37
  tooling up. So we're doing a Kickstarter. Fantastic.
• 20:40
  One day maybe we'll be on Dragon's Den, but at the moment we're doing a
• 20:43
  Kickstarter. If you look up Purrwave,
• 20:45
  P-U-R-R-W-A-V-E, on Kickstarter,
• 20:48
  you will find us. And we are raising the money to make the first
• 20:53
  batch. So it's going to be £69, but there are some cheaper
• 20:57
  options on Purrwave at the moment on the Kickstarter. Excellent. So if
• 21:00
  you go on there and back us. If you, if we don't hit the target,
• 21:04
  you don't pay anything. If we hit the target, you'll hopefully
• 21:07
  get it around May 2027, by which
• 21:11
  time we'll have done all the tooling up and all that stuff.
• 21:14
  There are 2 of us doing it and we are learning everything. Oh, well,
• 21:17
  good luck. And yeah, if anybody can get involved and help the Kickstarter,
• 21:20
  we'll promote and let you know. Go and search Pearl. And also
• 21:24
  if there are any shelters out there who'd like to test
• 21:28
  it out, you know, as we go along, we'd love to be in touch with
• 21:30
  them. You know, we, we really want this to work for cats
• 21:35
  who really need it. Are you gonna be able to do some schmoozing today to
• 21:37
  try and do networking? Depends how busy we are here. It's busy, isn't it?
• 21:40
  It's great. Have a great day. Thanks for
• 21:44
  chatting to us. Thank you. Yeah. So very inspiring.
• 21:48
  Another highlight for me of the day was actually seeing one
• 21:51
  of the charities that I'm a volunteer for, which is
• 21:54
  the Cinnamon Trust. And the Cinnamon Trust provides support
• 21:59
  for elderly people or people who are terminally ill and
• 22:03
  Um, their pets. So I'm a volunteer dog walker for the Cinnamon Trust,
• 22:07
  really proud to say that. So I've been walking dogs now for
• 22:11
  a couple of years through the charity, and it's so rewarding, and I love walking.
• 22:15
  And now Betty is struggling with her walking, I don't get to go out as
• 22:18
  much on dog walks, so it's brilliant to be able to do that.
• 22:21
  And it was, you know, lovely to see them there. I didn't realise they were
• 22:24
  there, so it was a nice surprise when I turned the corner. So we had
• 22:27
  a, a lovely chat with them, and then other charities that we also met
• 22:31
  Animal Foodbank UK, who are doing some great work with,
• 22:34
  um, their pet food bank, which I am, I am aware of them as a
• 22:38
  charity. Yeah, great to have a chat with their 2 founders. Another charity
• 22:42
  that I was really inspired by, I'd actually spoken to them when I was at
• 22:45
  Crufts, um, but this time around got to speak to them
• 22:49
  about the work they're doing with cats. So that was the Pet Blood Bank
• 22:52
  UK charity and their clinical director,
• 22:56
  Wendy. And if you've not heard of the Pet Blood Bank before, sort of,
• 22:59
  it's very much about saving lives of pets in need, um,
• 23:03
  through their blood service. So it was set up, um, to support vets through
• 23:07
  this blood service. Just like the service that we have for humans,
• 23:11
  when humans need sort of emergency blood transfusions, there's a, a great
• 23:15
  charity that supports vets and pets through, um,
• 23:18
  yeah, through the Pet Blood Bank. And they run donation
• 23:21
  sessions across the country where owners can bring their much-loved companions
• 23:25
  to give blood. So we did speak to Wendy. It was really great to hear
• 23:29
  hear about what she's trying to do with the cat service, because the focus has
• 23:32
  very much been on dogs up until now. So they're now looking for cat
• 23:36
  donors to give blood. So Nat, I don't know if you're thinking about it for
• 23:40
  Weaver and Murray, but yeah, let's hear what Wendy had to say.
• 23:44
  So Petlabank's been running and operating for nearly 20
• 23:48
  years for our canine service, providing blood nationwide
• 23:52
  for the UK veterinary profession. And we're at the Cat Show today to launch
• 23:56
  our cat service. Amazing! How can people get involved if
• 24:00
  they've got a cat that they think might be able to donate blood? Oh,
• 24:03
  it would be absolutely amazing if they could. So we are looking for owners
• 24:07
  to come forward with cats that are aged between 1 and 8 years of age,
• 24:11
  over 4.5 kilos, and like
• 24:14
  meeting people. So coming along to the vets, having lots of treats,
• 24:19
  and donating some for us. Wow, that's amazing.
• 24:23
  It's so worthwhile what you're doing, so thank you. What's been the highlight for
• 24:26
  you today? I think today it's been absolutely amazing meeting so
• 24:30
  many different cat owners and learning about their cats, and we've seen so many photos
• 24:35
  of cats as well. Cat heaven today then.
• 24:39
  Absolutely cat heaven. Yeah, yeah, that's— it's
• 24:43
  great, uh, that's a great new service. And what, again, what it sort of highlights
• 24:46
  for me is that people are now thinking about the needs of cats more.
• 24:49
  So, you know, it starts with the dogs, or it has been kind of led
• 24:52
  dogs, and now people are kind of looking at what cats need and what,
• 24:56
  how they can support more cat health. So it's good. Oh yeah. And then on
• 25:00
  terms of the other sort of charities that were there, well, there was a Good
• 25:02
  Grief Trust by Linda Magistris, I think
• 25:06
  her name is. She was there in her capacity of founder of this charity that
• 25:10
  is about supporting people with, you know, who've lost partners
• 25:14
  and family members, but is now branching out into supporting
• 25:18
  pet owners through community and local kind of connections, which was
• 25:22
  really great. And hopefully we might get her on at some point in the future.
• 25:24
  She seemed quite keen to talk to us. But also, you know,
• 25:27
  everybody knows about the PDSA, hopefully. They do an amazing service
• 25:32
  treating sick and injured pets for people on low incomes or those who are
• 25:36
  struggling financially. And I've not used them in the past
• 25:40
  in that respect, but they were providing out-of-hours emergency
• 25:44
  services. So if they weren't there, You know, my poorly cat a few years
• 25:48
  ago wouldn't have had many options. So we interviewed them and
• 25:51
  they were quite funny. The fundraisers from that team decided to interview each other,
• 25:55
  which was quite novel. They were quite bouncy and full of energy, so we thought,
• 25:59
  why not? So over to them to tell you a little bit about the PDSA
• 26:03
  and what they do. Cool. So what are you
• 26:06
  doing, Liam? Working for the PDSA fundraiser. Oh, amazing. What do
• 26:10
  you do? So the PDSA We take care of people's pets when
• 26:15
  they're in need. We help more sick and injured pets than any other charity vets
• 26:18
  in the whole of the UK. On average, we treat around 10 pets per minute
• 26:22
  in our 49 PDSA hospitals. We do this for free to little cost for when
• 26:26
  people are struggling. And we've all seen vet bills on the rise. When people are
• 26:30
  struggling to pay their vet bills, they need someone to step in. That's what we
• 26:33
  do at the PDSA. We don't get any other support other than public support,
• 26:37
  and we need people's help. We spend over £80 million per year. Looking after people's
• 26:42
  pets. Wow, that's quite, quite a large sum, that is. Exactly that.
• 26:47
  So what do you do? Do you do like treatments? Are you a vet?
• 26:49
  We're vets. Like I said, we're the largest charity vets in the UK.
• 26:53
  Wow. We do all the veterinary services ourselves and we look after people's
• 26:57
  pets. So you have in-house experts? Of course, of course. We have 49 PDSA
• 27:01
  pet hospitals across the UK. Wow. And how can people get involved? How can they
• 27:05
  Well, how can they help? They can help in a couple of ways. They can
• 27:07
  donate to us. They can go on our website, do a bit of a regular
• 27:10
  gift. Regular gifts are always important, although one-off gifts are great. Regular gifts are
• 27:14
  so important to us because the regular gifts help us track and continue our support,
• 27:18
  helps us reach more people. And actually, now I have to
• 27:22
  give you a paws up because you were really good and you donated, um,
• 27:26
  to the PDSA. Big paws up to you. You know,
• 27:29
  clearly the team were very persuasive to get you to kind
• 27:33
  of sign up, so well done to the team. Yeah, well, I've— I— it feels
• 27:35
  like such a worthy cause, and I've always wanted to and never got around
• 27:39
  to it. I also donate to the Cats Protection. In fact, I really want to
• 27:42
  get one of their new t-shirts. Their cat t-shirts are genius.
• 27:46
  I really like their styling, so I'm going to be purchasing some of those
• 27:49
  soon. But yeah, they were very persuasive, very encouraging, very bouncy. But it's
• 27:53
  a charity I, you know, I do completely support their ethos
• 27:57
  and their aims. I think it's a great thing to do. And in fact,
• 28:00
  it's, you know, having cheap or free pet healthcare
• 28:05
  the point of access would be the way forward. But I've
• 28:09
  had some debates, not debates, but I've had some kind of back and forth
• 28:13
  with people on socials about this who, well, you're going to be taxing, is it
• 28:16
  going to come out of taxes? So, it's a very interesting conversation to have.
• 28:20
  So, I don't know where that would go, but imagine that
• 28:24
  in the future. I think that would be a great thing. Yeah. So, also at
• 28:27
  the event, obviously we did talk about all the cats. There was Cat
• 28:31
  Alley with lots of breeders bringing their beautiful babies
• 28:34
  to see everybody. And I would say
• 28:38
  most of them look very chilled and very relaxed lying about and climbing
• 28:42
  up things. There was also the rescues there as
• 28:45
  well. So there's many, many, many cat rescues there, you know, wanting people to
• 28:49
  get involved and fundraise and donate and think about maybe rescuing
• 28:53
  and adopt, not shop. But we did get to talk to the Council
• 28:56
  of Cat Fancy, and they hold the registration for
• 29:00
  breeders and pedigree cats. And, you know,
• 29:05
  I think they're quite good 'cause registrations help to ensure that
• 29:09
  everything is done ethically and the animals are healthy and
• 29:13
  well supported. We've talked to Sam about what breeders do and what breeders
• 29:17
  go through to make sure that kittens are happy
• 29:21
  and healthy when they come into this world, and that the mother cats and the
• 29:24
  dad cats are looked after well. So we talked to the chair and the vice
• 29:27
  chair from the GCCF. We're very lucky to catch these lovely ladies, so they'll tell
• 29:31
  you a little bit about like what the GCCF is and
• 29:35
  what they enjoyed about the day. So over to them.
• 29:37
  Basically, we've come here today because we're passionate about GCCF,
• 29:41
  which is the, one of the oldest cat
• 29:45
  registering bodies, and it is the largest cat registering body in the
• 29:49
  UK. We have somewhere in the region of over 130+
• 29:53
  shows in the year with up to 200 to
• 29:56
  300 cats at a show. Amazing. And then why is— what
• 30:01
  is your role? Why is it important to have the GCCF? Like, what do you—
• 30:04
  how do you help cat breeders and the cat community? Um, one of
• 30:07
  the reasons that we're here is that we believe very, very firmly
• 30:11
  in cat welfare. That is first and foremost in everything we
• 30:15
  do, that we produce and help people to have healthy cats,
• 30:20
  whether they're household pets or whether they're pedigree cats.
• 30:24
  Perfect, thank you. And, and what have you enjoyed about today?
• 30:27
  How's it been going? As always, seeing all the people. Everyone loves a cat.
• 30:32
  The children, they love them. We've been very lucky. There are a lot of people
• 30:34
  who've brought cats for us to show and people to handle. We've been able to
• 30:38
  cuddle them, show them how cuddly the cats are, give them a kiss, and talk
• 30:42
  to people. I know. And enlighten them on what different pedigrees there
• 30:46
  are, what they're like, and all the different traits the cats have. And they're like
• 30:49
  humans, They're to be adored in a household. They are. Just love them to pieces.
• 30:53
  So yeah, that was the roundup of our day. And we had a great time.
• 30:57
  I mean, like I say, from my point of view, I just
• 31:01
  loved learning about the new progresses in cat health
• 31:04
  and cat care and toys and products and
• 31:08
  talking to different influencers and photographers. There was loads of people there,
• 31:11
  artists and everything, but also just like talking to some of the small stallholders
• 31:16
  and like just having like a conversation about like why they
• 31:19
  went on this journey, how they found themselves there, and like what inspired
• 31:23
  them. And I think that kind of resonated because you and I are kind of
• 31:26
  on a bit of a turning point in our lives and thinking
• 31:29
  about like what we should be doing, what makes us happy. And I found
• 31:33
  some of those people just quite inspirational. So yeah, what about you, Sasha?
• 31:36
  So, I mean, I think you've said that really well. Definitely as we're at this
• 31:40
  sort of crossroads in our lives, just speaking to some of the people who have
• 31:43
  been brave enough to set up businesses or services
• 31:46
  that are pet-focused and that makes them really happy, or cat-focused.
• 31:50
  Should I say, makes them really happy. Yeah, it's just given us lots
• 31:54
  of things to think about. And I'm just curious to know, Nat, if you feel
• 31:58
  like you did enough shopping, because I'm not sure whether we actually had much time.
• 32:02
  And I know when we left, you were like, I feel like I need to
• 32:05
  do a bit more shopping. And you did buy some toothpaste, didn't you,
• 32:09
  for Weaver and Murray? I don't know if you've tried it yet, whether it's worked.
• 32:12
  Are they liking it? Well reminded. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 32:16
  they do. Murray likes it more. It's a thicker version of the one we've currently
• 32:19
  got, but it's way cheaper. And after talking to the guy about it, about it,
• 32:23
  they recommended that even the fact that they just lick the toothpaste
• 32:27
  will help with their mouth cleanliness and like help with the bacteria
• 32:31
  buildup. So, that's how we approach a teeth cleaning in our household. We don't do
• 32:35
  the toothbrush because they're just, it's impossible. And I didn't start young,
• 32:39
  tried, but it was just too difficult. So, we feed them just little drops on
• 32:43
  the end of my finger. I get both of them on one finger. It's so
• 32:46
  cute. And that's like our end of night routine while we all brush our teeth,
• 32:48
  they have their toothpaste. So cute. So they,
• 32:51
  yeah, they loved it. But no, I didn't do enough shopping. I wanted
• 32:55
  to, we did talk to the tofu cat litter lady from Pet
• 32:59
  Chesty, and I'm quite taken by the tofu cat litter.
• 33:02
  It's brilliant. We can talk about it more later. But I also got
• 33:06
  some freebies in our little gift bags. I got some pet treats. I think it's
• 33:10
  by Waiter, and they're freeze-dried cat treat pops,
• 33:13
  and my cats love them. Was growling like
• 33:18
  he was protecting his treat. So, I'm definitely
• 33:21
  gonna get some more of them. He loved them. Yeah, but no, I wanted to
• 33:25
  get a cat brush. I wanted to buy some toys. I wanted to explore the
• 33:29
  food more. I think one of the things what was good for me is I
• 33:32
  did talk to somebody about how, like, it was good to kind
• 33:36
  of have that community feel about like, oh, does your cat do this? Oh,
• 33:38
  my cat does that. Oh, my cat struggles with this. And that
• 33:41
  reassurance was quite nice when I got up close with some of the stallholders
• 33:45
  or some of the kind of the innovators that were there and charity. So,
• 33:48
  I quite like having that kind of reassurance and comeback from people,
• 33:52
  which was good. So, I do some of it on socials, but it was different
• 33:55
  in person, so it was nice. Well, there you go.
• 33:58
  I'm so glad they like the toothpaste. I'm really, really glad to hear that
• 34:02
  because, yeah. That was my long answer to yes, they did.
• 34:06
  Yes, you did. Yeah. Good. Good. Well, you know, there's always
• 34:10
  next year. There's more time to do, or more opportunities
• 34:14
  to do more shopping. And yeah, we are going to sign up, aren't we?
• 34:17
  So, hopefully we'll get to meet lots more Maybe some of our listeners
• 34:21
  of this podcast, if you're thinking of going next year, let us know.
• 34:24
  And yeah, we could perhaps meet up, share stories. Yeah.
• 34:28
  There's loads more people we haven't been able to mention,
• 34:31
  but hopefully your day went well and you made
• 34:35
  some great connections. There's just so many people we, we wouldn't have time
• 34:38
  to mention, but we did talk to some just hundreds of people who were just
• 34:42
  there for all the right reasons, loving their animals and wanting to do more.
• 34:46
  So, yeah, we'll see you at the next one. See you at
• 34:50
  the next one, and we will see you on our next podcast in a week's
• 34:53
  time. Yeah, take care, everybody. Until then,
• 34:57
  we'll see you soon. Take care. See you soon.