Latest / The Cattitude Diaries / Ajax The Brave ❤️

Transcript

Ajax The Brave ❤️ · The Cattitude Diaries

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: We rescue, rehabilitate, and rehome vulnerable cats and kittens at risk of youth and nature.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Text us on 0422-928492 to find out more.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Alice Haven.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, hello.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you to everybody that's tuned in.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: We are at episode 4.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Very big milestone.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks to everybody that has been tuning in and following along.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: This episode's going to be a little bit different.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be doing this one solo.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the reason for doing that is I feel like there's so much to be talked about, but I also want to bring it back to the beginning of why Hannah's Haven exists and why I started doing this.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because there are just so many stories out there that deserve to be shared, and you see the faces of these little babies and you know, they look at you and they've got so much hope and so much wonder.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they could have been through the most horrific things, but they still look to you, and you can see in their eyes that they want to be here.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: So when we take the time to give them that love and the patience and the kindness that they deserve, then beautiful stories and beautiful things can happen.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Back in 2021, one of the very first cases that we took on, which was a rehabilitation case, it was for a ginger boy by the name of Ajax, and he was in horrific condition, and honestly, we didn't think that he was going to make it, but it's a miracle that he did.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to share a story that I wrote about him at the time, and it's called Ajax the Brave.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: While out walking, minding his own business one morning, Ajax's life was turned upside down in an instant.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: He was scared and in pain, but when he tried to move, that's when he realized that he'd never be the same again.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Despite being in pain, he managed to hobble away and get himself out of danger.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Poor Ajax didn't know what to do.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: He tried to get some humans to help him, but that just chased him away and laughed at him.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: He hobbled around for hours and hours in pain before he found a nice spot in the sun to rest.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it was while he was resting, barely conscious, that a lady driving past saw him and saw that he was injured, so she stopped her car and walked up to him.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: He tried to run away, but he was just too exhausted and in too much pain to move any more.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: The kind lady picked him up as gently as she could.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: She put him into her car and drove to the closest vet that she could find.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: At last Ajax was going to get the help that he desperately needed.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone was so gentle and kind to him.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: He'd never had that before.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: So he laid down quietly and let them find out why he was hurting so much.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: When he woke up, he didn't have pain anymore.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: He couldn't stand up or get to the water bowl, but he didn't care because he didn't have pain.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: He was just so happy.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: And when the nice people came and saw that he was awake, they gave him some water and some food to eat, and he was so hungry too.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: It had been a long time since he'd eaten anything, but after just a few mouthfuls he was full.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: He felt bad that there was still food left in the bowl, but he just couldn't eat any more.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: He got some more rubs on the back and pats on the head as he went back to sleep, and he was really happy in that moment, and he forgot about everything that had happened.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Just for a little while anyway.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Later that day he woke up with something around his neck, but instead of being scared he just accepted it and started to enjoy all of the attention that he was getting.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: That night he was put into a car and then was driven to a lady's house.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: There were a few other cats there, but everybody was happy, and they left me alone while the lady put me into a soft, nice bed, in a room all by myself.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: The lady was really nice to him and she was talking to him so nicely, and then he started to cry.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Then the lady started to cry because she knew that Ajax now felt safe and that nothing bad was going to happen to him ever again.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Over the next few days he just slept and ate and slept and ate.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: He was suddenly exhausted, and his pain was back but not like before, so he got to rest.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the other cats came to meet him, and they all told him that this house was called a rescue because everyone here had been lost or dumped, yelled at, hurt, or had been left behind.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Ajax finally got the strength he needed to stand up again.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: He was very robbly when he walked, and at first he couldn't work out why, but then when he looked behind him he saw what was wrong.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: His tail was gone.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Then he remembered what had happened to him, and he got scared, and the lady saw this, so she gave him a hug and told him that he was safe now.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And he slowly started getting better at walking.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And he can now even jump without falling.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: His stump has been fixed, and he has a special exercise that he does every day that helps him get stronger and stronger.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: He can eat more now too, so he's not so weak and sleepy.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: He's happier and will soon be going to his forever home, and he'll have someone of his very own that will love him for exactly as he is.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: And even though Ajax has no tale, if he could talk, I'm sure that there were many tales that he could tell us about his life before rescue.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: And he knows he's not perfect, but he doesn't have to be.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: I have a photo, and if you go check out our Facebook page, you'll see this beautiful little boy that in the first photo you can see the fear and the pain and even the tears in his eyes, and then there's a side-by-side of just before he eventually got adopted, and it's like looking at two different cats, two completely different cats, and it's stories like this with Ajax that remind me exactly why this job is so important.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much stigma out there around cats, and they're blamed for everything, they're blamed for the wildlife, they're blamed for destruction, and you know, just making a nuisance and being smelly and getting into rubbish and things like that.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, it comes back to us as humans.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: We have let them down because they never asked to be born, they're not wanted, they're not needed, and they're never going to ever be respected the way that they should be.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: They bring so much joy to people's lives.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen people that are so depressed and have just got absolutely nothing left in the tank.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, you give them the opportunity to foster, or you give them the opportunity to open up their little world with a little cat or an animal that needs a helping hand, and it doesn't just change the animal, it changes the person.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was one of those people, that's why Hannah's Haven exists.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: In 2020, during the lockdown, my mental health was really, really bad.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I saw a Facebook post of a friend of a friend that said, Hey, we're desperate with the lockdown, we can't save everybody, but there's so many that need us.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought, you know what, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna open up my home, and of course, one becomes two, then two becomes three, and then three becomes five, and then so on, and then it got to a point where everything that I did was revolving around taking care of these animals, and there are people out there that will always pick fault in what you do, but I thought I was doing a pretty good job, so I decided that I was already practically running this rescue for somebody else, so I decided to do it for myself, and it was the stories like Ajax that made me realize the need, there's never ever gonna be enough rescues out there to save the amount of cats that are out there because people do not believe in de-sexing, or they say, Oh, they should just have one litter, it's not going to hurt, but it does because one liter is one too many because of the amount of numbers in the pounds that never get a chance, they never get looked at.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lady that I follow on TikTok that she's I'm following her story at the moment.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: She took a cat that was due to due for euthanasia the day she picked him up because he was really scared.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Within 24 hours, that kitty was purring, coming up for cuddles and loves because it was the environment that was the problem, it was never him.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was too loud, it was too noisy, there was too many scared cats there that he just didn't get the chance to be able to catch his breath, to find his bearings and be able to go, I'm safe.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because in that kind of environment, they never get a chance to feel that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So having rescues such as Hannah's Haven and others that are out there that are home-based, it gets those cats out of those environments where they're not going to thrive.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: They're purely trying to survive on whatever they can get.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if that's growling and swiping and snarling at people that you know they think are going to hurt them, then that's how they survive.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: But again, it comes back to us as humans.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: We we've created this problem, and we need to do better to try and fix that problem.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: So getting your cats de-sexed is the number one way that you can also do it.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: The second way is to get them vaccinated.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because if they're not vaccinated, just one walking through the park, coming inside with your shoes on, and you've got spores of a deadly disease, that can kill your cat within days.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: It could be dead.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I've held many as they've had to leave this world through no fault of their own, simply because people didn't do the right thing.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: I've had kittens that, you know, they've been born deformed.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um things that should be on the inside of their body or on the outside of their body, you know, they've got missing limbs and things like that, and that all comes back to inbreeding.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: It comes back to the genetics and the fact that somewhere along the lines somebody did the wrong thing and let their cat out that wasn't de-sexed, and then there's the been a breeding cycle and it's just exploded and got out of control.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people don't realise that kittens can get pregnant from as young as four months old, and it's very big controversial argument out there that a lot of vets will say, Oh, it's fine, don't get them de-saxed until they're at least six months old.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, uh no, excuse me, sir, they will be pregnant, they can have babies by the age of six months old.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen it.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: I remember one time I went to a pound because I was there to help take the load of some of the excess that they had and the overflow, and I remember I saw this little kitten, and I was thinking, geez, they've got a big belly.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: And they'd said to me, No, no, it's just worms, it's worms.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I ended up taking a couple of cats, and then I couldn't stop thinking about this little one, and so I went back two days later, and this little kitten that was barely five months old was now a mum to four babies, and it just broke my heart because that should never, ever, ever happen.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: We we live in a country where you know it should be accessible to be able to get care, veterinary care for the animals, and a lot of people think that vets are just in it for the money.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: But if you can find the right kind of vet and the right team behind that vet and you're all on the same page that de-sexing, vaccinating is going to help us get on top of the overpopulation, then you know, you stick with them.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't like what your vet's telling you, find another one.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: It shouldn't be about the money at the end of the day, it should be about the animals and doing what's right for them, doing what's right by them, so that everybody can exist in this world and have a place in this world without being treated like you're the problem, you're the outsider.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks again to everybody for listening.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's no code word for this episode, but it will be back in future episodes.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Come along to the community day, buy yourself a t-shirt, get yourself sausage and bread, bring along your friends, come and find out what you need to know, ask us questions, meet the team.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because every single dollar that's going to be made on the day is going straight back into the care of all the animals, current and future, that we need to look after.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that cases like Ajax, we can sit back and we can help them without worrying about the financial burden or the financial toll that it's going to take.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for listening.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you'll be back again soon.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.