Friends of ours, Kate and Brent, noticed a Mother cat who tried to hide her 7 kittens in a car. They decided to leave a note for the driver not to move his car before he had called them to pick up all the kittens. The sad truth is that he couldn't be bothered... and took off without giving notice to our friends . On his return, our friends rescued the remaining three kittens together with their mother and gave them shelter in their home - where there were already 4 cats and a dog waiting (all of them as well rescued animals from all over the the world, including Russia).

Almost at the same time Kate and Brent were unexpectedly and on a short notice transposted to Germany. This is how we ended up with four more cats; the mother cat (Mum) and the kittens who were about 3 - 4 weeks old when we got them. Mum, wild as she is, was not too happy to stay indoors but still she was an excellent mother. As we shut our own two cats in our bedroom at night (as well rescued cats from Moscows streets), Mum had some space and could stroll around in the appartment, jump up and down the staircases and inspect the terrace. After vacccination we had agreed to bring Mum to Kate and Brent in Germany. The winter before, they had rescued the brother of Mum because he always showed up when they were walking their dog and tried to play with this dog. Interestingly, when Mum arrived at her new home, Brother seemed to recall his sister after a year of separation and carressed and groomed her non-stop for about 20 minutes. Thus a happy ending in its own.

In the meantime and thanks to publication at my husbands office and on the website Moscowanimals.com, the kittens found new loving homes one after the other. Teddy, a fluffy black boy with a very short tail - 2 cm - as it was sizzled in the car, found a family with a young girl and is making progress. Tiger, his brother left us a week later to a lovely couple who enjoy him, spoil him and make his life heaven on earth. So our cats where just too happy to take care of the remaining girl, Spotty. She was totally spoiled by our cats, and we had great fun watching how they shared their "new job" by training, grooming and playing together.

The three had really good fun and we had already decided to keep her when we received an email asking specially for Spotty. Our cats were pretty sad to see Spotty go to this charming couple who had previously adopted a stray red kitten of same age 3 days before. From what we have heard the two have became great buddies and Spotty is teaching her new brother some of the tricks she learnt from her previous big cat family.

All these families keep us regularly informed by photos and mail about the well-being of these new additions to their families.

Our flat became quite silent after the kittens left. It was great pleasure to see them being brought up by Mum and finally finding loving and caring new homes. Our cats seem to be a bit bored, but they don't know that there is a little 5 - 6 months old tabby in our backyard which we are feeding since a couple of months together with some grown ups who might require some shelter for the winter ...