Getting ready for 2024 kittening

Well, it’s Boxing Day, and everyone has been gifted and filled with indulgent food, including the cats who are loving their new mice, especially Plum who is very vociferous about her catch.

Handsome has very much enjoyed playing chase the Scalextric much to the annoyance of the children (them ranging from 5 to 39 years old!, while Prune has been either quietly sleeping away the afternoons or telling anyone who will listen her woes - this because she has come into heat very hard being as it’s  the first one in a long while. 

To see them here in this photo you’d never believe the amount of mischief they have tried to get in between today! Front is mum Prune, then there is Handsome & little Plum Pipsqueak both born in 2022

I’m already planning with appointments booked for ditto  by the i’s and crossing the T’s. Blood testing for the two ladies is taking place in January and then their heart screening is scheduled with Vicky Ironside in mid February so that we can press GO in late February or early March with them as they come into call after all the screening is in hand. 

2024 is going to be Prunella’s last litter. I had actually planned to retire her this year since I was having no kittens during 2923 however, I had a very special request made for a kitten from her by someone who is very dear to me so I am giving her a final litter after which she will be spayed and can finally retire in peace. She is an incredible mum & has birthed some truly remarkable babies so she absolutely deserves my thanks & a rest! She has her favourite resting spots & little quirks about when she must have her cuddles and how close to my face she must be to get them! She is being mated again to Ozwald.

Meanwhile, her daughter Plum Pipsqueak is in her second year & so she will be having her first mating in 2024 for which we have picked out a fully DNA negative tested male who carries several colours. I can’t wait to see what colour kittens there union will create! I’m hoping that from that litter I can keep a female.

I look forward to sharing all of the news here as it all begins to unfold. PIf you are looking for a Sphynx kitten I hope very much that you’ll drop me a line & will be “come the lucky recipient of one of Naked Sphynx Cat Hampshire 2924 kittens 

The sad farewell I never wanted to make

It’s taken me several weeks to be able to come to my website and be able to write this entry. My heart is heavy with unbearable sadness. My dear, darling incredible Noodle was PTS on June 18th 2023.

I’d been thinking for several months how her snoring was louder and wondering how long I’d have with her. She had lost none of her chutzpah and still very much the diva until the end but she was looking older.

June was crazy hot and she was nagging me to take her outside, how she loved being out on the patio when I lived in Andover. How she missed the quiet and the warmth of those stones. In Chandlers Ford we don’t have the same privacy or safety and it’s noisy, but during the week, I’d harnessed her and taken her out to trot around the tarmac car park. She was so happy chatting away as we looked about. I promised myself to do this for her more as I videoed a minute or so of her adventure, footage I’ve not yet been able to watch. I never dreamt of course that it would be the last I made, or her last foray in the sunshine she so loved. I’m so very glad I gave her that time as just days later having found her paralysed on my bedroom floor and struggling to breathe. As I called frantically to find the Sunday vet service I knew this was the end of the road, yet hoped I was wrong.

Scooping her up, it was a 20 minute journey by sat nav to an area I’d never been to, alone. Every traffic light was red. Every Sunday driver in all of Hampshire in our path. Arriving and with nowhere to park, I abandoned my car and ran to the door pressing repeatedly on the buzzer to please please let me come in. As I did so, her bladder went, urine over me, the floor, her blanket and the counter. She was taken away immediately then just minutes later I was called in to speak with a vet. He didn’t need to say it was an embolism, however the fact that she was in end stage heart failure was painful to know. Immediately I said I understood and could I go to her as he said they were about to cannulate her. I assured him I was fine with this and was allowed to go in. She was injected with methodrone which took a minute or two to settle her and I was given consent forms to sign which would allow them to deliver the overdose of anaesthesia which would allow her to be free of her suffering. Within 15 minutes of our arrival, as I held her, and talked to her of her favourite things she quietly left this world. I held her a long long time, rocking her, sobbing just as I am now, telling her that “it was ok” until the warmth I knew her to have had faded away, My girl was no longer there. I wrapped her body in her blanket, kissed her and said goodbye. 

She was cremated by a local business who took great care of my beloved girl and returned her ashes to me within 6 days. Noodle now has a star named just for her (thank you Clair for such a thoughtful gift) and tattooist Steve Daish (Big on Ink) has given me a fabulous portrait of my girl upon my forearm, placing her for ever back into my arms where she belongs.

I’m so grateful for the kindness of family & friends who have supported me through these weeks. Noodle was never just a cat. She was a life saver coming into my world to give me the one I needed to love and hold in order to thwart my plan just coming to fruition to exit it. She has been the catalyst (pun intended) for new adventures, new friends and family as I became the best breeder of Sphynx cats as I can be, doing things right, doing them my way. While Noodle had just two pregnancies both ending with c-sections and one surviving kitten from each, she was an incredible mother, and support Aunt to all of Prune’s babies. She was delivery stuffed fish with a yell of “dinner’s done” right up to the last. The last two fish are still in my bedroom because, well, if I take them back I know it’s the end and that’s inconceivable.

7 years. It was all awesome. It was not long enough, the pain is immense but I would not change it for the world. I miss her sassy ways, her chat and indeed her back chat. Her running on the wheel saying “look at me, look at me” and her kisses and purrs. 

Thank you Noodle. I love you my beautiful baby girl xxx 🐾 🐾 ♥️