A little shock in the morning drives away sorrow and worries.

Good morning, my dear ones,

have you ever experienced this? You sit unsuspectingly at the breakfast table and suddenly a cat comes sauntering out of your bedroom, but it’s not your cat? That’s what happened to me this morning. Out of nowhere, a cat just walked into the kitchen.. of course, I screamed a little because I was utterly shocked. The cat then briefly disappeared and came back with a friend. Well, why not? Just before we had to leave, we then 'kicked' them both out.

Today was a much better day at the shelter. The dogs were noticeably in better spirits. The weather here is still 'broken' (14 degrees, cold wind, and rain?), but with a warm rain jacket, it’s bearable.

In the afternoon, an 8-member family came to visit the shelter. They live in London and adopted two dogs from the shelter four years ago, and today they wanted to see from which shelter these dogs came. I had to suppress a grin when I saw the family’s entrance. All dressed very smartly, armed with cell phones and holding a to-go coffee cup. That’s obviously the right outfit for a shelter. The dogs were so excited and thrilled. I had the feeling that everyone wanted to show their best side to hopefully get adopted as quickly as possible.

On the way home, we saw three puppies running around in a panic on a busy street. They seemed quite disturbed, and Olivia immediately texted Liz asking what we should do. It appeared the puppies had been abandoned. Liz then called and mentioned that we should try to catch the puppies. We offered to help Olivia with that. So we turned around and checked to see where the little ones were hanging out. Unfortunately, there was no trace of them.

Later, when we walked from our pickup point to the apartment, we discovered Charlie a block over. He had been found some time ago by a volunteer named Charlotte (hence the name Charlie). He lived on the beach and only has 3.5 legs (his paw on his back left leg is missing). Olivia told us that the leg was supposed to be amputated and Charlie was supposed to get a prosthesis, but the costs are presumably very high. To make matters worse, his left front paw is now injured as well, and he struggles to walk. We didn’t waste any time and took him into our apartment. Once there, we fetched his blanket and water bowl (both just a door down) and made him comfortable. To let Elina (our landlord and Charlie’s foster caregiver) know, I then texted her on WhatsApp.

Charlie urgently needs to see a veterinarian, and especially in his situation, living on the street is not particularly pleasant, especially now that it rains almost every day and it’s cold. However, he seemed quite at ease with us, lying like a dog on his blanket and observing what we were doing. Occasionally, he would come over wanting to be petted. Charlie is very affectionate and a really sweet cat. Unfortunately, Elina then texted me that she could only come by later in the evening to bring us a litter box and food. So we decided we needed to go out again. We walked to a mini-market in our alley and bought cat food. While we were standing outside the store, we had the idea to build a DIY litter box... out of a Chardonnay box, which we kindly received from the nice store owner. He probably wondered what we were planning to do with an empty box. But Elina wouldn’t arrive for another 4 hours, and we were really worried that otherwise, Charlie would make a mess in the apartment. Before we left, we also confined him to our bathroom for a short time to prevent any silly ideas or accidents from happening. And that was definitely a good decision because when we returned, Charlie had pooped in our shower.. Hermine had to clean it up because I find cat poop even worse than dog poop :D

Elina came by around 9:30 PM and brought the items. From that point on, Charlie has been using the litter box properly. I believe he really feels comfortable with us and is not suited for life on the street, even though Elina thinks he is a wild cat that needs to live outdoors.