Hello, we're Max and Harvey.
We are at the Cats Protection centre
in Harrow and we are very excited
to see some incredible cats
and some kittens, we've been told,
as well and we've got some
fun tasks to do apparently
but we don't know what they are.
So we're going to go in and ask
loads of questions.
Let's go do it.
[Music]
Hello, how's it going? I'm Max.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, I'm Harvey.
Nice to meet you, Harvey, I'm Nicola.
What do you do?
I'm deputy manager here at
the Harrow Homing centre.
Okay.
So we are a centre of
Cats Protection and we have cats
coming in here, signed over
from members of the public, strays.
We get them all ready and fit
for homing and then we find
lovely new homes for them to go to.
So how many cats do you
have in one building at a time?
Our Centre has 20 pens,
so at the moment they're not all
full up but we have got some cats
coming today so they probably will
be full up very soon.
Nice.
We also have fosterers as well
so not all of our cats in care
will be here at the Centre.
Some of them will be with our
foster carers in their homes.
And do you have any kittens?
We do have quite a few kittens
at the moment.
We actually have a litter of five
kittens that don't have names yet and
we'd love for you to pick names out.
Nice.
Sensible names!
Gus.
Alright, Gus is an interesting name.
Fair enough.
So if you want to follow me through
I'll give you a tour of the centre
and tell you a bit about what
we do here.
Sweet, let's do it.
So this is our main cattery at
Harrow and we've got lots of cats
here at the moment and I can give you
a little walk around and tell you
a bit about the cats.
Please do.
So many of the cats that we get
here like I say come from home
environments but a lot of the
time we will get stray cats in
as well and so we have seen a
big rise in people having to
sign over their cats to us due
to financial reasons this year
and we've also seen a lot of
unwanted litters of kittens
and due to people not being able
to get their cats neutered as well.
Unfortunately at the moment our
homing has slowed down
a little bit as well and
understandably so with people's
financial problems at the moment.
So we are really trying to push for
adoption.
If people are thinking about
welcoming a cat into their
family home.
A lot of the rescues are seeing the
same thing at the moment.
I mean I'd take five but my
dad might kill me!
Yeah, yeah.
I was gonna say, not just because
I'm on camera or anything but I'm
genuinely impressed by like the
size of all of these rooms.
I didn't expect them to all
be this sort of like impressively
well kept and like
this is really, really cool.
I love just being in the cat hotel.
I can stay here forever.
I've just spotted the kittens.
They're amazing!
Okay so we do do a lot of things
to try and make the cats feel
as at home as possible
while they're with us and so
you'll notice in their pens they have
a lot of little hiding spaces.
So when cats are feeling nervous or
fearful they do like to hide and to
make themselves feel safer and so we
have our cat forts.
Kai is an escape artist!
Kai is an escape artist.
So when when you say escape artist,
how far, have you ever found
like cats in the toilets or,
like, what is the general
scope of escaping?
Thankfully they don't get that far
and all the doors, they are contained
in here and but it can be tricky
when we're doing the cleans in
the morning.
We're having to go in and
out with some equipment
and they do tend to try and
sneak past us as we're going
in so we like to write
little notes on their boards to
warn people.
He's ready to go,
he's literally ready to go.
Have a look, he's up and
raring and he wants out.
Don't worry Kai we'll
play with you later, I'm sure.
You can see that Kai is
looking up at us
but we have these grass panels
at the bottom of our pens
so the cats can't see each other
when they're at floor level.
Again just to reduce that stress
while they're in care with us.
Yeah.
And we also put things like carpet
tiles in our cat pens as well.
So this is something that
we give to the cats as soon as
they come into care and it stays
with them through their whole journey
through Cats Protection and it'll get
rehomed with them as well.
So it's something that they can
sleep on, use to scratch
and have their scent on, basically,
so that when they go to a new
home they've got something familiar.
They've got their scent with them
as well.
Yeah.
This is Elsa.
She is ready for homing.
Very over excited.
She does get a little bit
over excited, she's very friendly.
Cats do get frustrated quite quickly
and especially in this kind of
environment so enrichment is
really, really important for them
as well and so things like toys
and also puzzle feeders.
So if a cat particularly is quite
greedy and they eat their food a lot,
which is what we see with the strays
that come in every meal is like
their last, so we might
give them a puzzle feeder.
You more commonly see them with dogs
but you can use them with cats
as well and they have to kind of
flick the biscuits out with their
paws and work a little bit harder
for that food.
We also have volunteers so our
cat care volunteers that come
to the centre spend time socialising
the cat as well so again really
kind of something for the cats.
Look at this dude!
He's got his... Harvey!
Wait, wait, Millie. Is it Millie
Harvey or Millie and Harvey?
Millie and Harvey.
So who's this guy under his bed?
That's Millie.
Right.
Yeah they only came in a
couple of days ago so they're still
kind of settling in and like you
say at first they usually do
tend to hide away.
Yeah.
I suspect Harvey's in the igloo bed
over there.
So with these guys do
they come sort of as a package deal
because they know each other already?
Yes. Yes, so they've come from the
same home, so we only have cats
together in a pen if they are
bonded or you know from the same
home and so we will be looking
for a home for these guys to go
to together.
Cool and where did you say
do you think Harvey was?
In the igloo bed.
He's pushed the cushion
right to the front.
In there?
In there, yes.
Fair play, you just want some
privacy, we'll give it to him.
This is the litter of kittens that
we've got with no names currently.
So I don't know if you guys wanted to
go in and say hi to them?
If that would be okay, is there any
procedure or are we all right?
There is. So we
have to be really, really hot on
infection and disease control in this
kind of environment.
We have a mixture of cats that are
vaccinated that have seen the vet,
and cats that are potentially
unwell as well.
So PPE is one of
those things that we use to stop that
spread of any infection and as we're
not going to be doing any cleaning
I'm not going to ask you to
wear gloves, which we usually would,
but I would like you to disinfect
your hands before and after
going in.
Absolutely, yeah.
We've got some hand wash here
and then I also will ask you to pop on
an apron each and some over shoes.
Oh god, I love aprons.
Shall we call that one Steve?
Is it a male?
So there's only one male.
Yeah.
So he is easy to pick out and he is
the one I think you were talking
about, the rest are girls.
I will name the male Steve.
Stephen with a P, H.
When you go into the pen,
what we would advise is getting down
to a low level and letting the
kittens come to you.
So they are friendly,
but if they don't want to interact
they will just stay away and they
might go off and hide somewhere.
Yeah.
But I will send you in with their toy
as well.
Thank you very much.
I'm sure that will encourage them
down and then, we typically don't
pick up the cats when they're
in care.
Most cats don't like to be
picked up.
They like to have their feet
on the floor.
But they are very friendly,
like I say, so lots of little strokes
around their, you know, cheeks
and top of their head they usually
like and yeah they're super playful.
Amazing.
We're going to be careful now with
how I am.
He's ready to leave!
We might have some
future escape artists.
You go in first, then I'll go on.
Okay low level.
Yeah go down to look,
there you go. All right, now
here we go.
I've always wanted to call a cat
Donut.
How do we distinguish this cat,
the black cat?
The only black one?
Well, yeah.
Oh, I wonder how we could possibly
distinguish that one?
Can we, can we call
that one Donut, please?
Donut, yep.
Then go on Harvey, you name one.
Oh so that... that's Steve there?
This is Steve.
Okay. Let me think about it.
They, they actually look like twins.
Like one of their,
obviously they're all related,
but one of their strips
up their nose is going that way
and the other one's going...
What if we called them Thing One
and Thing Two like Cat in the Hat?
That would be good.
Because they're very similar.
I don't know which one's which,
I'll let you decide.
So have we got all of them?
What was this one?
That's, oh, Donut.
Donut.
Thing One, Thing Two,
Steve and Gus.
Slightly problematic being that Gus
isn't a very unisex name.
Of course it is.
I think we'll name that cat Gus
and then as soon as we leave
they'll rename it.
All right, last one is Gus.
Final answer.
Oh, they're very sweet.
Steve is my favourite.
They're all watching the toy now,
they want to get involved.
It's moving too rapidly
they're getting excited.
Yeah, that's my foot.
Is that Steve?
Yeah, oh yeah.
I'm just gonna stay still.
He's gonna do some climbing
in a second.
If he climbs me that'd be brilliant.
[Music]
I’m going to move my foot carefully.
Oh. it's rolling about.
Actually shall I do it that way?
Get it, get it, get it.
Thing One and Thing Two are very much
staying to themselves.
They're quite shy.
But that's all right.
It's all right to be shy.
Oh yeah, look you're purring now.
He loves it.
She loves it.
Num, num, num, num.
Mmm, tasty feathers.
Oh.
Donut got it again.
Come on, you come out of
your hidey hole,
come play with everyone else.
Come on.
Come on, you know you want to.
Oh, hello Donut.
And then you.
So yeah you can take your aprons
and shoes off now and then
if you can also have a squirt
of the disinfectant as
well before we do anything else.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Disinfectant time.
Yeah, just one.
Well thank you so very much
for having us.
This has genuinely been a dream come
true, we would love to come
back weekly.
But we won't bother you too much.
Whenever you'll next have us we will
come back.
Well no thank you so much for coming.
You're welcome back anytime.
Yes!
I'm glad you've had a good day
with the cats.
Yes absolutely anyone out there
that does want to come down
and look at adopting a cat please do
or foster them, anything helps.
Do it.
We're gonna go in the car
now and order everything on the
Amazon Wish List so
thank you very much, we're off.
Thank you.
Thanks, guys!
[Music]