So, it all started for Anna in 2019, the year after she and Ferdy got married in Dublin, Ireland. She has had cats most of her life and he dogs (he now, by his own admission, prefers cats and is the crazy cat dad). They decided felines over children.
Their first cat Salem, they adopted through the DSPCA (Dublin animal rescue) and he was a challenge. They mislead Anna and Ferdy, and told them he was a happy, friendly, fully socialized kitten, when actually it was the opposite. The poor thing was afraid of his own shadow, petrified of everything. The kitten clearly had a rough and unsettled start! He was thirteen weeks when they got him and it took around six months for the kitten to fully trust them. But now he gives sooooo much love to Anna and Ferdy and the other cats.
Then, during the pandemic in August 2020, came Lucy. She was twelve weeks old when she came to Anna and Ferdy from Phibsboro Cat Rescue. She was in a socialized foster situation, so it took her exactly two days before she started owning theirs, at the time a rental apartment.
Now in 2022, Anna and Ferdy have their own house, and they got a third kitten in the last weekend of October 2022. This kitten was also twelve weeks young, and he is now called Archie. He came to Anna and Ferdy from an Animal Rescue called CDPA, and like Lucy, was fully socialized with other cats. This meant Archie has settled right in!
Their reason for adopting rather than “buying” is simple. According to Anna and Ferdy, there are sooooo many kittens and cats out there that need safe and loving homes. Also being adopted herself, Anna feels it very fitting to keep up the adoption!
More CatSwoppr stories on cat adoption and cat parenting, see Aijan’s story about Babi and Thanos, Sofia’s care of deaf kitten Beethoven, and Katya’s plea for adopt don’t shop.