Cost of Living Crisis Advice from Cats Protection

As more and more people are struggling to care for their pets, national cat charity Cats Protection have got lots of cost of living budget friendly advice.

The charity’s waiting list is growing, and so is the demand to provide warm and cosy homes for cats in need.

It has information on:

• Help with neutering costs
• Help with vet costs
• How to keep vet bills down
• Help with the cost of cat food
• Help with every day costs of cat ownership
• Giving up your cat

View the Cost of Living Crisis advice from Cats Protection
Image © Cats Protection

Meantime, if you think you would like to help Cats Protection help cats, please visit their website.

Ways to help cats

You could buy something from their online shop,  donate or volunteer – there are plenty of different sorts of volunteer roles such as helping out in a Cats Protection charity shop, helping in a branch (there are 200 branches in the country so they are very widespread), or volunteering in one of their 34 centres.

Volunteering is a great way to meet like-minded people, to do something meaningful with your time and to do something to help cats!  You could also look at fostering a cat while the cat is looking for their forever home.  And you could of course look at adopting a cat, too, and giving a cat a much needed home.

There's lots we can all do to help cats.  For example...

Get crafting for cats!

One thing you can do if you love cats and crafts is to join in the Craftalong on 26 November 2022.   Cats Protection have teamed up with The Makerss to bring you a new needle felting project: cat angel tree toppers!

Find out how to create your own needle felted cat angel for your Christmas tree!  The cost is £20 and half of this goes towards a Cats Protection centre or branch of your choice!  Pounce on more information here

Miaow for now!

Whilst the UK politicians try to work out what they are doing (!), Compassion in World Farming have been busy asking us all to sign the Parliament petition demanding that the Government progresses the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals Bill) so that it urgently becomes law.

CIWF point out that it’s been almost a year since the UK Government took any meaningful action to ban live exports from Britain, even though Minister after Minister has insisted that they are committed to ending live exports, whether for fattening or slaughter.  The bill would ban this terrible trade so it would make a big difference.

The petition is asking Parliament to find the time to take the Kept Animals Bill through Parliament and make it law.

Please sign the petition here before January 2023
Don't forget to click on the vertification the Parliamentary website
will send you, or your signature won't count..

Thank you!

98,000 people have signed it so far and once that figure reaches 100,000, the Bill must be debated in Parliament.  We need to show our MPs that we care about animals and want them to get this bill through.

Please spare a minute to sign the petition if you’ve not signed it yet.  After you’ve signed it you’ll receive a verification email from the Parliament website which you need to click on, to ensure your signature counts.

Image © Compassion in World Farming

The petition is open until January 2023.  Please sign today if you haven’t already!

Visit Compassion in World Farming's website here  Please take some time to have a look around it - they are doing amazing work.  They have Christmas cards for sale, which could be a great way to get some preparations for Christmas done!

If you’re thinking about doing something to help an animal charity, why not look at taking on a personal challenge in 2023?

Many animal charities offer the chance to do this, one example being SPANA.

SPANA help working animals in many countries around the world, where locals are utterly dependent on horses, donkeys, mules and elephants for their livelihoods.  In the developing world, they say that one working animal can support an extended family of up to 30 people.

Help a charity achieve its vision and mission
with your personal challenge

SPANA’s vision “is a world where every working animal lives a life free from suffering and is treated with compassion.”

Its mission is “to improve the welfare of working animals in the world’s poorest communities.”

SPANA take a three-pronged approach to achieve both their vision and mission:

1. They treat animals with free veterinary care
2. They train both in the community and professional training
3. They teach animal welfare education

They also respond to emergencies.

SPANA has a number of appeals going right now, but one thing you could do to help is to set yourself a personal challenge. 

They list a number of challenges on their website:

• Running: You could run a half marathon in the Royal Parks Half Marathon, or take part in charity fun runs or 5k run or the Great Run Series, or even running abroad – thousands of people take part in the City2Surf event in Sydney!
• Go climbing with SPANA – Kilimanjaro or Ben Nevis
• Go trekking with SPANA and do the Machu Picchu trek

Find out more about the challenges to help SPANA

Obviously you will need a certain level of fitness and good health to participate in challenges such as these but there are other challenges you can do for other charities.  If you’re a keen knitter, why not take a look at charities needing knitters and see if you can set yourself a personal challenge to help them?

A number of animal charities have ideas for personal challenges – Cats Protection also have lots of challenges, including cycles, tris and swims, plus zipwires, abseils and firewalks, skydiving and wingwalks. 

If you’re looking for something really meaningful to do in 2023, this could be one way to achieve a goal and help animals as well!  A great win-win!