Mass Bathing Session For The Cats

Our beloved feline friends got their "spa' session last Sunday, 21st August 2011. Within 2 hours, we managed to bath 14 cats, including kittens, much to our delight.

"Nooooooo!" says Yani, the oldest kitten around this cattery. 

Sentosa is getting used to being bathed now

Drying off Guli after his bath

Relaxing after their bath, feeling more comfortable now that they are clean. Fluffy fur too!

Giving them a bath every once in a while will help to keep their skin healthy. Thank you Mirabelle Belle for sparing some of your free time to help us and our feline friends.

A Day In A Life of the SPCA Members

Most people in our society here in Kota Kinabalu are not aware that SPCA KK is run 100% by volunteers. SPCA KK is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), a Non-Profit Organisation which depends solely on donations for its funding to operate. 

As ALL members that are active with the rescue/inspectorate tasks are working full time, we would really appreciate it if the members of the public would give some understanding to our mode of operation, to our response time. We are doing this voluntarily, on our "free" time. 

This is the daily scenario, as the active members who are doing the rescue and taking care of the animals at the temporary shelters: 

5.30 am : 2 members leave the house to go to the cat shelters while another goes to the dog shelter to feed the cats/dogs, give medication to those that are under medication 

7.00-7.30 am : Leaves for work - yes, we do have to earn a living someplace else

8:00-5:00 pm : One member takes up the duty of answering the hotline number (Thank you Celcom!), and delegates the cases among 6 members who are free or could leave work for a moment, prioritised in accordance to the urgency of the reported cases. There are about 5 cases in average for a day, so just imagine the running around the city to attend to urgent cases. 

5:00 pm: Leaves work and heads to the shelters to feed the cats/dogs, while the others would attend to the pending reported cases. 

8:00 pm onwards : Gets home, feeds our own pets and does daily personal chores like the rest of the world. If there is any urgent rescue to be done, yes, we head out again till late night at times. Most of us would only get about 4-5 hours sleep daily.

In between those hours, most of the time there will be 2-4 members to do the rescue and inspectorate tasks. Most cases would require immediate medical attention, so off we go to the nearest animal clinic, too. One would have to go up to 4 different places in one go, between the 1-2 hours lunch break. Skipping lunch would be an ordinary occurrence. With this, we kindly ask, please be understanding when we could not come on your beck and call right that instance. We can do without the strings of unkind words, thank you.

Why such hectic schedule? Simple. We just don't have enough manpower to do the work. There are other aspects of SPCA Kota Kinabalu that need to be covered such as fund raising, education, etc..and we would really appreciate the help that we could get from the public. By working together we could establish a more effective and proactive society in helping the animals in need. Therefore, we would really welcome individuals that would come forward, sincerely help out with the tasks and lighten the burden on the existing members. 

SPCA KK is a different category of charity as compared to human's. The benefit would only be your own satisfaction of being able to save another LIFE, giving another LIFE a chance for a better LIFE. There's so much that we human can learn from the animals. Seriously, nowadays, the animals are much better than some of the human's behaviours. 

That's What Friends Are For

It's been another great weekend for SPCA KK as a group of friends came over, volunteering to help a member who is fostering a few cats at her place. Lynne, Arlene, Irene, Jojo & Diane did the cleaning up tasks in no time at all. They even managed to bath all the kittens, making them all sweet smelling and cuddly. 

Clearing off the litterbox and washing & drying them off in the sun afterward

Sweeping the floor

Washing the cats' plates and bowls

Cheez getting a bath! Who says you can't help with charity if you're allergic to cats' hair? That's what masks are for :)

Drying off the kittens with clean towels

Apart from giving their friend a little break from the tasks in keeping the cats' place clean and comfortable for the cats, this is also a way to spend time and get together with each other. A some sort of outing. Arlene was nice enough to bake cupcakes and brought them to share together with tasty sardine sandwiches! Lynne treated everybody with bottles of Coca-Cola & 100 Plus to quench the thirst. What a great way to rest after all the hard work.

That's what friends are for, and this is just another example of teamwork. Friendship and teamwork rocks! If you would like to arrange such an outing with your friends or families, just give us a holler. We would really appreciate it if you could expose your little children to such activities, as the Malay idiom goes: "Melentur buluh biarlah dari rebungnya", translation to English as "to bend a bamboo, do it while it is still a shoot". It means if you want to teach your little children, it is better to do it while they're still young. So nurture your kids on respecting and loving animals, so that they will know how to respect lives, being responsible, caring and loving them in future. Who knows, they may help them to choose their career path when they are all grown up. You could be shaping a future vet in your hands. 

SPAYING AND NEUTERING DAY @ THE SHELTER

A vet was called to the shelter to perform the operation. From left, Emily, Ju Ping, Kah Hock, Jia Yuh, Tong Mui, Ley Fen.e

noya a new member of the K9 shelter was spayed

tips and Jojo after the surgery.

Last saturday, while some members were at Signal Hill doing rescue, and some were at Lokawi rescuing pups, some of the K9 members of the shelter were spayed and neutered. This is one of the steps taken to decrease the over population of unwanted cats and dogs on the street. We also had UMS students who came to volunteer at the shelter.

Volunteers Making A Difference

Last weekend was a great one for one of the dogs' shelter as more volunteers came in to offer their help. There were two main groups on Saturday, UNITAR students for their charity project and UMS students who came along with one of the regular volunteers, Ju Ping. We welcome another individual who came in to help, Laura, and hopes that she will be one of the regulars too. 

 

SPCA KK does not have any permanent staff to run all the shelters and doing the rescuing works too, among other things. All are working voluntarily, while at the same time doing their day job too to earn their livings. When a group of people get together and pitch in, they really can make a difference. The routine work of bathing the dogs, cleaning and cooking was done in a shorter time. The yard was cleared too, which has been put off before because there were not enough manpower to do so over the weekend. 

As of Sunday, one more individual, Louise and a student from UMS came in to offer their help, too. So all in all, there were a total of 13 volunteers who came in over the weekend to make the jobs lighter. Hopefully there will be more individuals who will step forward and become regular volunteers for SPCA KK. 

Thank you to each individual who came in over the weekend, your help is greatly appreciated! Hope to see you again! 

Volunteers at Our Temporary Shelter

From the right: Emily, Ju Ping, Shima and Melle

Last Saturday (12 Feb 2011) SPCA KK had 4 volunteers (Melle, Shima, Emily and Ju Ping)  who came to help out at our temporary shelter for the dogs. Among the activities that were done were bathing the dogs, sweeping and moping the floor as well as washing their bowls. Apart from that, the most fun part of all was playing with the dogs. 

Lukluk was given a bath by one of the volunteers, Emily.

This is Snowy after her bath. She had a good sleep after that.

Emily playing with tips after his bath.

Ju Ping playing with Fluffy.

Robin who adopted tips and donated RM 100 to SPCAKK

We also had a family who came to adopt a puppy and the lucky pup is Tips. He is cute and very playful. We hope that he would be well taken care of and live a happy life next to his new family. We hope to find

more families and individuals who are keen in adopting a dog or a cat and giving them their love and care.

This is Febi. She got hit a few weeks back somewhere near Likas area. A kind hearted women, Karen brought Febi to the vet where Febi was given treatment for her injuries. She also donated RM 200 to pay for Febi's treatment. After being dischared, Febi was brought to the shelter. Now after a few weeks, Febi is able to walk and lets herself be touched. She is still under medication.

If you would like to help out at our shelters (dog or cat), just drop us an email. or drop a word or two at our Shout Box. We would really appreciate all the help that we can get.