Welcome to the Family Fred and George
A month ago we adopted two kittens from our local RSPCA centre, Millbrook RSPCA in Chobham. We weren’t looking to adopt kittens just yet, Leia only died in July and that’s still very raw. But, the centre put out a plea for homes for a litter of kittens and we had the space and love to give. The rest is history really.
Fred and George were part of a litter of six kittens. Their mum, Star, had given birth at the centre on 12th August. Fred actually wasn’t a part of the litter – he was found alone at around a day old in a garden in London and was given to Star to see what she’d do just after she’d given birth. Thankfully she was happy to be his surrogate Mummy and he survived despite the odds.
The other four kittens in the litter were completely black, Fred’s white and George is a tuxedo cat – black and white, looking like he’s wearing a permanent dinner jacket. When I applied to adopt the cats I said that we’d only want the black and white one and white one as we didn’t want more black cats after Luke & Leia. We wanted to start afresh.
Two of the kittens had already been reserved and so I didn’t expect the two we wanted to still be available. But, I had a phone call fifteen minutes later to say that they were still looking for a home and, subject to a home check, they were ours if we wanted them. It was meant to be.
Over the next ten days we went to visit the kittens a few times and got our house ready for them to come home. We made the spare room into their room, a safe space for them to explore before getting to know the rest of the house.
We picked them up after our half term holiday and they were the last of the litter of kittens to leave the RSPCA centre. Their mum had been adopted the previous weekend and the kittens went off to new homes in pairs.
At first, Fred was super confident and outgoing – although he had a little scary blip where he got himself stuck down the side of the bed and went back in his shell for an evening but was back to being confident the next day!
George, on the other hand, was a slow burner. He was super nervous and shy for a few days but loved to play. He just wouldn’t let us get anywhere near him. But, a couple of days in he’d let us stroke him when he was really sleepy and would purr in his sleep and when we went to feed them.
Within a week both Fred and George would let us pick them up, would lay on us and would just really love our company. Watching them both get used to us and trust us was lovely. It makes me emotional now writing about it as George especially was so shy, knowing he now trusts us is wonderful. It’s a real privilege to have the love of an animal like this and I didn’t expect to have it again so soon after Leia died.
A month later and Fred and George are very much a part of our family. They spend a good chunk of the day running around like crazy things, doing zoomies, playing with toys, hiding and play fighting.
Edited to add: I actually wrote this post over a week ago but hadn’t got around to publishing it. Over the last week we’ve let the cats have free roam of the house – they don’t go back in their room at bedtime anymore. It’s a learning curve but they bounce between sleeping somewhere nice and quietly and then jumping on us at 3am! We love the love but it’s exhausting. I’m sure they’ll settle down eventually and, really, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
But, the rest of the day is spent sleeping, relaxing and having nice quiet time. George has taken to spending the evenings sleeping on Little Man’s bed and Fred usually sits on the sofa with us. But, at bedtime, they go to their room to sleep until they start meowing for breakfast at 7am.
They are both such gorgeous cats. They’ve grown a lot in a month and we really love having them. They’re both really affectionate, love cuddles and make us laugh all the time. I feel so lucky to have them.
