PET TALK

The Eastern Shore Sun proudly supports Ten Lives

Ten Lives

12 Selfs Point Road, New Town Open Mon - Sat 10.00 - 4.00 Sun 12.00 - 2.30 6278 2111 tenlives.com.au

FOSTER

Open your heart and your home

How can I help?

Foster caring can be one of the most rewarding and uplifting aspects of volunteering. Our foster care program is an essential part of our work looking after our kitties. You don’t have to foster all the time, fostering even for a short time - a week or two - helps with our vital work.

Fostering is a truly wonderful experience which is extremely rewarding for you and lifesaving for the cats or kittens you care for.

Some of the reasons our kitties need foster care before they can be adopted are: • Shy or timid • Too young • Illness

The Ten Lives Cat Centre provides full support and everything you need to care for a cat or kitten in your home. We provide: • food & bowls • kitty litter & trays • toys, blankets & beds • 24 hour support • medicines and vet care

You provide: • a loving environment • care for our cats and kittens

You can find out more about the Ten Lives foster care program and other ways you can help at tenlives.com.au Every cat has a story. Are you part of it? #FOSTER

It’s Us

The Dog Grumbler

WE humans are special.

We have powers and abilities that set us apart from other creatures on Earth.

The gift of opposable digits is a handy one if you’ll pardon the expression, but if that was all we had going for us we would still be using them to hang from trees.

And it’s not a monopoly – just an advantage over those creatures limited to paws, hooves and flippers.

The ability to communicate with sound isn’t exclusive either, although we have a distinct advantage here.

Our hearing range and oral dexterity allow us to pass on detailed information very efficiently and many of us can read and write, which means we can benefit directly from the knowledge and experience of others — even great distances or generations apart.

We have optical red receptors which broaden our perception of colour way beyond other mammals and while our eyes need more light than say, a dog or a cat, we see shapes and can recognise objects from a distance, even when they are not moving.

These abilities have brought us to the Anthropocene — where we are so numerous and powerful that we are sculpting our very reality to suit humans above all other life.

But there is a cost.

We seem to be destroying the planet and the climate in our hubris.

We perceive ourselves as superior individually because other individuals — at various times and places — discovered things and passed them on.

We assume that other creatures are inferior because they don’t have social media (they do) or because they don’t drive a car or watch reality television.

In fact, our special talents have cost us.

A lot of our mental real estate is taken up with language and picture processing.

In other creatures, much more space is used for processing smells.

This superior ability of most non-human creatures to gather and process olfactory data means that they too can learn from and inform each other over time and distance.

It gives them a capacity we humans lack and sets them apart from us just like our own human gifts.

My point is this – we are the odd ones out.

Most animal species understand each other better than they understand humans and certainly way better than we understand them.

We do words while they all do smell.

We go through life oblivious to information that is obvious to most of the animals around us.

Fortunately, as we have focused our special skills over the millennia and lost much of our olfactory capacity, one other creature has evolved with us and for us.

Dogs are special too.

They exist because of us and cannot survive without us.

They have similar olfactory abilities to other non-human animals but theirs are honed to specialise in the smells of humans.

They see no red and don’t recognise shapes, rather they see well in low light and are body language geeks.

They have refined this skill to specialise in human movement and are able to learn and read human hand signals.

But the thing that most sets them apart from other animals is their desire to interact with and serve us.

As I like to point out, although they can’t survive without us, most of the world’s dogs live on the fringes of human settlements and always have.

Each has the capacity and the desire to faithfully serve any human that makes the slightest effort at cooperation.

We humans are destroying an environment that is home for all the creatures on Earth.

If they could speak I think they may have some advice for us.

They cannot, and they are being driven to extinction at an accelerating rate.

Perhaps they would tell us that life is about more than amassing possessions and status.

Perhaps one creature has been trying to show us all along.

Someone isn’t paying attention and it’s not them.

Rose Bray from Ten Lives Cat Centre

Wildlife, community and cats come together in Edu.Cat program

EVERY year, thousands of cats and kittens are surrended to the Ten Lives Cat Centre in New Town.

These cats are often strays or neonatal kittens whose health outcomes are poor if left on the streets.

Ten Lives manager Noel Hunt said that life was immensely hard for these cats.

“Stray cats will often face disease or untreated injuries and are generally fighting for their survival,” he said.

“But it is also the environment which is affected by the presence of stray cats in our community.

“A cat left to roam will often predate on native wildlife to survive which can be devastating to our birdlife and small mammal populations.”

In 2017, Ten Lives created the free Edu.Cat program with the aim of fostering responsible cat ownership in the community.

The curriculum aligned kinder to year seven program has now been delivered to more than 40,000 students across the state.

Edu.Cat uses STEM principles (science, technology, engineering and maths) to engage students in activities that teach them about animal welfare.

The students also learn about cat desexing, microchipping and containment.

“For us, this is the start of real social change in how we look after our cats and wildlife,” Ten Lives community and education manager Rose Bray said.

As successful as Edu. Cat has been so far, the future of the program relies on the support of volunteers who help deliver it to schools.

Ten Lives is calling out for new volunteer facilitators to become a part of the program.

No teaching experience is required, just a passion for animal welfare and inspiring young minds.

“Whether you are a student or a retiree, our Edu.Cat facilitors receive full training and have the opportunity to be a part of something amazing,” Ms Bray said.

If you are interested in becoming a facilitator and can make an ongoing commitment, or want to bring the program to a classroom, phone Rose Bray 6278 2111 or email rose.bray@tenlives.com. au.

ENFIELD KENNELS & CATTERY

DOG & CAT RESORT

Only 15 minutes from the airport!

We look after your prized dogs and cats, and give them a holiday whilst you are on holiday! 0459 998 009

Enfield Lane – Campania

www.enfieldkennels.com.au SCOTT HUNT The Black & White Dog Book

Provides one on one solutions for behaviour problems. All breeds, all ages. No dogs too hard 0439 444 776

Hear all the secrets

Reconnect by improving your hearing

• Providing professional and personalised hearing health care, since 2001. • Our Independent Audiologists can assess and treat hearing disorders for adults and children. • Prescribing the latest hearing technology to suit your needs and lifestyle.