Six months at the Plaka-Acropolis colony

Summer is always a difficult season for Nine Lives. Many people seem to find it easy to simply abandon a cat or kittens at one of our feeding posts in order to leave on holiday. This unfortunately also happened this summer. Our volunteer Natasha found a tiny abandoned kitten as she was feeding one July evening. It was lucky, because Natasha immediately decided to adopt it as her third cat.

A few days later we found a three-and-a-half-legged ginger boy. Panic! How could anyone leave a crippled cat out on the street? And how to find him a home, especially in August when we were all fostering cats and kittens? We finally discovered that Three-and-a-Half – that is what we called him – hadn’t been amputated but had been born with one very short leg with a normal paw. He is perfectly mobile so we left him in the area. Today he is the neighborhood’s mascot and the protégé of a pistachio-seller who always brings him treats.

Within August 4 kittens, younger than 30 days old, were abandoned in the Dionysus Theatre. Despite all of the vet’s and our efforts only two survived. Cassiope and Clementine were lucky because they were both adopted together and live on a wonderful estate in Attica.

Unfortunately we were not able to trap two more kittens that were abandoned and we have no idea what became of them.

We began spaying and neutering in Anafiotika this June, on a street further away from the Nine Lives feeding posts. Our good friend Andy, on one of his visits to Athens, spotted a large colony of sickly cats. When we went there it was quite a shock. Pregnant cats, many of them sick, and kittens with eyes infected by chlamydia. We talked to the neighbours who feed the animals and they begged us to act. We took the very sick ones to our vet; two of them didn’t make it but we managed to save the eyesight of several kittens, and only had to remove one eye from 2 kittens. At the same time, we began spaying and neutering; within two month the situation was under control. You will see photos of Aristotle and Aristides who belong to this colony in our calendar. We now have to start spaying there again because this summer’s kittens are now adult cats.

In October, two black female cats were abandoned at different parts of the Acropolis area. Both are really wild which will make it very difficult for us to trap and spay them.

Mid-November a black young chap, about 5 months old, appeared at one of our feeding posts in Plaka. He is very cuddly, with shiny velvety fur and gold eyes. Someone has obviously abandoned him. His new name is Nemo and we hope he will be able to survive on the streets. It is so upsetting not to be able to find homes for all these amazing creatures we so often find who so much deserve them.

The latest arrival is Iris, a small, frightened kitty abandoned in the Acropolis area. You can almost see the question in her huge eyes: “Why was I abandoned?” Nine Lives are going to try not to betray her trust; she is now again able to trust humans. We sincerely hope Iris is the last kitten we find abandoned in the Acropolis area and that next year will shall only have good news for our friends.