Greetings Humans,

Sorry I didn’t write last month. Richelle was too busy to transcribe for me. She was letting everyone know about the new age limit and the reason I feel it is safe to come out into the café playroom more often: now only children seven and older can come in. People have also been more polite. They introduce themselves by letting us sniff their hands and respect our right to say, “No thank you, I prefer you don’t touch me at the moment.” People are also more willing to play with us first and let us get to know them before they try to cuddle.

Richelle has been too busy to type for me because she is also working on a course for the children aged five and six who want to prove they are gentle enough to come pet us. It should be ready by the school holidays and it will be for one child and one caregiver to take together. The course is all about how we cats want to be treated and how we communicate our feelings. Successful children will earn a badge that they should wear when they come to the café so they can be admitted to the cat playroom. The badge could be taken away though, if the child doesn’t have good self-control to treat us properly or behave well. Some people might be wondering if their child who is over the age of seven is really ready to come to the café. We say, “If you would trust the child to handle a dangerous or precious thing and obey you even when excited, then they should be okay.”

Pan in the window seat

Natasha al Mustasha loves a box!

Adora is always cute

Jynx loves dogs and children

Fang is the box master

We have not done too many adoptions since there have been no new cats coming in either. We have to keep the number of student cats high enough, so we don’t become a “catless” cat cafe. The only new students enrolled a month or so ago. Pan and Natasha, Adora, Jynx and Fang are all settled well. Most of the current students all have homes waiting for them, so they are quite happy. There’s only Pan and Jynx still available and they should find people soon especially since Jynx likes dogs and children and Pan loves other cats. Soon, we hope to have some new enrollments now that winter is over, and it is warm enough for kittens to be born. From what we hear, though, lots of them are falling sick and many more than usual are dying. We hope that all will be well. Please remember to support the rescuers as best you can.

We miss Jess, but she is really loving her new home. Reuben found his people. Though he ran outside and hid for a while, he decided to return when his new boy called him and when Richelle and Ken visited, he was resting in his boy’s arms but then ran and hid from them! He clearly chose his new home and didn’t want to come back to the café.  

We cats know all about Christmas, of course! Although we will happily play with the boxes and wrapping paper, we also appreciate a good gift and the café merchandise section has lots of those. There are also great things for humans who love cats. If you cannot decide what to get for those special people, there are now $20 vouchers which can be used on anything in the café except adoptions. And don’t forget we do great parties!

It is hard to believe that the café is already two years old. Chenzo, who claims to have been here from “before the beginning,” was telling me it does not seem so long. I guess time flies when you are stealing food. We hope that the warm, spring weather will bring people out to Petone to walk around the shops and spend an hour or so with us. We need you to come to make up for all the empty winter days.