When Samantha and Danny moved themselves and their two young daughters to a new property, they had no idea that how CATastrophic their lives would soon become.

“As soon as we moved in, we realised we had a serious feral cat problem,” Samantha said. “Our two young daughters love cats, but these were dangerous and were becoming a real nuisance.

“So while I wanted to give the girls new pets, I didn’t want them to look the same as the feral cats, which were grey tabbies.”

Samantha put in a call to The Lost Dogs’ Home in Echuca and told them exactly what she was looking for. She also regularly checked the adoptions page, and upon seeing a litter of ginger kittens being listed, immediately brought the girls in to see them.

“They fell in love with them immediately,” Samantha said. “We decided to get two kittens, one for each of my daughters because otherwise I knew there would be fights over who gets to hold the kitty.”

Samantha’s five-year-old daughter Shayne adopted little Alera, who soon became known as Barbie due to Shayne’s inability to remember the kitten’s name. Samantha said this new name suits, considering Barbie’s favourite place to rest is inside a doll house, where she has her very own four-poster bed! 

Three-year-old Jorja adopted Nitro, a mischievous little man who Samantha said gets carried around and snuggled by Jorja all day.

“She’s been really good with him; she looks after him and feeds him, although sometimes she feeds him too much!” Samantha laughed. 

On hot days, Nitro and Barbie love to curl up on the couch in the lounge room, under the blissfully cool air-conditioning. Samantha says sometimes Nitro strikes it lucky and is permitted to sit on dad Danny’s knee. 

“Barbie is naughtier than Nitro,” Samantha said. “So she doesn’t always get this honour, because she runs around too much and tries to attack Nitro!”

Constantly watching over the two fluff balls is Rocky, a three-year-old Domestic Long Hair who has become something of an older brother to Nitro and Barbie.

“We had another cat before but we gave him away and it seemed like Rocky missed him. So when we got the kittens, he seems really happy to have company again. He follows them around everywhere and makes sure they get home in time for dinner.” 

So in total, Samantha and Danny were dealing with nearly 50 feral felines, two small and mischievous kittens, and one big over-protective tom cat. But the fun didn’t end there!

“We thought we had finally gotten rid of the last feral cat when we heard this racket going on in the shed,” Samantha said. “And what do we find but four little kittens, about two weeks old, cuddled up together!”

With their grey tabbies coats and roughly-built nursery, Samantha and Danny knew they must have been born to one of the feral cats before they were removed from the property. But Samantha said she couldn’t bear to leave the kittens there to die.

“They weren’t feral or aggressive, and they were so small,” she said. “So I’ve taken them in as well and have been bottle-feeding them for the past month. Once they get to two months, I’ll be taking them into The Lost Dogs’ Home, where there is talk of one already having a home lined up.“My husband is now calling me the crazy cat lady!”

The Lost Dogs’ Home is currently housing a large number of cats and kittens who are in desperate need of a loving family to take care of them. Please take a moment to have a look at our adoptions page and see if you can offer one of these purring beauties a second chance at a happy life.