We are 2 humans, 2 dogs and 3 cats who bring rescue dogs into our home, one at a time, to help get them socialised and ready for their forever home when it comes along. We’re not a rescue and we don’t have kennels so one foster dog at a time is as much as we have space on the couch for usually – unless we take in puppies 😉
So lets start off with some introductions…
My name is Penny and Jess is my big sister and we are the main fosterers that do all the work here. I’m an ex-MADRA rescue dog. I was surrendered to Mayo County Pound along with my brother at just 12 weeks old. MADRA took us both from the pound. My brother Prince (now Ash) went to live in the UK and I came to Kinvara Collies as their 3rd foster dog. That fluffy baby in the pic above is me – wasn’t I a cutie. I think it was pretty clear from Mrs. KC’s face when they picked me up at the MADRA kennels that this was going to be a failed foster. That’s ok cos they really were looking for a second dog at the time and were fostering to find a dog that would be the best fit possible for Jess and the Hillview Cats.
Jess had lived with the KC humans for 6 months at this stage so she was the biggest hurdle I had to face. Would she accept a young pup like me who liked to chew her back leg 😀 The answer was yes, she loved me from day one and even let me sleep beside her in her bed in Mr. KC’s home office room. That’s not something she had done before with any other foster dog and she hasn’t repeated it since. Of course, I have to give credit to Mitsy and Mabel, the fosters that came before me. Jess didn’t know how to live with or play with other dogs so they had really broken the ice and made the timing right for my arrival.
Next job was to win over the Hillview cats but even they accepted me straight away so I became an official member of the Hillview family in May 2014.
Jess had been adopted from Galway SPCA in October 2013 when she was approx 2 years old. She had been knocked down on the outskirts of Galway city and was picked up by Galway SPCA. Her pelvis had been fractured in the accident and no owner came looking for her so she spent 6 weeks on kennel rest in the GSPCA kennels. She was just coming to the end of those 6 weeks when the KC humans met her. It was love at first sight for Mr. KC. Not so much for Mrs. KC who had a smaller size dog in mind. But after walking Jess once down the driveway to the GSPCA gate and back, the humans were in agreement that Jess would become a member of the Hillview crew. Of all the dogs walked that day Jess was the only one that made eye contact with the humans and didn’t just drag them to the gate and back. She stopped and sat down and wagged her tail and looked up at them with those big amber eyes of hers. There was no denying the connection and on that day she turned the humans into collie people 🙂
Jess is a great big sister. From day one she infected me with her tennis ball addiction. Jess doesn’t like to go into the sea above her shoulders and definitely hates to get water in her ears so it was a really big win for Jess when I discovered that I was a great swimmer. I jumped in one day to save Mrs. KC who was wading into the water after a tennis ball that Jess couldn’t reach. That was a great day and no more tennis balls have floated away across Galway bay since then.
People often ask why we don’t bring 2 tennis balls to the beach but the reason is simple, myself and Jess are best buddies. We are competitive and will race each other to the ball but we both enjoy sharing the fun of catching the ball. That being said Jess can be a bit too “focused” some days and would run you over for the ball so I’ve learned that sometimes it’s best to let her win. She gets a bit lazy and can’t be bothered bringing the ball back to the humans after she has caught it so she hands it over to me and I bring it back. We’re a really great team. Sometimes when we play basketball in the garden we catch the ball together and bring it back to Mrs. KC together. It’s great fun. Did I mention that Jess is a great big sister 😎
When we were first adopted Mr. and Mrs. KC were IT (computer) people whose jobs allow them to partially work from home. These days they run their own business so are home even more which is great. They are not dog trainers and don’t have any background in dog rescue. They just enjoy having us dogs around the house. They are outdoorsy type people so we do lots of walks at the beach and in the hills. They both enjoy gardening so we spend a lot of time gardening with them.
Mr. KC doesn’t mind having his photo taken with me but Mrs. KC doesn’t like photos of herself so she’ll always be either off in the distance or behind the camera 🙂 Some of the photos here are from our holiday in Donegal in 2014. I’ve gained a little bit of weight (not much!) since then and my tail has got bushier (a lot bushier!). I still look super skinny when I’ve been swimming though 🙂
Mr. KC and me at the beach in Donegal
Mr. KC and me on Tory island
Me and Mrs. KC playing with a stick on the beach in Donegal
Skinny me after my swim with Jess in the water and Mrs. KC in the background. Mrs. KC is in her usual jeans and fleece and with her green bag strapped around her.
So that’s me, Jess and the humans introduced. Now to the Hillview cats, past and present. There was just one feline member of the Hillview Cats gang that I never met. Her name was Katze, aka Stubby because of her half tail. By all accounts she was a real character and is responsible for turing Mrs. KC into a cat person. I’ll hand over to Mrs. KC to introduce the cats cos she knows them best…
In early November 2009 we moved to a rental property in Kinvara village. Within days of moving in a black & white female cat with only half a tail started appearing at our back door – staring at poor Spadgie, our pet budgie. Being animal friendly we opened the door to say hello and without any fuss she walked straight in and made herself at home. She was a friendly girl, interested in the indoor comforts that our home had to offer 🙂 We had a feeling this girl didn’t have an owner and was here to stay and then we realised that in fact she wasn’t alone. There was a black cat hiding in the shadows at the back of the garden that was traveling with her. This little girl was very scared, not comfortable with humans being close to her and would disappear if we tried to approach her. The pair started to appear regularly for meals. Maybe they were sisters, maybe they were mother and daughter or maybe they were unrelated but definitely they were a pair. At this stage we had named the black and white girl Katze and the girl at the back of the garden was also called Katze as we had no real contact to her at this stage. B&W Katze settled in quickly. She would appear (with her shadow) at the shake of the breakfast bowl in the morning and would spend the evening snoozing on a chair in our kitchen when we got home from work. But she always went back outside to her friend at night. There was never a doubt in our minds but that we had been adopted by B&W Katze so as the days passed and B&W Katze made herself at home indoors we set about the difficult task of showing the little black Katze that we could be trusted for more than just a bowl of food at the back of the garden. It took weeks of bitterly cold November evenings after work, sitting very calm in the dark on the back doorstep, chatting to her quietly without making eye contact, throwing her pieces of food without making threatening moves and just generally letting her get used to us. It paid off as eventually she would walk indoors but only on condition no one came close to her and the back door or any inner doors between her and the back door were not closed. We spent a freezing few winter weeks indoors with the back door open letting her get used to being inside without feeling threatened. Then one morning I was outside shaking the food bowl and calling the cats for breakfast when I met the lady from next door. She asked if we had taken in the 2 cats and was delighted to hear that we had. She had been feeling sorry for them and also leaving out food but didn’t want to have cats of her own. She then told me their story. Their previous owners had moved house, took some of their cats with them and left others behind. She said she was particularly delighted that “Twinkle” the very shy little black cat had found a new family. That was when we learnt that Twinkle had a name and that we could definitely consider the pair of them to be officially our cats 🙂
Spadgie died 01/09/2010 after a brief illness and unfortunately Katze died 13/05/2011 after being hit by a car outside our rental house. We were devastated by both events. In September 2011 we moved to Hillview and Twinkle along with the 2 newly adopted kittens Boo & Socks moved with us. It was a difficult time for Twinkle. Twinkle suffered badly from stress and would lick all the hair off the inside of her back legs and belly. So this move was never going to be easy for her. As a mainly outdoor cat she now had to be kept completely indoors for some weeks after the move to get used to her new location. She cried at the back door to be let go outside and it was really heartbreaking. It was that bad that we tried putting a harness on her and taking her outside on a lead but this actually stressed her out even more. I don’t think we made it through 2 weeks before letting her go outside. I’ll never forget the sense of dread I felt as she left the site for the first time and headed off to explore the surrounding fields. But one thing was for sure, Twinkle would not be happy living confined so we had to let her go and hope that she would find her way back to us. And she did 😀 She had learnt very well in the village to listen for the sound of her dry food being rattled in her bowl. After just a few minutes of freedom on that first day in her new home she returned to the sound of her bowl and settled down indoors for the rest of the day. It was a huge relief. Twinkle had a bad start in life living in the village but she soon got very used to being a countryside cat and as predicted the very first time we saw Hillview, she loved sitting in the sun on the big window sills of the sunroom. She died tragically on 03/02/2014. I held her as she headed off to Rainbow Bridge and I told her to find her friend B&W Katze who I know was waiting for her to show her little scared buddy around their new home together.
Boo and Socks were adopted in September 2011 from Mayo Cat Rescue. They were born in a flower pot to a semi-feral cat who lived at the back of someones garden. They were rescued by Mayo Cat Rescue and fostered by Whiskers New Park Animal Sanctuary where they were treated for their acute cat flu. Their eyes were so crusted over that Socks ended up having permanent damage to one eye. It’s unknown if she was fully blind in it or if she had some vision but the permanent damage never put a dampner on her spirits.
This litter of kittens were called The Flowerpot Kittens. People followed their progress on Facebook and on September 2nd we saw a video of the kittens which Whiskers had posted and it was then that we decided to adopt one little girl called Iris Jane.
On approval from Mayo Cat Rescue we travelled to Whiskers where we were introduced to our gorgeous kitten Iris Jane, who we called Boo. While there we fell for a bold and feisty kitten called Daisy Mae and decided that having 2 kittens would be manageable so both Iris Jane (Boo) and Daisy Mae (Socks) came home with us.
Obviously we had Twinkle at the time that Boo & Socks came to live with us and I think it turned out better having the 2 kitten sisters as they played together and were great company for each other and were not interested in Twinkle. Their first introduction to Twinkle happened by accident – it’s not so easy to juggle a litter tray and keep a kitten from running into the kitchen when you open the door 🙂 The kitchen was Twinkles kitten free domain. She was on her chair about 2m away from the door with direct view and immediately started to growl when baby Boo ran in. I started to panic but then calmed down and waited to see what would happen. Little Boo was the funniest thing. She immediately raised her back and gave a great show of little teeth – the cutie – all we could do was laugh at her. I think Twinkle could see how pointless this was so she stayed in her chair humming away to herself. Boo relaxed, the whole thing calmed down and while Boo was reversing as instructed by Twinkle, Socks came running in like she was missing out on a game of mouse and went straight over to explore around/under Twinkles chair. Then Boo joined in and they both ignored Twinkles humming and explored the whole kitchen. Twinkle hummed when they came under her chair but other than that she was calm and was just watching them. We finally sent the kittens back into the dining room and gave Twinkle loads of praise. After their first encounter we had a few more small introductions like that and eventually Twinkle gave up humming at the sight of them and accepted that they were here to stay.
The two sisters got on great. Socks was the boldest, nosiest little kitten. There wasn’t an inch of the downstairs of the house that she didn’t investigate. Boo wasn’t as bold and was a little slower to jump into something new. She lets Socks go first and when she saw it was safe then she’d follow.
Twinkle slowly started to get used to them. It’s mainly down to Socks that progress was made cos she was such a pest 🙂 She just kept running over to Twinkle and staring at her. She’d even throw herself down in front of Twinkle sometimes with all four fighting legs attacking the air – such a cutie – she slowly wore away Twinkles grumpy facade 🙂 In fact eventually Twinkle seemed to want to play with them when they are chasing around the living room but they were just too lively and unpredictable and poor Twinkle didn’t really know how to play these games. She would mainly come up on the couch and whine about them to us but sometimes she used to sit right beside them while they played around the curtain as if she was learning all about this play thing from them 🙂
Socks favourite things were cardboard boxes, paper bags and chasing leaves. She was such a stereotypical cat from that point of view. Her bravery wasn’t always a good thing as it meant she was always up to some mischief or other. She lost a claw in one pursuit and ended up with her leg in a big blue bandage which she would try to shake off and it was the funniest thing. She also lost a tooth at some stage although we had no idea when or where. One day it was just missing 🙂 She was a homebird, spending her days in the garden or not to far away from home. She defended her territory very well eventhough she was always the tiniest little cat. Boo on the other hand was and still is a roamer. When she’s allowed out in the morning after breakfast she heads straight off over the wall and across the fields in pursuit of her mousey friends. She has come home with her fair share of war wounds. She’d have various scratches and scraps but has had two particularly noteworthy injuries. One day she came home with a face that looked like she had a grape stashed under her cheek. So off to the vet we went and when they shaved her cheek they could see two bite marks where she had obviously been in a fight and had been bitten. She had been bringing a lot of small rats in the days before so we assume she finally picked on one that was more than a match for her. Anyway the vet opened and cleaned the wounds and sent her home with antiobiotics and she was back chasing rats the following day 🙂 The second injury which we won’t forget happened late one evening. It must have been late in the year as it was dark when Boo finally came home for dinner. She walked into the utility room perfectly normal, announcing her arrival with happy meows. I put my hand down and gave her a rub and when I lifted my hand it was covered in blood. I got a fright to say the least. On closer inspection we found that Boo’s ear was sliced open for the tip right down the middle to the base of her ear. We cleaned her up and could see that it had stopped bleeding. All she wanted was her bowl of food and wasn’t bothered in the slightest by the injury. We took her to the vet the following morning where they stitched it back together. No one expected the stitches would hold as the skin around the cut had already started to heal but luckily for Boo the stitches did take. You can feel a thick ridge now down the middle of her ear but at least she’s not called “Twin Peaks” anymore 🙂
Then in May 2015 we lost Socks. We don’t really know what happened to her. She was a little sluggish as she left the house one morning to go on her rounds of the house and pee before breakfast. Sluggishness in the morning wasn’t terribly unusual for Socks though as she was always happy in her bed and slow to get up. Unusually for her though she wasn’t back when we went to call the cats for breakfast. We found Socks body in our driveway with no injuries and no indication of what happened to her. We thought about bringing her to the vet to see if they could tell us what happened but that would have been a bit invasive of her little body so we decided against it. We’ll always wonder what happened. Socks is buried in the long grass in our garden beside the bird feeders. She would have approved of that location where she can haunt the birds for eternity 🌈
Woody adopted us when we moved to Hillview, although I think he would say we were unwelcome invaders of his territory 😀 He was an outdoor cat belonging to the farm across the road but we didn’t know that at the time. He could be seen at the back of the garden and accepted meals from us but could not be approached. Judging by the scratches and scrapes on his face we could tell he was a fighter and he was definitely territorial because he sprayed every single thing that we left unattended outside. He sometimes even sprayed the back door which was not fun when you open the back door in the morning and see it drip onto the door mat 🙁 Then one day shortly after we had moved in Woody decided to show us that we were really invading his territory by climbing in a downstairs window and spraying his lovely scent on the walls. Thankfully there was no furniture in the room at the time but it was on that day that we planned a very special trip to the vet for Woody. We had read about TNR and a loan of a trap was arranged. Woody by now would always appear for food when called and never seemed to be too far outside of the garden. The trap was setup in one of his favourite spots and the waiting game started. An hour before closing time of the vets we were saying we should put the trap away for the night. I went out into the garden and called Woody for his dinner and this time there was a meow response from behind the back wall of the garden so we headed back inside to see if he would make an appearance at the last minute. 15 minutes later after lots of walking around the trap poor Woody was finally inside and the door had slammed shut behind him. He was very unhappy about this. A quick phone call to the vet was made to tell them that Woody was on his way so they would wait for him to arrive before leaving for the evening. The following day he returned after his procedure and spent the night in the outdoor cat house (a kids playhouse that we had at the back of the garden) to recover from the anaesthetic.
The following morning we expected Woody to run from the cat house and possibly never return but when the cat flap and door were opened a very comfortable Woody was found all snuggled into the transport box with no intention of moving. He eventually ran off and we didn’t see him that evening but the following day he returned and moved himself into the cat house.
The task of taming/socialising Woody took a long time. Initially we would sit near his food bowl in the garden but ignore him as he approached for his meals. Slowly over weeks we brought the food bowl closer and closer until poor Woody finally had to eat his food from a bowl that was under our legs as we sat on the back doorstep. Woody loves his food so lots of nice food and plenty of patience finally moulded him into a couch potato. Woody became a social cat and moved indoors eventually and even accepted puppy Penny sleeping beside him in the beanbag. He never gave up going across the road to his farm though and unfortunately was hit by a car while crossing the road on December 6th 2018. I struggled for weeks to get over this loss and have never stopped missing Woody.
But going back to March 2013 now. We visited Whiskers Sanctuary and we met Guy. A pure dote who makes the cutest noise when he’s frustrated/scared/lost/excited and he purrs like an engine 🙂 He was a real affectionate cat to humans but we were worried about how he’d get on with Woody or if Woody would accept a male cat since he was so territorial. In fact Woody had no problem with him at all. The one we should have been worried about turned out to be Socks. She was growling at him initially but thankfully it didn’t long before he was giving Socks a good work out racing around the house after him 🙂
Twinkle hated him but we all knew that would happen so that was no surprise. She growled when he got too close and was being too hyperactive but she did that with the others too and then they became friends so we knew that this would pass.
Boo is just Boo – nothing to worry about. She’s an outdoor cat and by the time she gets home in the evening she doesn’t have the energy to care who else is in the house as long as someone opens the house door and a tin of cat food. She never cared one way or the other if he was around. The first night she came home he was hiding under the couch and she heard something move so went for a look. She had one brief moment of surprise when she looked under the couch and then looked up at me as if to say “do you know there’s a kitten under the couch” and then 2 seconds later she just walked off to the kitchen announcing dinner time as if he wasn’t there. He loved to sit beside her on the couch in the evenings for a snuggle cos he knows she’ll shove over and not growl 🙂
He was a stealth cat. He was the first one of the lot of them that could be standing on the arm or back of the chair you are sitting on and you wouldn’t have heard him get there until he purrs in your ear. He did it to me a few times when I was working from home and it’d nearly gave you a heart attack. And he was fast as a rocket. Socks never had a chance when she was chasing him.
Unfortunately Guy died too young. He had no road sense and even though our road isn’t terribly busy he was unfortunately hit by a car on 27/04/2014.
SIBLINGS ALERT! Whose brilliant idea was it to adopt these two nutcases? 😀 Jack & Zoe are like chalk and cheese. 50% of the time they love each other but the other 50% of the time they are like rival chieftains who battle til death! – or alternatively until they get booted out into the garden for creating tumbleweeds of hair around the kitchen/living room floor.
Jack & Zoe were adopted from GalwaySPCA City Cattery in November 2014 when they were approx 6 months old. We met them in PetWorld while shopping for a new ball flinger for the dogs. Zoe was very afraid of everything and was hiding in the back of her crate in the litter tray so all that could be seen was her bum. Jack on the other hand was out of the crate walking around chatting to everyone and welcoming all the free rubs and attention. He quickly caught our eye and we spent ages sitting on the floor entertaining him. Obviously you can’t break up a sibling pair so a few days later Jack & Zoe both moved to Hillview. At the start I wanted them to live as indoor cats because Guy had been killed by a car on the road just the previous month. This worked for a while but it became apparent that these two siblings were too boisterous and high energy for an indoor only life. It was especially difficult as we both worked from home and the last thing our co-workers needed to hear on every conference call was the siblings killing each other in the background. So in spring 2015 we invested in a cat enclosure and Jack & Zoe got themselves a new home where they could safely play outside all day.
We’ve had to give the pair of messers nick names. The nicknames are used when the cats are being good. Zoe affectionately becomes Zugzie and Jack, well there’s rarely an occassion when he’s being good but on those rare occassions I call him Buddy. The reason for the nicknames is that any time the cats did something wrong we used to very clearly say their names out loud and Penny learned to associate this with a cat in need of reprimanding. For example “ZOE, get off the kitchen counter” – Penny springs into action at the sound of the names and has earned herself the important title of Police Person Penny (Polizei Mädchen Penny) for her heroic action that causes these 2 to quit messing.
As the siblings have grown older Zoe has become a lot less tolerant of Jack and his antics. He chases her in the garden and causes her to scream at him. It sounds like they are killing each other at the back of the garden sometimes. She really dislikes her brother to put it mildly. They have moved into the Cat Lodge because they just cannot be trusted in the kitchen at night. We’ve even had to put a child gate and roof over the stairs so we can close off the areas that they sleep in. Otherwise there are tumbleweeds of hair around the floor in the morning and you just know poor Zoe has been annoyed by him. But apart from the odd garden fight we’ve managed to finally find a solution that allows us all to leave in peace – for now anyway.
So to that’s our family past and present. You can follow us personally on Instagram. And you’ll see more of the Hillview Cats in our business profiles on either Instagram or Facebook.
I hope you enjoyed reading about our crazy crew 🦊