As you may recall, our Official Website Charity™ is Feline Friends London, a stray-cat rescue organization that relies entirely on volunteer work and which uses 100% of donated funds to rescue cats, foster them, and adopt them out, with most of the dosh going for vet bills. I am a patron of this organization.
Today we have an especially poignant appeal to save an already-owned kitten whose owners can’t afford the vet bills. The cost to save Frank’s life is only about £1000, and I’m appealing to readers to help cover that fee. The story and pictures below come from Barbara, who runs FFL.
We have a couple of cats we are trying to raise funds for to cover vet costs. One is Frank, the kitten in the attached photos. He began having seizures when he was 9 weeks old. His owners asked us to take him on as they cannot afford the life-saving vet treatment he needs. His story is below.
Frank kitten began having seizures when he was 9 weeks old. He presented as being in a permanent daze, with excessive drooling and he could hardly eat. When his owners brought him to the vet, he was diagnosed with a liver shunt, a genetic condition where a blood vessel bypasses the liver. The proteins are not properly broken down, which produces ammonium in the blood, which then damages the brain and the internal organs.
The vet had to keep Frank on antibiotics, lactulose and a prescription diet. He is now 15 months old and doing better, but it is only a question of time before the antibiotics lose their effect and the seizures return. With high levels of ammonium in the blood, Frank may suffer again from seizures, hallucinations, loss of appetite, dizziness, vomiting and eventually kidney stones.
The good part is that Frank can be cured. An x-ray scan followed by surgery would be enough. However both are very costly and his owners lost their jobs earlier this year and struggle to pay their rent, let alone to cover the cost of complex vet treatment. They both love Frank very much and want to save him, and so have asked Feline Friends London to take Frank into their care. Any donation would make a world of a difference in making this operation happen, to cure this sweet kitten’s liver shunt and give him a future.
We have over 60,000 readers now, and if everyone gave just a dollar, that would save Frank’s life sixty times over. I know that’s not feasible, but if some of you could just give $1, or $5, or $10, it wouldn’t take long until we could cover the costs of the operation.
I almost never ask readers to donate to a cause, and of course make no money off this website. If you could kick in just a few bucks for the kitties—think of it as recompense for what you learn here—I’d be immensely grateful.
You can donate to Frank’s surgery by CLICKING ON THIS SECURE LINK. You can donate any amount using your credit card.
Reader Peter says that you can direct the money toward Frank’s operation, but I think Barbara knows that the surge of donations in the next few days will go for that. His comment:
I think the link you included is their all-purpose donation page. They do have a “comment” field at the end of the donation process, where I indicated I was donating toward Frank’s medical costs.
Please help if you can. I thank you, Barbara thanks you, and as for Frank, well, that goes without saying.
Ten quid on its way to Frank. Good luck, little buddy!!
Done and done. I donated $15 to this as I did to our commenter Matt’s farm for retired horses when he brought it up (or did I give $10 to his farm? $10 is my usual amount, but this story had pictures of a kitten) (I of course looked into the charity first).
And you shouldn’t be afraid to use this platform to promote charity. You’re both logical and compassionate. What’s more logical than using you enormous reach to drum up charity? I think it’s great!
Oh, I donated £15, so I guess I ended up donating about $19. Oh well! Even better.
Will be sending money asap. Thanks for the opportunity.
£25.00 donated without hesitation.
I think the link you included is their all-purpose donation page. They do have a “comment” field at the end of the donation process, where I indicated I was donating toward Frank’s medical costs.
I noticed they also send you an email right away thanking you for the donation.
Yes, it is their general link (which I also recognized from another time Jerry promoted them and I donated), but I credited Jerry and his site in my comment. I mentioned Frank, but said they should use the money as they see fit to save and foster as many kitties as possible. Who knows with Frank? I hope his potential surgery can save him and he can have a long, happy life, but charities like this must often make difficult decisions, and if the surgery only has a 10% chance of working, or if Frank will only survive another year with it, or if Frank will still suffer his whole life, perhaps it’s more efficient to put the money toward other things. I have no idea, but I trust them to use the money in the best way possible.
I am told that the chance the surgery will succeed is very, very high.
That’s great to hear. I hope it works out and I hope he can go back to his servants after. Do you know if that’s the plan?
Will donate to the lad as soon as the good lady wife comes back home. I used to have my own credit card but …. it was just so much fun buying …..
I donated and very glad to try and help Frank, or whatever kitties need help there.
Just a little while ago I sent off 50 pounds to the London cat shelter. If, like me, you neglected to mention the intended use of the funds, following is a link to their web site where you can leave a message.
https://felinefriendslondon.uk/
£5.00 off and away as a guilt thing in consideration of the free blog and not because I’m a cat person?
Dog charity sometime…?
Done🐾🐾
Donated £10. Very easy request considering how much I enjoy WEIT.
Donated in the name of my beloved cat Rudolf, who sadly passed away on Friday.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Sorry to hear that, Daniel 🙁 It’s sweet that you made a donation in his honor. Rudolf’s memory lives on!
Count me in. Can we do it in good old American greenbacks this time around, or is it funny £imey money again?
Pounds or quid, or even guineas if you like.
Kicked in ten pounds — for an unquestionably good cause.
Done
Donation sent.
10 quid sent, and quite happily.
Thanks for this, Jerry. Geth and I gave £50.
Done. Fingers crossed for sweet Frankie.
£25.00 donated with credit to Jerry (and a mention of Frank) in the comment field to hopefully help with the surgery.
A quick tot-up of the comments mentioned above suggests 20% (£200) has been donated so far.
Here’s 25 pound sterling for you, Frankie
I tried donating 75pounds, but my donation couldn’t be processed. I was using a Discover Card, do they perhaps not take that card? Please let me know and I’ll use my wife’s Visa. I’d really like to help.
Thanks
If you are in the US, you may need to notify the bank that you are donating outside the US. That happened to me last year; the bank blocked it until I went to the branch to find out what was going on.
+ 25 in memory of Grania since she loved cats, as well as dogs.
Thanks for the info.
75 pounds is nearly a tenth of the cost! Thank you, and thanks to all of you who donated to save this kitten’s life.
We gotta save that little guy! 🙂
I also found out they don’t accept Discover card, but my Visa went through.
Done. He looks a little like our kitten.
I’ve done a fair amount of volunteer work at animal shelters and our dogs are always “rescues”.
That said, I rather dislike these emotional appeals based on a single injured or damaged animal; the £1000 is much better spent helping healthy animals which will otherwise be killed or kept in cages.
In 2018 we (RSPCA):
– rescued and collected more than 102,900 animals
– found new homes for 40,738 animals
Difference = 62,162 animals = 170 per day.
I like a personal touch sometimes.
That’s amazing! Awesome work, Caldwell.
I mentioned the efficiency issue above. The emotional side of me wants to save this cat, but the efficiency/rational side of me wants my money to save as many cats as possible.
Which I guess is kind of the problem: I let my emotions overtake my logic in this case.
Well, I’m sorry that neither of you like my “emotional” appeal. What I don’t get is why you have to come onto this site and tell us that you don’t like it and what you do is better than what I do.
That’s just churlish.
I’m sorry you don’t like my “emotional appeal”. You can always donate to FFL and specify that the money go to general cat rescue. But please note that without the money this cat will die, so that’s the equivalent of it being killed.
It does seem a bit churlish of you to hijack my appeal to say that what you do is better and more efficacious. We all do what we can.
A few years ago a friend berated people for giving to the local Humane Society because we have children without food and homeless people. It is always possible to set up a hierarchy of giving and needs. I have my own hierarchy but it is not a problem to give outside my usual preferences. In this case it is not just for a kitten but also for two people who love the kitten and do not have the means to seek a remedy for a lethal problem.
If people give tuppence a day to feed the pigeons, then I can manage £10 for Frank and his dicky liver.
Best of luck Frank. Here’s 10 pounds hoping you’ll get to grow up to be a healthy 10 pound cat.
£25 added to the fund.
Looking at little Frank, I’m reminded of one of our kitties, Gracie. She wouldn’t be here if we couldn’t have afforded several expensive surgeries. She’s now 12 years old and still going strong. I hope we can give Frank the same opportunity.
βPer
Always ready to help a kitteh in need. Get well Frank!
£100 for Frank and friends.
Great! Thank you.
100 quid for little Frank. Hope you will keep us posted about his progress…
Good job!
I put a tenner in.
What a great story
A precious cow cat. I rescued 2 boy cowcats out of the street In a rural town in northwest Louisiana. They are full siblings and such a gift
Thanks to all who strive to help those who need it most. Jake and Henry say hello to their cow cousin.