And welcome…
Greetings friends and welcome to Calico’s friends!
Allow myself to introduce… myself
For those who don't know me, firstly - congratulations on finding my site and secondly - hi, my name is Graeme!
I’m excited to be starting my personal blog, Calico’s friends. This will be my place to share my passion for animal well-being, my experiences as a cat owner and foster carer, and a volunteer at RSPCA Queensland.
Who’s Calico?
Calico was my childhood tabby cat. He was an adopted rescue, who prior to coming into our family was a stray who was occasionally being fed by another family. He always remained a little wild but he seemed pretty content settling into his life in our family and our dogs.
Growing up with Calico left me with a soft spot for the special little ones who are a bit shy or need a little help settling into family life.
And like Calico, I’m also quite fond of the doggos (and well all animals really) so don’t be surprised if I’m posting pics of other four-legged furry creatures pretty regularly too.
Our family
So now we have four cats, a.k.a. “the residents”. I’ll be sure to give them each a proper introduction in their own blog post and they will undoubtedly feature here regularly, but quickly introducing them there is: Moro - our first little guy who we thought was a little timid, Chico - our confident little one, Cola - who has really shown us the true meaning of a timid cat, and Nutmeg - who came into our lives recovering from a broken leg and miraculously became friends with Cola so became our foster fail.
And for most of the last 18 months, we’ve also had one or two foster cats living with us. At the time of writing, we’re now onto lucky number 13 (not counting Nutmeg) - little Pikelet, who fittingly is a grey tabby like Calico.
Why Calico’s friends?
To be honest, Calico’s friends originated from a somewhat selfish intent with me wanting to have something better to remember our foster cats by, to encourage me to take more photos and videos, and to be able to record their progress. They have all gone through such incredible transformations once they’re out into foster but it can all become a bit of a blur. I’m also a little bit biased and think that our fosters are the most special cats (except for our own of course) so hopefully sharing their stories helps them find their forever home sooner too!
This also got me thinking this might be a great opportunity to share my experiences and learnings. I’m definitely not an expert but fostering had already taught me so much about being a better cat owner and carer, and while I’ve made mistakes, I’m happy to learn from them and share this with anyone who’s interested.
And finally, volunteering for and fostering through RSPCA Queensland has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. There will be many more posts to explain why but RSPCA Queensland has given me so much and it does such incredible work that: 1) I want to be able to share with my friends, family and well, anyone who will listen, and 2) I hope that some of this inspires others to either get involved or contribute to their work. While I was contemplating whether to set up this site, there were two devastating stories of animal cruelty against dogs and cats that really got to me (distressing content warning for those links). RSPCA Queensland relies on donations and community support for 96% of its funding - without this support, who else would be there for these creatures? I’m currently brainstorming ideas to raise funds for RSPCA Queensland - please contact me with any suggestions. In the interim, please consider supporting RSPCA Queensland through my donation page - all funds donated go directly to RSPCA Queensland!
Thank you!
