00:00Welcome to the Cattery. As you can see, we are surrounded by dozens of cats from, welcome from Qatar, who now live on the top floor of this building on Victoria Street, Wolverhampton.
00:11This is Debbie Morgan, who actually runs the place and is right now feeding all these cats.
00:16So, Debbie, how long has it been to get this place running?
00:20We opened on the 1st of August officially, so we've been here since April the 23rd, we took our downstairs, revamped all the upstairs, and then 1st of August we opened, as I said, officially.
00:34It's a monthly, and it's doing very well at the moment. We have a lot of people interested.
00:42It seems like all your little friends are quite happy right as well.
00:44They seem very happy, to be fair. I was a little bit worried, but people have left us lovely feedback.
00:51They seem to be very comfortable, and they seem to play for the crowd.
00:55What's the enduring appeal of a cat cafe that people find?
01:01I'm not sure, really. I mean, obviously, if people love cats, they'll come and spend some time.
01:06I think the difference we've got here is because they're all mine and owned by me.
01:10They, I've spoke them. They're very friendly, so people can pet them quite easily.
01:16They will readily come out, they'll play. So, I think that's the attraction here.
01:21And since, I mean, obviously, we've spoken about since you wrote it, there's been a lot of good feedback and everything.
01:27Do you think that cat cafes, like yourself, have got a future, particularly in cities that are more handsome?
01:32I think they have. The problem being is, I think, what we need is legislation that's out there to be implemented properly,
01:40so making sure that the cat's welfare comes first, basically.
01:43And, obviously, they're your cats, so there's going to be, you know, you're going to look after them.
01:47Have particular cats shot out to people?
01:50Yes, Smokey, in all honesty, she was just here. So, the grey, long-haired girl and Skoy, people tend to love the long-haired cat.
02:00There's an attraction with Jasper because you've got the beautiful blue eyes.
02:05Yeah, so I think probably the two long-haired girls are the match.
02:08This one is a little madam, so people love the way she plays.
02:12And, in general, I think just, there's a lot of appeal to, coming up here, particularly, it's not just a cafe where you can come and have a cup of coffee and everything, but play with these little guys.
02:23Yeah, yeah. And, like I said, we're downstairs, having the cafe downstairs, there's the options to either eat with cats if they wanted to, or they can come and have a coffee upstairs, play with the cats, go downstairs and have a meal.
02:36When you were living and working in cats, you were looking after accumulating on these cats. Did you ever imagine being here?
02:44I never imagined of having this many cats, to be honest. It was never a plan, it's just, you know, you come across their paths, or they come across your path.
02:53And, we couldn't believe them. We needed to make sure that they were looked after, and we knew that if we didn't take them in, they wouldn't survive.
03:01And, once we took them in and we named them, they became ours. We had to bring them home.
03:05And, it's another thing that revitalises this part of Wolverhampton as well, revitalises the K-side United economy.
03:11Yeah, I think so. I think, with everything that's going on in Wolverhampton as well, it is making it more attractive to come into the city centre now.
03:20And, what would you say to people to encourage them to come down?
03:24Go visit the cats.
03:25If you like cats, come and have a cup of coffee and let them fuss over you.
03:29And, even if you don't, come and enjoy a cake or something downstairs.
03:32Well, there you go. This is the cattery here on Victoria Street in Wolverhampton.
03:37I'm surrounded by cats. I'm not complaining about that. That's pretty good.
03:43Golly, guys.
03:45That's it. You got it. That's good.
03:46Come here.
03:47That's good.
03:48Okay.
03:48Alright, sweetie.
03:50Sorry, I've just got to do what's on my own.
03:53Alright, baby.
03:55Okay.
03:55That will do. That's all I've done.
03:56Bye, guys.
03:57Brilliant.
03:57Good boy.
03:58Good boy.
04:01There you go.
04:02Max.
04:04One for you.
04:05Good boy.
04:06You sat nicely.
04:07Rocket.
04:08Rocket.
04:10Good boy.
04:11I know.
04:13You're not on the floor.
04:14Good girl.
04:16Come on, then. Come sit down.
04:17Come on.
04:19Come on.
04:20No, I'm down here.
04:22Come on.
04:22Down here.
04:27Can you see the nice tracks?
04:29Good boy.
04:31Good boy.
04:33I've got to feed you from a table, I believe.
04:35There you go.
04:36I have to feed you from a table.
04:37Okay.
04:40They are great.
04:41They do love people.
04:43No.
04:44No, no, no, no.
04:45Yeah.
04:46He tries to jump in a point.
04:51Thanks, Mark.
04:51He can.
04:53Good girl, bud.
04:58Yeah.
05:00Just relax.
05:00You're gonna get slapped.
05:01You're not careful.
05:06Right, so what do you actually get for your money here, well it's £5 for half an hour.
05:13You get a drink included with that, a coffee with some milk, and obviously you get surrounded
05:17by all these lovely cats as well.
05:20It's very nice, I mean obviously they're being teased right now with the little trees up
05:24there, but they've come to see me, they've come to have a look, and these are lovely
05:29fluffy little creatures.
05:30It's well worth having a look down here.
05:35Okay, so first of all we've got Norman, so Norman is our wobbly cat, he was found next
05:58door to a motorway, took a two mile journey round to go and pick him up and save him.
06:05Next we've got Tati and Jasmine, so Jasmine you can see on my shoulder.
06:10Tati and Jasmine are sisters, we had them at three weeks old, their mum apparently was run
06:16over, so we took them in and bottle fed them for a few weeks.
06:20Jasmine unfortunately lost her eye through an infection.
06:24Next we have Gabby, Gabby's one of our youngest, well she's our youngest, so she's one years
06:29old man.
06:30She was three days old when we took her in with the two brothers, and we had to bottle
06:34feed her from three days.
06:36She took a little bit of time to get over to here because she had to wait for some of
06:41her blood results etc before she could travel.
06:44Next we have Smarky, Smarky's our grey hair, long grey hair.
06:48She looks like a Persian.
06:49We don't know much of her background and we think that she was just dumped.
06:53We feel she may be an older cat and she's just had a lot of her teeth out.
06:58Since her teeth have been taken out she's a different cat, she's much happier, much more
07:02playful.
07:03Little Sammy is a beautiful little cat and unfortunately we've had to take him home because he wasn't
07:08settling very well.
07:09We had a couple of them bullying him and he was hiding away, so because he wasn't happy
07:14we've taken him home to see how he settles, and he's back to playing and he's back to
07:18his normal self.
07:20Rocket and Jasper are brothers, they were a litter of kittens we tried to save on the
07:25compound and keep together with her mum, but the children of the compound wouldn't leave
07:28them alone, so we ended up taking them in when they were probably about four or five
07:32weeks old.
07:33We took them in with the mumma and the mumma was two feral.
07:36She stayed for a short time but then decided she wanted to go back outdoors.
07:41Charlie, Charlie's a little character.
07:43He came through our window, he pushed his way through the window and decided he was
07:47going to stay.
07:48I came home from work one day to find him snuggled up to my husband, and my husband said,
07:52oh this is Charlie, okay we're keeping this one.
07:56Next we have Mantis and Drax, these two little ones were found.
08:00We actually saw him in the compound next door to the guards house and he was lying in a pool
08:06of water from an AC unit that was leaking, so I could see he was unwell, so we took him
08:11to the vets and he had some fluids and he had some medication.
08:14We got back and she was in exactly the same place.
08:18So we picked them both up and took them home.
08:21We got them in a separate bedroom that we used to isolate, cats or kittens if we had, and
08:28just looked after and made sure they were okay.
08:31They, we called the twins.
08:34Skye, Skye was our dumpy from above us.
08:37The neighbour didn't want to keep her anymore even though she'd had her for four or five
08:42months.
08:43The next four, you've got Lucy, Chloe, Max, Bonnie.
08:53These are all siblings, these are all of the same litter, and these were, these are one
08:58of the oldest groups we've got now, so they're four and a half, and we looked after the mama.
09:04We were a little bit late in doing what we call the trap neuter return, where we get the
09:10compound cats, neutered, spayed, get them back out in their environment, so they are happy.
09:17Unfortunately, we missed the mom.
09:19She got pregnant, so we looked after her, fed her.
09:22One day she came back not pregnant.
09:23I looked at her and said, what have you done with your kittens?
09:26Where's your babies?
09:27And she actually took them around to them where they were.
09:29We picked them all up, took them home, put them in the wardrobe with them on, and I adopted
09:36one out.
09:37One well at five weeks old, we named them all because we lost them, and adopted the
09:42one cat out, that was it.
09:44We couldn't do any more, we kept them, we couldn't give any more away.
09:50So this is the lot?
09:51This is the lot, so we've got the 15 now here, and the other four are at home, so there were
09:5718 rescues in total, 19 we've walked back.
10:0019 5
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