Tia. Ten. A perfect mark.

August 1, 2022 Gracia & Louise

Foster Care

RSPCA

ten | tɛn |
cardinal number
PHRASES
ten out of ten
British
a perfect mark.
• used to indicate that someone has done something well: you have to give Tia ten out of ten for cleverness, vim, agility, patience, beauty, mettle and moxie.

Tia came to us in mid April, in a seasonal wildlife gap. She licked and investigated our fingers as we patted her, then, and she continues to do the same now, in a different month beginning with the letter A. Her two- to four-week stay slowly turned into a handful of months.

This is her last stretch of time with us before she moves into a new foster carers’ home. Much as the Grey-headed flying foxes stay with us until they head to crèche, to learn to socialise with other flying foxes, and from there head to a larger-still flight aviary, to learn to socialise and fly, Tia will soon be heading to a new home, one where she is the sole cat or animal in care. That way, she’ll be able to fly, cat-wise. To have full run of a place, not just a sunny front room.

As we have other animals, and Tia is on a restricted diet of anallergenic dry cat food, she has to isolate at our home. This was fine when it was for a handful of weeks, but now that she’ll be in care for longer than anticipated, it is important that she is placed somewhere where she can be a part of the whole home, while also not likely to discover any rogue cat or dog biscuits on the kitchen floor. While we’ll miss her, it means she’ll have more company and space, and this, together with whatever treatment comes next, and time, will give her the best chance. This will help get her another step closer to possible adoption.

In her time with us, Tia, our tenth RSPCA foster cat, has completed a six-week course of vitamin B shots to help with her incontinence issue. She has had an ultrasound under sedation, spine and hip x-rays with specialists, multiple blood tests, and multiple faecal tests. She has been on different diets, and a brief course of probiotics. We are currently applying a solution to her chin to help alleviate a small patch of chin acne. The RSPCA’s dedication to her continues to be awe-inspiring and all encompassing.

Each morning we have our coffee with her seated on the floor. If we can, we try to stretch this to 5.30am, but we’re rarely successful. She wakes up early. She plays with her favourite toys, and when you go to take your last sip, she curls up in your lap.

In the day, she suns herself on the table by the window. Mostly in the doughnut-shaped bed, but not always. Sometimes she capsizes.

With all of our fosters, and wildlife too, there comes a tipping point when they’re ready for the next stage. For adoption, in the case of the foster cats, or a new placement, in Tia’s case. For crèche or soft release, in the case of the flying foxes and ringtail possums. Ping! I’m cooked! Next step, please.

The transition is so apparent that it makes the hard part of saying goodbye easier. They are ready. And we are reminded that that was always the goal. To ‘keep’ them any longer begins to feel like it is not the kindest thing. They are ready for the next stage: a new life, or closer to one. They are the lucky ones. They made it and they’re letting us know.

The many moods of Tia pictured here alongside Head of a cat, 664–30 B.C., in the collection of The Met.

Title: Head of a cat
Period: Late Period–Ptolemaic Period
Date: 664–30 B.C.
Geography: From Egypt
Medium: Cupreous metal

The cat was sacred to the goddess Bastet, and was offered in sanctuaries and deposited in animal necropoleis throughout Egypt. This cat has a sensitively modeled face, with sharp, clean lines and attentive, large inset eyes.The function of these large cat heads is ambiguous. They have been found in offering contexts, such as temples and animal catacombs, and it is commonly assumed that they formed part of a composite statuette; the full statuette, when intact, probably would have had a hollow wooden body and held a cat mummy inside, much as similar large hollow copper alloy statuettes did. However, bodies for these figures are rarely, if ever, found even at sites where wood is relatively well preserved. It is possible that in some cases these cat heads were dedicated on their own, or were purposefully disassembled from their bodies, which were then discarded or used in another way.

The Met

Why not consider becoming a foster carer for RSPCA Victoria.

On the subject of fosters, we are currently in the process of working on an etching with and for the Australian Print Workshop in celebration of Remy and Pip, our two flying fox foster pups in 2021–22. Remy appears in the top right, and Pip at the bottom, in what will be a haze of flowering eucalpyptus in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae.

We don’t know how this print will turn out, beyond our plan and combined vision for it and this is not too dissimilar to getting a foster ready for the next stage. All the preparation and hope. Fingers, paws, and wings crossed.

To Gizmo, Misty, Tiger-Lily, Frida, Pretzel, Chocolate and Finn in their own forever homes. To Gingerbread and her safe crossing into the next. To Arthur, our ‘foster fail’. To perfect ten, Tia.

To the next ones. Whoever they may be.

(Tia’s RSPCA Victoria shelter ID number is 980357. And she’s adorable in 980,357 ways, and counting.)

Image credit: Henri Leys (baron), Seventeenth-century Interior (detail), 1838, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum