VET COLUMN: The story of 12 cats from Liverpool

When we moved over to Lincolnshire from Liverpool about 20 years ago we came with 12 cats that had been rescued while working at my practice there.
They all have their stories to tell.
Nermal was a poor little kitten when we first saw her. She was a cruelty case.
She had only been fed raw mince and consequently had thin bones that broke easily. She had six folding fractures involving her legs and spine. She had cigarette burns on her body and ears. The end of her tail was missing.
Despite her injuries, she was still able to stagger about and was friendly towards us.
My first thought was that we should put this little cat to sleep as her injuries were so severe.
However my wife persuaded me that we should give her chance and see how she managed.
Nermal improved well over the next few months.
She ran about on little circling legs with a bobbing up and down movement.
She had a short stubby tail and a little elfin face with short ears. She was happy and a real character.
She lived a further eight years when I had to put her to sleep due to kidney failure, the result of her abuse as a kitten.
Boris was a massive, ugly, old Liverpool tom cat who was brought in as a stray with a large infected injury to his face. He looked like a thug and behaved like one! After cleaning up and treating his wound, he was determined to keep scratching at it.
The only way we could protect this wound was to bandage his back leg. This procedure required three nurses and a thick blanket. Two nurses were needed to restrain him and a third would bandage his leg.
Despite this he was still able to lift up the nurses and move down the table. His wounds healed with help of a skin graft and he turned out to be a fantastic and easy going cat.
The only problem was that he sometimes would not let us go up the stairs. In his later life he suffered from severe gingivitis that required a monthly injection. When the injection was running out and his mouth was getting sore again, he would come and sit next to me and just stare. He was telling me he needed attention.
Ginger was a last minute arrival just before we moved to Lincolnshire.
I had sold my practice and the new owners had been asked to put Ginger to sleep as he was aggressive to people.
They had attempted to put him to sleep but he had wriggled and the injection missed the vein.
We were telephoned and we took him with us.
Ginger had been hand reared and did not really know he was a cat.
He went to attack me once but I managed to restrain him and place him with our other cats.
He never attacked again and carried the scar on his leg where the injection had missed until the day he died.
More about our 12 cats from Liverpool next week.