Why this website was created.

My name is Patricia and I am the webmaster for the charity's website. Both myself and my husband visited Gibraltar on holiday in August 2004 staying at a local hotel. After our arrival we noticed a particular cat that seemed to be around the entrance to the hotel. The cat turned out to be called Pedro and lives in the hotel’s grounds. The conversation got around to other cats in the area and eventually the local cat sanctuary was mentioned. As it turned out one of the co-founders of the cat sanctuary Christine also worked at the same hotel and we asked to be introduced to her. After meeting her we arranged a visit to the cat sanctuary. We were taken to the sanctuary by Christine and her sister Jackie. Before going to the sanctuary I had imagined seeing lots of cats in colonies all out in open spaces feeding and lazing about enjoying the sunshine. But when we arrived what we saw completely overwhelmed and shocked us both. We were greeted by about eighty cats who all lived in the sanctuary and they all rushed forward at the same time to greet us. What a sight this was especially as we were not expecting it. The sight of so many beautiful and dignified animals being in this sanctuary for their own well being either because they were no longer wanted, or found as strays, or having been cruelly treated will be etched on my mind forever and it broke our hearts. We both helped out but it was difficult to do anything quickly as the cats would constantly be at your feet looking for attention and this was hard to refuse given their circumstances. Whilst we were in Gibraltar a cat from across the border in Spain was rescued this was a queen who had witnessed the killing of her three kittens and mate she was next to be killed but fortunately a taxi driver saw what was happening and rescued her and contacted Christine and Jackie. We visited the sanctuary after she was housed and she was a sad and depressed little cat having experienced such cruelty and I can only say that I felt ashamed to be called a human being after seeing that little animal. We are fortunate that when animals are given love and attention they seem to want to trust human beings again but why they forgive us I will never understand but thankfully they do and give us a second chance. Myself and my husband where only there for a couple of hours but we found it very demanding physically and emotionally. When we returned to the hotel we both discussed what we could do to help the charity and we came up with the following ideas-

Build a website to let fellow cat lovers know about the charity.

Write to 'Your Cat' magazine to see if they would do a story about the charity/sanctuary which could be published in their magazine and again make more people aware of the sanctuary's existence.

Contact animal welfare trusts to see if there are any grants or awards available for the sanctuary.

Write to the Gibraltar government to see if they can assist in any way and finally

Donate some financial assistance to the sanctuary.

We have now carried out all of the above actions.

Finally below is a picture of the star himself Pedro.

It is quite possible that if we had not noticed him at the hotel then we would have been none the wiser regarding the sanctuary, its dedicated volunteers and beautiful cats and kittens.

So well done Pedro and over to you.