June 2025 - 

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May 2025 - 

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April 2025 - Dré & PYTHAGORAS died :'( - Lady up for adoption -  

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March 2025 - Tortoise Don - Free cat food - Stray dog Bernàrd adopted - Hera DISAPPEARED & returned - Bank approved! :)

Tortoise Don, testudo hermanni, has been returned to nature. We put him/her a bit further away from the village, on the sunny side of a hill with lots of shady spots and all the wild flora a tortoise loves to eat.

We received a donation in the form of cat food (kibble) from Ekaterina. Many thanks!

Stray dog Bernàrd (link to long story soon) got re-homed to a goat farmer, about 25 km away. 

Having Bernàrd in our garden, unwanted, was not just stressful for us, but for Hera as well as she disappeared for 11 days. No clue where she went, but no injuries and she went back to her normal spot as soon as she got back.

 

We finally got a bank account approved and can now start receiving donations and start sponsorship.

February 2025 - NGO approved! - Axl, Zelda and Azrael neutered

Our NGO got approved!😃🎉

 

Axl & Zelda got neutered on February 7th, both had health issues and had to recover first.

Boudica got very sick, very fast. Lungworm and stomatitis (mouth infection). We got her to the vet in time, gave her a vitamin booster, antibiotics and some TLC. She’s been recovering slowly but steadily since.

The estrous cycle has started, so all uncastrated male cats in the neighborhood started showing themselves, with all the noise and fighting that comes with it.
Azrael, still outdoors, was constantly losing every battle and got beaten up by stray and neighbor’s cats multiple times… so we took him indoors, which worked perfectly. He’s well adjusted and found his spot in the living room.
We got Azrael castrated on March 10th.

January 2025 - Winter flu - signing NGO Documents 

Some kinda flu epidemic started to form, hitting one cat after the other. Mostly sneezing, watery eyes and loads of discharge from the nose and eyes. We had droplets to combat this, but quickly had to buy more. Starting February only some outdoor strays were the last to show these symptoms.

On the 31st of January, Natascha, Thijs and Bert finally signed the official documents for registering Cat Castle Domlyan as an official private NGO. We tried before in November, but failed due to incorrect wording in our documentation.With our skillful lawyer Aleksandra Kinaneva, we put together the necessary documents and filed them to the Bulgarian court system.

December 2024 - Puppy Rex saved - Ozzy died :'(

We dewormed most cats, about 90 kg worth of cats converted to deworming pills.
10 cats got their vaccination or yearly repeat. Lady also got vaccinated.
Thanks for the home visit, Dr. Stan at Ветеринарен център Балканвет!

Diablo got 8 rotten teeth pulled, most have grown back by now.

Ozzy became a bit sickly after vaccination. He was still eating and using the litter box, but seemed scared of everything and kept hiding himself away in furniture. After a couple of days of lethargic behaviour, we brought him to the vet. He got some boosters against high temperature and antibiotics, but in quarantine stopped eating and drinking. Ozzy died sleeping in Thijs’ arms a day later.

We received a couple donations from family and friends, most of whom would like to stay anonymous. We are extremely thankful for helping us through difficult times and we’re happy to let you know all the legal fees and veterinarian bills have been paid.

November 2024 - new arrivals: Diablo & Ozzy

3-11 - New arrival: Diablo, brought in by neighbors.
Couple months old stray kitten from the streets of Kapana, Plovdiv city center.

Quarantined, went to Балканвет (vet) next day. Tested positive on Calicivirus, Feline Coronavirus, a lot of worms and a fungus infection in the mouth. Receiving a sh!tload of medication was followed by an explosion of liquid feces, but after a bath and a week of TLC, he is now doing very well and finally uses the litter box.

Another kitten saved by Natascha from the bottom of garbage container in Domlyan, nearby Mimi's magazin/reservoir. 
Welcome Ozzy!
Guessing 2 or 3 months old, little bit gum infection (probably calicivirus), small wound on his paw and smelling like a garbage container. We gave him a quick bath and have all necessary medication already at hand

October 2024 - Preparing for winter - Tortoise Don(na)

We picked up a young tortoise that didn't prepare itself for winter and was in the wrong location to do so. Thijs has experience with this species, so we mas a quick terrarium and a heat lamp on a timer, to skip the winter.
We like the name Donatello, but don't know it's gender, and we'll place him/her back in nature in the spring.

September 2024 - NEW ARRIVALS: Lemmy & Axl

1-09 - On a walk back from the local store, Natascha found a young kitten hiding in the shade, on a wall next to an abandoned house and a construction site. He seemed very happy to be taken in and was named Lemmy for his bass-like purrr.

19-09 - Late at night, there was some hissing coming from behind a chair in the front garden. At first it looked like Boudica got stuck behind there. But in that case, she shrunk a bit and grew a pair of balls. Thijs took him inside, checked for injuries and placed him in quarantine, before going to bed. Next morning we named him Axl, because of his drawn-out voice and red fur.

August 2024 - Ongoing heatwave - We now have a dog...

Daily 38°C (100°F) with no rain... A village 3 hills over to the south was burning for days and we could see smoke from multiple forest fires for weeks. At the end of the day, we started doing short walks towards a shady spot next to a river. Passing the local store, Natascha went in to get some drinks and Thijs accidentally made contact with a street dog. The dog accompanied us on our walk, enjoyed a dive in the river and walked back with us up to the store where she got distracted.
The next day, she showed up on our doorstep, chasing cats from the street... Thijs walked her back to the main square and asked around if anyone knew who the owner was. The overall response was, she's a village dog, wandering the streets of Domlyan. Not satisfied with this answer, we took the dog in, named her "Lady Heidi", and posted about her in local Facebook groups. A week later we got word of the previous owner, where she ran away after 1 day and was on the street since. A month later we found out the previous-previous owner is actually an acquaintance of ours, an older guy who lives next to a piece of property we own. The dog was called Sara(h?) and was used for hunting, but since her recall is abhorrent, she ran away and lived in the forest next to the reservoir for months.

Lady Heidi is a 2,5 years old Beagle-Harrier and can't be trusted with the cats. She was first placed in a farm building next to our house, while Thijs made her a dog house upstairs in his office and a dog house with a kennel in the back garden.

Although we're both not really dog-people, our fitness and cardio has improved and every walk with Lady is a small adventure. But on the long run, we don't really have enough time, space and resources to give her a perfect home and there's always a slight danger for the cats. So if we can find her a better home, we'd be relieved to miss her.

July 2024 - We had a visitor - New arrivals: Hades + Zelda - Kennedy died :( - Wilhelmina returned to owner

A Dutch friend of ours came over for a long weekend. Exactly what we needed, a short vacation at home.
We didn't have visitors for quite a while, and it was fun to see the cats individually reacting to a new person in their territory. Our 4 cats from Belgium/NL met a lot of people before and showed no hesitation to get some extra attention.
Some adult and junior cats were interested from afar, others came closer. We're keeping notes of all their behavioral reactions in a data sheet.

 

04-07 - New spontaneous arrival: Hades

We noticed a black with grey Turkish Angora walking around our garden for a week or so. A bit too thin, and loaded balls.
When finally entering our garden, he quickly figured out he wasn't alone. At least 6 cats surrounded him, when Thijs stepped in with a transport box. Next day we had him snipped, 2 days later dewormed and deflead. He now checked in to Freya's old place, in the kitten/junior part of the house.
Judging on teeth, he's about 9 or 10 months old. His trust in humans is improving, but he's quite aggressive towards other cats.

 

06-07 - We can't just leave her there: Zelda

We (Natascha & Thijs) don't go out together much. There's always someone at home, taking care of the cats and house, keeping eyes and ears open.
But with a heatwave ongoing, the cats don't want to follow us outside the garden.
So in the heat of the day, we left by car to do some shopping in nearby Karlovo. While driving down the main road in Domlyan, a kitten ran across the road towards a barren field with a garbage container next to it. Natascha stopped the car, Thijs went out and guided the kitten towards the shade of the container. Natascha turned the car around to get kitten food, while Thijs checked out the overall condition. The kitten's eyes were almost closed off with mucus, clearly caused by a virus infection. She was out of breath, dirty, covered in fleas and tiny ticks. Clearly nobody was taking care of her and leaving her out would be certain death within a few days, if not hours.
We cleaned her up, using half a package of cotton ear buds, removed the ticks and made her a quarantine cage. It took about an hour to completely free her eyes. A couple days later now, we're pretty sure she'll keep both of them.
From weight and size, she looks about 6 weeks old. But since her eyes have already changed color and no blue visible anymore, we're guessing she's about 9 weeks old and simply underfed. She has both Herpes and Calici virus, which we're experienced with by now. She should be fine within a couple of weeks. Looks like her dominant breed is longhaired Russian Blue. We named her Zelda, from Germanic "Griselda", after the videogame.

 

23-07 - Kennedy died on the operating table, due to repeating kidney issues. Thijs noticed he was lethargic and had trouble walking. He looked lame on his back paws and was searching for a spot to hide. We putted him in quarantine, contacted the vet and rushed him there. Unfortunately he didn't survive the sedative.

Poor Kennedy, you will be sorely missed by your brother Johnson, who was always by your side and your bff Elizabeth. They both keep visiting and headbutting your grave stone.

 

24-07 - Natascha found a young cat under her car at the LIDL parking. It had been raining after a heavy storm, so Natascha took the cat home and we named her Wilhelmina. We placed some Facebook posts in local groups and found the owner. The cat probably crossed the street. Natascha brought Wilhelmina back to Karlovo the next day.

June 2024 - KENNEDY'S RECOVERY - ONE TROUBLESOME NEIGHBOR - FLEA INFESTATION - MONA LISA DIED - LEONARDO WENT MISSING

Kennedy was a stray cat, who came in with his brother Johnson last year. Johnson adjusted fast, but Kennedy could not be touched and lived in our garden. Start of May, Kennedy got seriously ill with kidney stones, bladder infection, a hernia (bump on belly) and finally we got him neutered. He spent 5 weeks in a small quarantine space, with 2 weeks of twice daily IV and a lot of medicine injected. Out of leftover planks we made him a bigger quarantine room connected to outside and had his brother visit him. After a week he was allowed to go outside and slowly re-discover our garden. He's now doing fine again and grew a strong bond with Natascha.

 

We've been having a lot of disagreements with just one neighbor. We'll not go into details or name drop, but his treatment of animals is barbaric and he dominates the street in front of our house.
For a couple of months, he's been putting his chickens on the street, including the newborn chicks. Our cats aren't hungry, but love a snack to play with... so within a couple of days we saw our junior cat Leonardo grabbing a small chick.
Multiple times we've pointed out our neighbor's flaws directly, and he always reacts aggressively. We've asked someone to talk to him, and our neighbor's response was; we should keep our cats indoors.
Out of the 48 cats we've had here, 40 came from the south part of this small village.

It started slowly, just days after the dumb*ss put his chickens on the street. We hoped a quick cleaning of the whole downstairs part would be enough to stop it. But within 2 weeks we also started getting bitten ourselves with no cats nearby. Our house and garden got infected with fleas, all cats scratching, and not enough cash on hand to buy enough effective medication for the cats. We first placed 24 cats in the freshly cleaned living room and gave them a cheap (Thx Doc) heavy duty anti flea spot-on between the shoulder blades and kept them indoors for as long as possible (15 minutes to an hour). This worked a little bit, for a couple of days. We started researching and tried multiple effective tricks at the same time. We covered most rooms with diatomaceous earth, which kills most insects and larvae mechanically. The washing machine is running overtime. We're using bleach as much as we can, without affecting the cats too much. 

After 4 weeks of mainly cleaning, combing and putting diatomaceous earth everywhere, we finally feel like we've won.

 

Mona had a very hard time learning. We've had days where we had to drag her off the street again and again. Every time a car passed, she would just watch it zoom past her.
Because of our gruesome neighbor, we decided to keep Mona Lisa, her brother Leonardo, 3-legged Freya, Catherine and Madonna indoors most of the time and just let them out when we're nearby.
One late afternoon, we couldn't find Mona Lisa to lock her up, before the neighbors' goats returned home and "rush hour" traffic. We saw her playing outside late at night, but weren't able to catch her in the dark, so we left her outside.
Next morning she was dead, on the grass next to the street. Died from blunt force trauma, probably a car.
When we found her, the street in front of our house was, as usual, completely covered with cut grass to dry and be used as food for our *sshole neighbor's animals.

After Mona died, we strictened our regime of keeping young cats indoors. It's stressful for all and we're working on long term solutions, but it's better than dead or missing.
On a hot afternoon, we let Leonardo out, while we were gardening. He left the large cage for half an hour, came back, slept for an hour, cuddled with Natascha, ate a bit, walked off and an hour later couldn't be found anywhere.
We've searched for nights, checked all garbage containers, since that's where people here leave dead/wounded animals and shouted out for him for a week... but he never came home 🙁

MAY 2024 - Summer started early - Tupac suddenly died :'(

He wasn't around for a day and night, next day we found him in the roof of a shed.
He was meowing with his complain voice, so we checked what might cause pain. He seemed a bit weak and had been struggling with a gum infection, but we couldn't find a clear problem. We quickly made him a quarantine corner, which he rejected. He wanted a specific box. He didn't want to eat, probably due to the gum pain, but he gladly took some vitamin paste.
Since it was a national holiday and Natascha's tire was punctured, we couldn't risk driving to Plovdiv and everything nearby was closed.
Sadly he didn't survive the night. We don't know what caused his death, but we both feel this one hurts a bit extra.
Tupac was very special to us, first born to Pandora (MIA), brother to Beyoncé, Biggie and Snoop Dogg.
Born in Thijs' hands, buried next to Snoop Dogg.
When he was less than 1 year old, he survived Parvo, after sitting straight up for 10 days in the vet's quarantine cage. Saying 'Allo 'Allo loo loo loo to everyone who gave him attention.
He was strong, loved being hugged and brought home big rodents just to show off.
We'll miss ya, Toepiejoepie... we're sorry we didn't listen... say 'Allo 'allo to Snoop from us

April 2024 - Setting up NGO - Gardening

After some personal health issues, we've recovered and are finally looking to officially setup our Cat Sanctuary as an NGO. 

 

Nature has awoken in March, so tick season kicked in fast. Most of the basic gardening has been done, but it's tough working with so many cats running around. We're looking into the option of building a second outdoor cat cage in the front garden, connecting it to the other cage around back.

March 2024 - Lucifer missing - Tripod training

Lucifer went missing. He loves to wander the hills and valleys, about 500 meters east from here. He normally returns a couple of times per week, or we go and fetch him and he would react to his nickname Lucy. We've searched far and wide, but no matter how loud we yell his name, we can't seem to find him...

 

Training the Tripod, Freya, has started. After recovery from her amputation, we moved her cage to the cat room downstairs and Thijs extended her cage with some planks, giving her extra room while keeping her locked up. After getting used to the new environment, we opened her cage daily, giving her access to the closed off outdoor cat cage. In April we've started letting her outdoors, under supervision. She's doing perfectly fine and is a real three-legged acrobat.

February 2024 - Freya's bite

New arrival: Freya, brought in on Valentine's day by a neighbor, who told us she found the cat in her garden.
Her front paw is partly paralyzed. She's about 4 to 5 months old. Her growth is probably stunned due to herpes infection. Which also might've caused her paralyzed paw. 

Freya's first action was to bite Natascha's hand so hard and deep, Natascha had to get a Tetanus shot.
We've now placed her in big cage quarantine in Thijs' office. She's doing better, eating more than expected for such a small creature and not so scared of humans anymore. We'll plan a new vet date for her soon, to figure out how to fix her front paw.

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After X-rays and consulting a specialist, the decision was made to have Freya's paw amputated on 5 March.

January 2024 - Winter snow - 3 juniors neutered - Hera RESOCIALIZATION

Winter has been average for the region, giving us 5 to 10cm snow twice, loads of cold wind and mostly sunny during the short days. -5 to -10 C at night, peak day above freezing in the sun, just below freezing in the shade.

Most cats don't like the cold, which is also noticeable from their litterboxes...no more pooping outdoors. The younger ones like playing with the snow, but also to an extend. At nights, just a few cats persist to sleep in outdoor barns, in strategically placed boxes. But most cats, normally around 25 to 28, stay close to the heater indoors.

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Caesar, Leonardo and Ramses got castrasted! :) Which leaves us with a couple of balls on stray cats we can't catch and contain yet. Also, all cats have been dewormed over the last 2 months...always a tough but necessary job.

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Hera was one of the stubborn ones, staying outdoor all night. Since the birth of Heracles, she has been hesitant in receiving attention from humans, although we know she loves being cuddled. She doesn't like the amount of cats indoors, so we placed her in quarantine. This gives us the time and place to give Hera lots of attention in an attempt to re-socialize her.

December 2023 - Satan missing - Accidents happen & neutering must go on

Sadly, Satan has been missing since December 4th. He normally doesn't leave our garden much, so we fear the worst and are missing the hell out of him :'(

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Something really spooked Biggie downstairs. He pooped all over, started foaming at the mouth and was very aggressive and scared. After placing him in quarantine and checking up on him, nothing seemed wrong... we're guessing he got his tail stuck and hit a nerve... but he's all fine now.

Franklin got hit by a car on December 10th. The car honked and left, while we ran outside to pick him up. At first it looked awful, he was dirty and seemed in pain. After speeding to the veterinarian, a check-up and an anti-inflammatory injection, he was all better again. He puked out small portions of food twice (guessing due to concussion) and after that, all was fine again...

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A new visitor has entered our garden. We're guessing female, 5 years old and either Maine Coon or Turkish Angora, but she's very hesitant and not a big fan of the amount of cats... but she loves the food we offer her. She might belong to a neighbor, but has been visiting way more frequently and hungry. Since she looks like a lot like Pandora, but with a white locket, we've been calling her Fake-Pandora. Finally we decided on the name Aïsha, with reference to prophet Muhammad's third wife.

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Catherine, Franklin, Isis, Madonna and Mona Lisa joined "Team Neutered". Bringing our total to 31 cats neutered so far!

November 2023 - 2 new arrivals

Kitten Catherine, about 4-5 months old but very small, was being neglected by a neighbor. We noticed her brother and sister already "disappeared" and she wasn't doing too well. Now in quarantine, dewormed, eating, but still sickly. Vet check: just a heavy cold > antibiotics and keep warm.

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Franklin appeared under our car and stayed there for a day. At least 5 years old, he's a very nervous cat outdoors, but thus far gave no problem in quarantine. Now passed his cold and antibiotics, he's slowly being introduced to the rest of our "Castle".

August 2023 - Venus is missing :(

Sadly, during the long heatwave this summer, Venus went missing. With over 30 cats it's tough to keep track, so it took us a couple of days to notice she wasn't around anymore... we walked a lot the days and mainly nights after, searching for her... but she's still missing :(

Days later, Thijs made a magnetic whiteboard with all the cat's names. We're since then using daily. It's been named the 'Venus-board'

June 2023 - Kitten season clearly started

6 new kittens from different places:

Madonna, found by Natascha during a walk through the village, in very bad condition (herpes and a puncture wound), in a garbage container.

Leonardo and Mona Lisa, siblings, dumped at our doorstep.

Isis and Ramses, siblings, brought to us by Karlovo Cat Rescue. Severe herpes infection in the eyes.

Caesar, Natascha noticed he was trying to swim a nearby creek and not managing.

April 2023 - 2 new arrivals

Johnson and Kennedy, clearly brothers, are local strays we've seen walking around. They weren't looking very fit and were both hungry but afraid. We started feeding them on the edge of our garden and started making progress to socialize them towards humans and cats.

January 2023 - Starting website

Our cat sanctuary is still unofficial... we're working on it! :)
But we have a website - under construction