Dear Friends and Supporters,
It is with the greatest pleasure and gratitude that I welcome my dear friend, Maslinda Abdul Talib, on board as one of AnimalCare’s Authors!
Maslinda needs no introduction in the cat caring community. She has been rescuing and caring for cats for a very long time and we have had the pleasure of providing our neutering, medical and food aid to share in her caregiving efforts for many years now.
I will always take my hat off to Maslinda, not only because she is such a dedicated cat rescuer, but she is also a cancer thriver. She has been “thriving” on two types of cancers since 2006 and during this time, I have never ever seen or heard her complain or lament about it. Instead, I only hear about her giving swimming and scuba-diving lessons, teaching CPR and doing corporate training programmes. And of course, rescuing cats! And when I’m stuck with IT-related issues, Maslinda will always be there to lend a hand.
Welcome on board, Mas! It is our honour to have you as one of our authors.
Here is Maslinda’s self-introduction to all of you!
Walking down memory lane: ‘A rescued female cat spayed’
This is the title under which my name first appeared in this blog around 12 years ago, on the 7th of March 2011.
The picture below is Bell, my first ‘official connection’ with MyAnimalCare & Dr Chan, and here is the link:
https://animalcare.my/2011/
My first contact with Dr Chan was on 22 February 2011. Over these years, I have had around 521 email conversations with Dr Chan in regard to animals (mostly cat topics). I’m forever grateful for the assistance offered to me by Dr Chan and MyAnimalCare.
When Dr Chan invited me to become a contributor to this blog, I was and still am deeply honored, but at the same time, I felt thrilled. The reason is that I do write sometimes, but I have never written about what I do every day being Mami to my furkids. The first question I asked was, “Is there a monthly quota on how many articles I need to write?” Dr Chan said no. Phewww.
Then Dr Chan asked me to give an introduction of myself. This is even worse. I totally have no idea how to introduce myself to all of you esteemed readers of the blog. For work purposes, yes I have the usual introduction, but for this blog’s readership, I need to think a bit.
Ok, so here it is.
I was born and grew up in PJ, but now reside in Ampang with 11 furkids plus another cat mommy. I always remember the first cat that I had. I don’t remember exactly what age I was at the time, probably between 6-7 years old. Her name was Comel. Her color was quite unique. It was not brown like a Siamese cat, but more like Perang Berkilat. If you get what I mean.
Then she gave birth to two male kittens. One was named Cemey (because he has a smaller left eye), and the other one was Tom. I’m not sure why we called him Tom. He must have been handsome, and I figured he needed a Mat Saleh name. Too bad I don’t have their photos.
I have a vague memory of when we kept having more cats in the house. But on the first day of Ramadan this year, during buka puasa at my sister’s home, I invited one of my colleagues to join us. We chatted, and the topic of cats emerged. My sister shared that we have always had cats at home. First, it was my brother who took them in (before Comel). Then, starting from my first ‘rescue’ Comel, it’s always been me who keeps on ‘kutip kucing’.
My sister even recalled times when I’d go to the market and happily bring cats home by carrying them in my shirt and giggling when my mom said yes. Actually, my sister does too, it’s just that for all the cats she notices that need help, I’m the one who physically goes and picks them up. So for her, it doesn’t count as her rescues but mine!
So these are some of my earlier memories of having cats. My mother and sister do the majority of the work taking care of them in terms of feeding and cleaning. My father even built a few cats’ houses at one point of time. I think I only started to become a fully functional ‘Kakak Kucing’ during my teenage years. Now that I’m older and ‘sedar diri’, I call myself Mami (Mommy) and they are all my furkids.
Hi everyone, I’m Mas and I hope to ‘see’ all of you more often after this. Thank you Dr Chan for the opportunity.
The pleasure and honour are ours, Mas!