Miranda
Welcome, everyone, to my Talking Cats podcast. And hello to Maggie Roberts. Maggie, would you tell us a little bit about yourself, please?

Maggie
Hi, Miranda. Thank you for having me. Yes, I'm a vet. So I've been qualified for, oh goodness, over thirty-five years now, which makes me feel very old. Yes, I was one of those nauseating little girls who really wanted to be a vet. Being so young, I can't even remember what the age was. But when I was eight, a relative asked me if I still wanted to be a vet, so it was obviously prior to that. So I think pretty much as soon as I knew what one was, I wanted to be one. And I came from quite a scientific family and quite an academic family. So yeah, I did everything in my power to get to vet school and went to Edinburgh in the eighties to become a vet. Over my career, I've worked in private, small animal practice for many, many years, mainly in Portsmouth. But also I did a voluntary research project in Malawi on goat disease when I first graduated.

Miranda
Oh wow!

Maggie
A real life-changing experience. So I think I'm not sure our work was that brilliant. But I think living on a government-owned farm in Malawi for six months was just an amazing experience, and working with the local people and going out and examining their goats and taking blood samples and things and some of the people you know just never experienced anything like that. And even vets doing hands-on work was considered a bit weird because there were only six vets in the country at the time, and they sat behind desks. So they thought we were a little bit weird, but it was a brilliant experience. And I also went to Australia for a year and travelled around and did locums, which was again a fantastic experience. And I was mainly doing small animal work, but a lot of working dogs, which was quite eye-opening because obviously, the attitude in some of the Outback areas to working dogs is a bit harder, perhaps than some of the attitudes to dogs in the UK. And got to handle a little bit of native wildlife, which was very exciting. I was so excited when I got to deal with an RTA (road traffic accident) koala. Like some Australian locums, I worked with in Portsmouth, who were very excited when they saw a hedgehog! (laughter) Tiggy-Winkle. Yeah, and you know, an echidna and all sorts of things, so that was exciting, but you know, I have a bit of a travel bug and, and cats obviously, are my favourites. And I am fascinated by all cats, not just domestic cats; I would say one of my biggest thrills in life was seeing tigers in the wild. It was a fantastic privilege. But yeah, I've always been fascinated by cats. And I'm not quite sure where it came from. But I remember having a book as a child, and I don't even know whether it's a children's book or what, but it had a lot of information about cats explaining how they retract their claws and why their eyes shine in the dark. And I remember just being so fascinated by this. As much as I like dogs, I find them a bit too needy. I like the independence of cats. And I've always had that we always had cats in the family and not dogs, although apparently my grandfather, who died sadly before it was born, used to breed Airedales. 

Miranda
Oh wow!

Maggie
My mother said that he left school when he was 14 and, you know, wasn't terribly well educated, but she said he knew everything about dogs and lots about horses and probably if he'd had the opportunity, he'd have loved to have been a vet. There's definitely that.

Miranda
It was there in the background all along!

Maggie
It was in the background, and a lot of farmers as well in my background as well. So

Miranda
It's interesting you saying about, you know, preferring cats throughout because I was always dogs, I come from a very - well, we had all animals. We had dogs and cats, and I was always really dog-focused, and then only about ten years ago, I suppose when I first started understanding ... I've done TNR for a while, but really getting into it and really focusing on cats and yeah, now I'm team cat because do you know what? They're so much smarter than dogs! (laughter)

Maggie
Absolutely. I think that often people think that dogs are cleverer because you can train them. Isn't that sort of the opposite? You can train cats, yes, but obviously, it has to be about motivating them for what's good for themselves, and obviously, it all goes back to their evolutionary origin that the dogs obviously are a social species, they're a pack animal, they're in the wild, they need to be part of that social group whereas cats were solitary predators. You know, they came from these very barren areas in the Middle East and, and they had to defend that territory. And they were totally dependent on themselves, not others. So that's how they live their lives still. And I think we forget that a bit. And although they've become a bit more genetically selected, I suppose to be more tolerant of people; they still have all those characteristics and still don't want to be in the presence of lots of other cats and want to do their own thing.

Miranda
So that's how you got into your background to becoming involved in cats. So what's your sort of day-to-day workload?

Maggie
Well, I'm the Director of Veterinary Services for Cats Protection. And that means that now I don't really do any hands-on work. Obviously, I was in private practice for many years, about 18 years, so I have done an awful lot of hands-on with all species that could be pets, including a few exotics. But now, my role really is leading the charity nationally because it is a national charity. We have voluntary branches and adoption centres all over the UK. So my work really involves leading the veterinary, the welfare, the neutering and the education side of the charity nationally. So a lot of what I do really is management. It's developing strategy; we are actually putting a new strategy into place at the moment in Cats Protection, really, to look at helping cats more widely across the UK, not just the ones that we rehome or help to neuter. And I also represent the charity with a lot of external organisations trying to influence government by being part of various animal welfare groups, really to try and make that difference for cats on a national scale. So much as I don't do hands-on work very much, I feel probably in my role; I can do more to help more cats.

Miranda
You were talking about the strategy and the different work that you do because a lot of people will think about Cats Protection purely as adoption centres, so just cats in, cats out. But the organisation does do a lot of campaigning. And I noticed one of the campaigns was about the early neutering of kittens and it's teeny, tiny little babies! So, where did that come from? And how does everyone feel about it?

Maggie
Yeah, well, actually, there has been interest in early neutering, and by that, when mean really doing it before cats reach puberty, so it's doing it by four months of age. And certainly, they can be done younger. At some of our sites, we do them a week after the first vaccination, so when they're about nine weeks of age. But there's been interest in early neutering since the 70s, particularly in the US and Australia. And it was probably only in the last 20 years that there's been so much interest in the UK. And it's mainly started in the charity sector because research shows us that about three-quarters of litters of kittens in the UK are accidental. People are not deliberately mating them. They're just letting the Queens go outside, and they get caught. So if we really want to get a grip on the cat population, we have to be neutering more cats before they reach puberty. So we need to be neutering them really by four months. And certainly within the charity sector, if we can rehome cats that have already been neutered, then that takes a problem away. And although people have this sort of, I suppose quite anthropomorphic view, 'oh they're only babies, and we can't do that!', they're sort of teenagers if they're four months old. 

Obviously, they are not quite if they are, they're sort of more eight to 10 weeks old, but they actually recover much better than older cats; their metabolism is a bit faster at that age. So the anaesthetic gets metabolised more quickly. And so they actually wake up really, really quickly, particularly if you're using a good combination of drugs. And we sometimes will do mum with her litter of kittens on the same day, and mum takes two hours to properly be fully awake, and the kittens are up, you know, within half an hour eating. Obviously, with the young cats, there are some special considerations that you do have to think about, and one of the big things is about keeping them warm because kittens can lose heat much more easily. They can't control their body temperature as well as older cats, and it's really important to keep them warm. And also, they tend to get a drop in blood sugar (blood glucose). So it's really important you don't starve them for a long time before surgery, three hours maximum, and that you feed them as soon as they're awake. 

It's extremely safe. I mean, there was another bit of research fairly recently done via, I think, the RSPCA, David Yates, that showed that actually, there were fewer post-op problems with doing the young cats rather than older ones. And obviously, you know, if they haven't reached puberty, there's, you know, less development of the reproductive tract. So actually, much less likely to get bleeding and things like that. So actually, you know, the surgery is easy. And once people are used to the techniques, it's quick, it's easy, you get them up and out, and then we can home them and not worry about them causing a problem. It's something we really do push.

Miranda
So, I mean, it does look like there's a lot of benefits. I like the fact of, you know, if they're done when they're in the rehoming centre, then they just go. You don't have that reliance on checking up with the owner that they get them neutered further down the line. And that because that's when, when that's when the litters seem to happen. But, they aren't fully grown, and things aren't fully developed. So what about things like, um, the growth plates, and then their tiny bones and things? Is that not going to affect them when they get older?

Maggie
Well, certainly, I think, you know, we've done some work, trying to find out what the worries are that vets have about the procedure to see if we can sort of mitigate or, you know, explain to them why some of their fears are not justified. And one of the big worries is about the growth and the development are we going to affect that negatively. Both in terms of bone growth but also in things like the diameter of the urethra in the male. But in actual fact, growth hormone competes with the sex hormones. So if you actually reduce, remove the source of the sex hormones by, you know, you're spaying, and you're castrating them, then actually, the growth hormone doesn't have that competition, so they actually grow for a little bit longer. So they actually, in theory, get a little bit taller. 

Miranda
Okay!

Maggie
And people think they'll be stunted. But it's actually the opposite. And I always use the example of ... I don't know if people study the classics much anymore, but the Vestal Virgins in Rome were looked after by eunuchs, which basically castrated human males. And they were known to be tall because they were done when they were young. In actual fact, it doesn't make them massively taller, but it certainly does not stunt growth. And it doesn't; it does mean the growth plates close a little bit later. And sometimes people worry that that means that if they have a trauma, they're more likely to damage the growth plates. But this doesn't really seem to be an effect. And certainly, there's a much greater risk of having fractures by being an uncastrated male that is very territory, that wanders and gets hit by a car. The other thing is, I mentioned people were worried that the male cats were more likely to get blockages of the urinary system if the urinary tract wasn't as well developed, but actually, again, there's been studies that show that animals that are left completely entire and not castrated do have a slightly wider urethra. But if they're neutered, it doesn't matter what age they're done at, they end up with roughly the same diameter, and there's not a greater risk of blockage. So a lot of the things that people worry about are unfounded.

Miranda
What I hadn't realised which you mentioned was that this has been practised since the 70s. So you think of the generations of cats. That volume of cats that have been early neutered, and in that time span, and we would know just through that volume - if something bad was going on.

Maggie
Yes. Absolutely.

Miranda
Oh, that's really interesting. That certainly helps with some of my concerns. And, you know, people's concerns. People speak to me about this, and yeah, I guess it's a case of making sure that (and you touched on this) vets are confident during the surgery because obviously, the more you do it, yeah, the better it's going to be.

Maggie
Absolutely and we have a microsite of our Cats Protection website that's called Cat-Kind, and you can Google it. And there are lots of resources there - things like dose rates for anaesthesia and some videos to help people. There is quite a lot of information out there, and also, what we're trying to do is trying to influence the vet schools as well. To get the students taught the techniques so they feel more confident, and we do have students coming to us at our National Cat Centre clinic so that we can let them experience doing earlier neuters. We're trying to do what we can to help facilitate it rather than just telling people they should do it. Because obviously, people do want support, and they want to feel confident, and they want to see it, and they want to have a go with somebody who is experienced. And that's absolutely right.

Miranda
You mentioned about vaccination. And now, what about microchipping? Would you microchip them at the same time?

Maggie
Well, we can microchip at the same time as neutering because obviously, they're anaesthetised, and therefore they don't feel it. Although it's quite a big needle, it is a very sharp needle. It's a quick procedure. But if we can do it while they're unconscious, it is better. And I think particularly with the little ones because they can be a wee bit wriggly. We've started with some of our neutering schemes, where we provide financial support to people in need. We are supplying some chips now as well as doing neutering so they can be microchipped at the same time without extra cost to them.

Miranda
Yeah, I guess it makes sense, as you say, while they're anaesthetised. Okay, so another of the projects that I know Cats Protection have been involved with, and one that I find really interesting is the Cat Watch Project. Because we know there are a lot of unknown cats in the UK. But we haven't, you know, it's been really difficult to get a handle on exact numbers and what the different cats are doing. So is that sort of what this project is looking at? Or how does it work?

Maggie
Yes, I mean, no one really knows the total number of feral cats in the UK or unowned cats. There have been estimates in the past. But to be honest, they have literally been finger-in-the-air guesses. There's not really been really extensive research up until recently. And we are at Cats Protection developing a cat population model. And this really will be a model that we can feed bits of data into in terms of all the populations of all the different types of cats; the owned population, the shelter population, the feral population, so that we can sort of do a bit of modelling to see, you know, what percentage do we need to neuter to actually keep the population under control. We don't want to neuter cats out of existence; we don't want there to be no Moggies. But we want a balanced population, so the number of cats matches the number of good homes and suitable environments. So we really needed more data on the unowned and the feral population. So we started the Cat Watch Programme, and we started it in one area first in an area of Nottingham.

And mainly, we've chosen areas that are quite deprived where we know there are a lot of community cats and ferals and cats that are just wandering around those communities. No one owns them, although the community may sometimes feed them, etc. But we wanted to start doing counts. And so we've actually developed a system where we use citizen science. So we get the local people to help us do counts. And there's an app, and they can take a photo of the cat and do a GPS location. And also, we have staff who are doing counts as well. And we're using some complicated mathematical modelling because, obviously, some of the cats may not be stray, and some of the cats may have been counted several times. So we have a sort of mathematical model to, obviously, make sure that we're getting as accurate a figure as we can. And we're doing this in several different areas. And we've also done it in some less deprived areas just really to cover different demographics. And we have found not ... well, it's not really a surprise that there are many more cats in more deprived areas. So we've got now information from about six areas. And we've used the modelling, and we've come up with the first sort of scientifically worked out estimate of the urban feral and unowned population. And it's about a quarter of a million.

But our aim is to have figures and obviously to repeat those because the population changes all the time. We've got a report called Cats and their Stats, where we get information from cat owners. So we're also getting our own data from the owned cat population as well. We're going to do that every year because we want to do this in a really scientific way. Although we funded a few projects over the years. We're just really expanding. We are just in the process of recruiting some feline welfare scientists as well to develop our own cat welfare assessment tool to really assess the welfare of the cats in our care. So it's exciting times.

Miranda
So the, the higher volumes of cats in areas of social deprivation, you make the assumption that's because people haven't got the funds to get the cat neutered. But there'll be other things as well? Are there correlations you've made between social deprivation and volumes of cats? Is it as black and white as funds?

Maggie
So I think funds is a big part of it. But I think it goes beyond that. It's that some of the people just generally have incredibly chaotic lives. And somehow, they just don't get around to doing it. Or so a lot of them don't have transport or a cat carrier. So getting to the vet is a problem. And we all know it's a bit of a problem anyway; even if you have a carrier, cats aren't always greatly appreciative of it. But that's often been the case with some of the people we talked to because we've been neutering owned cats, as well as unowned in these areas. Because obviously, a lot of the community cats are really the offspring of owned cats, where the owned cats aren't neutered, and they go in, they have a litter in somebody's shed or whatever. And the cats aren't handled; they become feral community cats. A lot of the work is education, as well as actually physically trapping cats and collecting cats and getting them neutered. And also, we have had to build relationships so that people understand we're not taking the cats away to have them destroyed, you know, coming back or some of them may get rehomed, but a lot of them are returned to the communities.

Miranda
So some people would say, why return those cats back to the community? Why not neuter them, vaccinate them and put them in a homing centre and then they could be in someone's lovely home and having lots of cuddles, and they'll be safe. 

Maggie
Certainly, that's a question that we get asked a lot. And actually, not all of these cats are the same. They are not a homogeneous group. And some of the cats, even if they were perhaps born in someone's shed that have ended up being handled a lot, perhaps by kids or whatever, or they're strays that that did used to have a home, some of them actually are quite well socialised. So those ones we do actually find them a home. But some of them have not been socialised to a great enough degree to be happy living in a home. And we've got to really think about for each individual, what's the best outcome. And there are some people in the community who are really, really fond of them. And, you know, we've had some that have been real sort of what you'd call Six Dinner Sids, you know, where they actually wander around several homes. There was one that we that we came across where six families were feeding the cat. So we did neuter him and put it back, and then he became unwell. And actually, they clumped together and paid for his treatment. And sadly, he's no longer with us. But he was a great character - he had six different names as well. 

So for cats that are used to free-roaming, it can actually be really stressful if we confine them to a home. So it does very much depend on the degree of socialisation. And as I said, we have homed quite a lot of cats from the Project. We've been surprised how many have been actually quite socialised cats. But there are many that are not and, and we really have to think about what's best for the cats. And I think we have to remember that cats live in the moment. So they don't worry about bad things that might happen. They worry about bad things that are happening to them at the moment. So if they are confined, and they're not used to it and find that stressful, that means their life is bad at that time. So I think we have to appreciate what's going to give each individual the best quality of life. And you know, you've obviously done TNR work, and where particularly true ferals, we cannot socialise those cats once they're beyond the socialisation period. It is wrong to try and do so because we cause them so much stress and actually their free-living life, particularly if they're neutered, and perhaps there are feeders and people who are just sort of giving them a bit of care, their quality of life can be really good. And I think we have to not view this from a very human-centred point of view. Not all cats want to be cuddled and confined. So we really have to bear that in mind. But it is a case of looking at each individual cat.

Miranda
At any one time, you must have hundreds of cats available for rehoming. Do you know how many you have at any one time out?

Maggie
We reckon under normal circumstances because obviously it's been a bit different during COVID times, but we normally have about 6000 at any one time. 

Miranda
Wow!

Maggie
We normally rehome about - I mean, it's varied over the years, but between about 40 and 50,000 cats a year. We have about 2000 volunteer fosterers as well as our 34 adoption centres, but some people, because of being vulnerable etc., did stop fostering, and another problem we've had obviously has been vet capacity over the pandemic. So yeah, it's quite a big job. And without those volunteers, we couldn't do it without them because it would be unaffordable, really.

Miranda
But you as an organisation do have a lot of resources and funds compared to some of the little guys. And like, you do amazingly well rehoming cats, but I've seen your adverts and hear things and see things all the time. So you've got big marketing teams and stuff. So does that kind of make it more difficult for the smaller organisations to get their cats noticed? And rehome? 

Maggie
Yeah, it's an interesting thing. And I think; obviously, we're very, very lucky, we have a lot of resources. And, you know, we have a lot of really, really devoted supporters. And we also we get a huge chunk of our, our funds left to us in people's wills, that's almost half the money, we're obviously incredibly grateful to anyone who leaves us a gift in their will, or, or any supporter who does anything to help as well, we're really, really grateful. I think it's quite interesting with the whole smaller cat charities; some people who want to support a charity want to support a smaller charity that's local, that's helping local cats. And I suppose one of our advantages, as well as being national; we're actually local as well because we have lots of local branches. So often, people will want to give money directly to a local branch rather than to the central charity; even though we are one charity, we're not a federation. And obviously, we can give people who want to do rehoming a lot more support, because we can do training, we can help with resources in terms of pens, and food and all sorts of things. But obviously, people will make their own choice about that.

And I suppose what I would say is there are organisations like the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes, that if any organisation becomes a member, then they can benefit from the support of all the other organisations in terms of, you know, training and networking and support. And so I'd strongly recommend smaller charities to think about joining; there are standards that you have to meet. And I think that's very important because there is no point rescuing animals and taking them into care, and they end up being worse off than if you'd left them on the street. And believe me, I have seen some, where (and you must have done as well, Miranda), you know, where you wanted to go in and open the doors and let all the animals out because they were overcrowded, they were sick, they didn't have the right resources. They were never getting homed.

You know, we don't want cats to live in rescue organisations forever. So yeah, it's really important that we do support each other. And obviously, there is quite a lot of cooperative work, both between the larger charities because we do lots of projects with, you know, like the PDSA do some neutering for us. We work with the RSPCA on various schemes, etc. We actually do give some neutering vouchers for them to use for people that are local to them. The biggest problem is people not being able to say no, and they take on more than they have the resources to look after. And I know it's hard to say no. But it can easily get into a hoarding situation. And that is so not good for the cats and not good for the human usually as well. And if you should only have the number of cats that you can look after properly and that you can find homes for because what we don't want to do is basically warehouse animals for months and months and months. 

Miranda
The phrase I hear a lot is for people to do less, but do it better? You've mentioned a few things there that, yeah, you have to look at to try and do well, but it's a tricky thing.

Maggie
Yeah. You don't need masses of pens to rehome a lot of cats in a year. Because what you want to do is have them in care for as shorter time as possible so that you can actually have a lot of cats through each individual pen. But you've only got a limited number to look after at any one time, but also that you've only got a limited number to try and find homes. We don't want overcrowded facilities because obviously, that's highly stressful for cats. They don't want to be in an environment where loads of other cats (Miranda's dog woof in background!) they're all bringing their own bugs, and it's just an absolute recipe for getting infectious disease. We will sometimes help taking cats out of either hoarder's houses or people who started off as rescuers, but it's become a hoarding situation, and they nearly always have herpes virus and cat flu symptoms and ulcerated eyes. And, you know, there was one household, it wasn't a rescue, it's just a hoarding situation in Leeds where we took 60 cats out of a single house, and we had to remove 20 eyes.

Miranda
Gasp!

Maggie
Because of ruptured eyeballs because of herpes ulcers. So, you know, the respiratory viruses love a crowded, stressful situation. But there's lots of different reasons, I suppose, why people get in that situation, but some of them start off as rescuers, and they just become overwhelmed. They're overwhelmed, caregivers. And that's why I think it is really important that people, if they want to do rescue, that they do join an organisation like ADCH and they do do training. And they do form a network of people. So they're not on their own, they've got support, that if they are, for some reason, they become overwhelmed, or, you know, they have to take lots of cats in perhaps, there are other people they can reach out to - to help them.

Miranda
And the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes (ADCH), I know for a fact that it's a very supportive group. And if you don't even have to be getting into trouble, it may just be that perhaps you don't have many cats (laughter). And you can speak to another cat rescue and say, 'you know what, we've got more demand and not enough cats'. And as long as the distances aren't great, or sometimes cats don't even have to be transferred, it's just sharing, sharing potential adopters with people who have cats, and you're not giving your cats to anyone else. You're just sharing resources of possible homes.

Maggie
It is much better if we all collaborate and help each other. And, and yes, it might be if you've got spaces, other people might need them. And, you know, there's things like a Facebook page for ADCH, and often people will just ask questions. I was on it last night because someone was asking about, you know, whether they could provide quarantine for the pets of Ukrainians entering the UK. And I've been on some calls along with some other charities with DEFRA are about it. So I can put some information on there to help people. So there's lots of ways in which, you know, just in terms of people having questions, you know, and they have a lot of open meetings. So and I think with the conference that's being planned for the autumn, I'm not sure that we've got the dates yet, but we're going to run a cat stream.

Miranda
Well, I can link to the bottom of this podcast for anyone that's interested.

Maggie
Yeah. And certainly, if anyone has questions, they're really welcome to contact Cats Protection. And you know, if you're actually working with cats, then you can email our veterinary department if that will be helpful, which is veterinary@cats.org.uk, and we're always happy to help. 

Miranda
So just rounding up a bit. We've talked about cat populations and various other welfare issues. But do you have a main concern for cats or cat owners today?

Maggie
The general cost of living increase is a real worry that people may find that they are struggling to actually provide adequately for their pets. So that is a concern. So that's something that, as an organisation, we are thinking about how we can support cat owners because part of our new strategy will be where we can we want to try and prevent people from having to give up their pets. Because sometimes they have to do for reasons that they don't they don't want to, it's perhaps a change in their own circumstances. The other thing is vet capacity. This is a really big issue in the UK, and they were problems brewing up really well before the pandemic with poor retention within the profession. There's a lot of stress and burnout, and people weren't staying in the profession for as long as perhaps they had in the past for all sorts of reasons. But then, with the COVID pandemic, that really exacerbated that. Ways of working had to change; there were government restrictions on what could be done. So there were massive backlogs with people having to see pets in the back of cars in car parks, that with restricted numbers because of team members going down with COVID. And also, there was the knock-on effect of Brexit. Because there's a lot of European vets who work in the UK, who were still allowed to continue working but were made to feel less welcome. And so masses and masses of them left, and very many fewer are registering. So the capacity for vets has decreased, and those that are working in practice are getting more stressed, and more of them are leaving, and the number of people with pets has increased during the pandemic. Our data suggests there's an extra 600,000 cats in the UK.

Miranda
Wow!

Maggie
And there aren't the vets to do them. A lot of them are closing their books and not taking on any new clients, but also, as a rescue organisation, we're struggling to get as many cats neutered. So I think the vet capacity is a massive issue. The other thing I think is a real problem is that - I mean, it's great that increasingly people see their pets as part of the family. And I think that's good. But in some cases, it's being taken to a real extreme, where people are talking about their Fur Baby or being a Pet Parent. And they're really being very anthropomorphic. They are seeing their pets really in a very human way. And actually, this can be really harmful because the welfare needs of cat is very, very different from humans. You know, they've evolved as a completely different species; their needs are different. And so trying to impose a very sort of human view on them is actually really bad. Simple things like people dressing their pets up, particularly cats. It's bad for dogs as well, unless it's just a sensible coat. But for cats, it's restrictive; it's awful. It leads to people not really understanding them or understand them even less than perhaps they did in the past. So I think that's a real worry. And we really need to get people back to understanding cats as a species, but also the whole thing about fashion and wanting what's fashionable. So, you know, some breeds become fashionable. And so we see, you know, more flat-faced cats, more hybrids because they look exotic, but they're not always good for welfare. And the whole, I must have something now so that if people can't instantly get a kitten from a rescue organisation, they go online, and they don't always know what they're getting so, and they might get sick, under-aged kitten and pay lots of money for it. So I think there's a lot of issues, and the changes that have happened in the world recently really exacerbated those.

Miranda
Well, those are really interesting points, but slightly doom and gloom! So let's just change tack slightly. And I know for a fact that you've worked with cats for many years and seen many sights and scenes and different scenarios. You must have some funny experiences or stories to share with us. Would you mind?

Maggie
Yes, of course. I mean, several. I had a client once who had lost her cat, not died; it was lost. And she found it again and brought it in and asked me why its teeth looked different. And when I looked at the records, her category, the chinchilla version, and this was a white Persian, and I said, I don't think this is because he had terrible Persian teeth, and it was castrated and her cat, we'd castrated it, but she was convinced this was her cat. She kept it, and then, of course, her original cat turned up, so she just kept both of them. And luckily, they got on. In the end, I just said, Okay, right. If that's what you think? But I really don't think it is. It's grown its testicles back, and it's changed colour. But yeah, yeah. All right.

Miranda
Well, Maggie, thank you so much for your time. It's been great talking to you. That's lots and lots of interesting information in there. And you've answered a lot of questions that I'm asked frequently.

Maggie
We've all got to keep learning. You know, science helps us to improve all the time, and we can never whoever we are working with animals, we can never sit on our laurels.

Miranda
Well, again, thanks so much for your time. It's been fantastic talking to you.

Maggie
I enjoyed it. I can talk about cats all day. 

Miranda
Thank you.