I have been running Portsmouth Cat Sitting for 14 years now and people often ask how it all started? It started when two lovely older cats Tam and Giz came into my life. When I met my husband I was a dog person (shoosh! don’t tell any cats), but hubby was a cat man and had a wonderful old cat called Tiger. I instantly fell in love with Tiger and after she passed away we decided to adopt a kitten from the RSPCA. Well after looking for a kitten, we saw two 12 year old tabbies who had been in the rescue centre for 4 months! My hubby wasn’t keen as he was worried they wouldn’t be around for long as they were getting on in years, but I loved them straight away,(well one of them, the other one was hiding). We went home to think on it and if they were still there the following week we would have them.
When we returned they were still there! I was so excited! My husband fell in love with Giz, she was shy but had the most beautiful face we had ever seen on a tabby. She was also very large and needed to go on a diet if she was ever going to squeeze into the catflap! Tam was her sister and was a little slimmer, she came with loads of catitude and I bonded with her straight away. After waiting a week for a home check, we took them home. Tam settled in straight away but Giz took much longer and hid in the conservatory for about a month but would come out for her meals (no surprise there).
One occasion when we were going on holiday we had problems finding family or friends to cat sit and eventually had 3 different people covering the cat feeding and I worried about them when we were away. I then had this idea that someone could start a business in Portsmouth doing cat sitting. I would be happy paying someone to pop in to see my cats everyday and check they were ok and fed. It would be peace of mind while away. If I would be happy paying, surely other people would too?
So the seeds of my business were sown and I later left my job and set up Portsmouth Cat Sitting. My two darling cats were my inspiration and I think of them everyday and thank them for my wonderful job. The cats were 12 years old when we adopted them, we would never know how long we would have them for, Tam lived until she was 19 and Giz was 23!!! She never did lose all the weight but she did use the catflap! RIP my girls xxxxx

