Herne Bay cat cafe calls on customers to support furry friend

The Cosy Cat Cafe is asking for £5000 to help their kitten, Trixie. Zeenia Naqvee reports.

Transcript

00:00She may look like your usual feline, but Trixie, who lives in Herne Bay's cosy cat cafe, is

00:06unwell.

00:07The playful kitten is normally running around the shop, but has gotten much more coy since

00:12she fell ill around three weeks ago.

00:15Cat nanny Mel says the eight-month-old has FIP, a hard-to-diagnose disease that's caused

00:20by a mutated strain of feline coronavirus.

00:23Six years ago, if a cat was diagnosed with it, it was considered kind of end of life

00:29basically because there was no kind of known cure, and even kind of now, if a cat is diagnosed

00:35with it, in certain cases, unless treatment kind of begins almost immediately, it can

00:42still kind of unfortunately take hold of them pretty quickly and be fatal.

00:46As the 84-day treatment is still quite new, it costs up to £5,000, so Cosy Cat have set

00:51up a GoFundMe as they can't afford these bills.

00:54Cafe owner Chris explained that this is not Trixie's first time facing hardship.

00:59She was found on Mother's Day by a member of the public, together with her five siblings.

01:03Sadly, they were born in torrential rain.

01:06Trixie had to be resuscitated.

01:08I noticed that Trixie's behaviour had changed.

01:12You know, she wasn't the usual cat with the bushy tail, you know, her tail up in the air.

01:18She just became quiet and started to hide.

01:21Her character changed.

01:23Quite lethargic, not herself at all, sort of retreating, tail down, ears down, just

01:28not looking great, genuinely.

01:30So along with her brothers, they were just, yeah, guaranteed to bring absolute chaos to

01:34the cafe daily.

01:35When she first came in as a kitten, she was the life soul of the party, and we thought

01:39she'd be the boss.

01:40She was a little bit anxious when she first came downstairs, but that's changed a bit.

01:47She's found it more difficult recently, since she's been poorly, to want to be part of things.

01:52In fact, today is one of her better days, and she's been downstairs a lot, and she's

01:55been playing, and it's been really good, so the medication she's on is obviously helping

01:59a bit.

02:00The Cozy Cafe has been open for over five years.

02:02There are 13 cats in total, and all of them come from local rescue centres here in Kent.

02:09We just really want Trixie to get well.

02:10We're just hoping that, you know, when we get test results next week, that it's all

02:16positive, that hopefully, you know, we can start on her treatment, and she makes her

02:20full recovery.

02:22Zinia Nakvi for CAME-TV in Herne Bay.