Hannah McLaren©This year’s National Cat Awards finalists have been chosen and among them is a wonderful cat who eases the nerves of school pupils by keeping them company when they’re upset.
Every year, Cats Protection run a series of awards to honour the UK’s favourite felines.
It’s a celebration of all the outstanding cats who have impacted our lives in one way or another
This year, there are are four National Cat Awards categories: Connected Cats, Family Cats, Senior Cats and Incredible Cats.
Here are some of our favourite finalists.
Cilla takes care of primary school pupils in Warwickshire
In the National Cat Awards ‘connected cat’ category, our favourite finalist is Cilla.
Around six years ago she showed up at Outwoods Primary in Atherstone as a stray and she appeared hungry, thin and tired. She was such a regular that the school decided to take her in and give her multiple beds – six, in fact, dotted throughout the school so she can effectively do her rounds.
12-year-old Cilla is a calm and loving cat who is considered a friend to staff, pupils and parents alike. She is even a little bit famous. The school tweets daily from a X (Twitter) account to a community of over 25,000 cat lovers.
On her birthday, Cilla’s love and care was returned to her and the school. Her social media fans came together to kindly gift £5,000 worth of books to restock the school library.
I volunteer to do any job in class, but I do draw the line at getting the chairs down.
The little people can do that themselves.#catsoftwitter #cats #Hedgewatch #CatsOnX pic.twitter.com/Tw1Ecd1xxT— Cilla the Outwoods Cat – Priscilla Outwoods (@OutwoodsCat) July 11, 2024
Sally Taylor, headteacher, said: “Cilla is very intuitive and always knows where she needs to be, with an anxious pupil or waiting in the hall for our Years 6s to arrive during SATs week. Stroking her calmed them down before their tests. Every morning when I arrive at school she is waiting to greet me which gets my day off to a lovely start. Then she hangs out with the pupils, in classes, during breaks and even on the football pitch during matches.
“Cilla has six beds including two in her favourite place, the library, and at night she sleeps in one of the classrooms with a cat flap so she can come and go. Our pupils are very calm and that’s down to Cilla. They know school is a safe place because she chooses to live here. She’s the first name on our staff list, ahead of me, and that’s well deserved.”
Lily may be young but she’s already parenting like a pro
One of the ‘incredible cats’ nominated for the National Cats Awards is the lovely Lily.
After a family death, Rachel Lockhart who is a mother of three – Zayn, nine, Reeva, six, and Harlow, three – decided they could use a pet and chose Lily from a local litter.
Lily was just a big ball of kitten fur, and even though she’s now only one year old, she has fully taken on a motherly role.
Rachel said: “Lily is three quarters Maine Coon and beautiful inside and out. When she was a kitten, she looked like Marie from The Aristocats and now she’s like Duchess. She shares Duchess’s love of music too, gracefully walking along the piano keys, picking out tunes with her paws. When Lily joined our lives, I’d just lost a relative and Harlow had been diagnosed with epilepsy.
“Lily is so attuned to Harlow’s needs. Her epilepsy takes the form of absent seizures during which she blanks out for a few seconds. Afterwards, Lily sits with her, providing comfort.
“She also instinctively knows how to help Zayn who has ADHD and autism. When he’s stressed, Lily calms him down by pressing her paw on his head.
“And Lily’s best friend is Reeva, she sleeps at the bottom of her bed. We are so lucky to have her caring for us all.”
Dave is a lover and fighter after overcoming a serious injury to live a long and full life
Dave, or Miss Dave Mittens to use her full name, is a bionic 21-year-old cat who has spent a lifetime with owners Tom Witney and Greville Matthews.
She is a finalist in the Senior Cats category of this year’s National Cat Awards.
As a tiny stray kitten, Dave broke her leg falling from a window. She was fixed back together with a metal pin and the pair adopted her.
Tom said: “Now, at the grand old age of 22, she still perches on my shoulder like a parrot. Grev is a circus performer so acrobatics runs in the family.
“The secret of Dave’s long life, I think, is good moggy genes and how well she has trained Grev and me. The pitch of her meow is slightly higher when she wants food or a fuss and we respond to her demands immediately.
“She looks after us too. Grev works some evenings, so she sees me to bed and then waits up for him. When I was working long hours at home on my PhD thesis, she slept between my hands as I typed. I thanked her for keeping me company in my acknowledgements. We love her so much.”
Cast your votes over on the Cats Protection website
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Hannah McLaren I've worked at DC Thomson for six years! I began as an intern at My Weekly and The Scots Magazine, which was extended by a few months to help out at The People's Friend. I then covered maternity as Celebrity Editor for My Weekly, before I became Multimedia Journalist at The Scots Magazine. Currently I'm writing digital content across each title.
