Bengal Rescue

Bengal Rescue now accepts Credit Cards / Apple Pay / Google Pay!

Today we have fully integrated Zeffy - an encrypted donation platform solution that allows us to accept credit card donations - directly - with no donation platform fee that reduces the total donation.

With the Zeffy platform, Bengal Rescue can now accept payments via:

Credit cards
Apple Pay
Google Pay
Bank Transfers
Click the link and check it out!

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/donate-to-bengal-rescue

We really appreciate all who have donated and River thanks you from the bottom of his patient and loving heart.

We still are $5,000.00 short of our goal so we'd appreciate any amount that you can possibly give.

From House of Horrors to Hope - in Just One Week

Remember Harvey from Texarkana, TX? We posted him urgently, only a week ago.

-Harvey was pulled from a HOUSE OF HORRORS. He, along with two other domestic cats were the soul survivors.

-The house was FILTHY and filled with deceased animals (cats, lizards and snakes!!). Everyone was completely malnourished and Animal Control determined that they died of starvation.

-The owner was arrested, and the living cats who remained were immediately attended to.

It’s only been a WEEK since Harvey (now Orion) has been in the loving company of one of our very most experienced foster families. We knew that they would know exactly what to do to help this shut down terrified cats learn to CAT.

You don’t need words to understand. We think the photos say it all.

ONE WEEK.

That’s all it’s taken to see Orion leave the horror of his past behind him.

But we won’t tell the story - we’ll let our foster do so.

‘We picked up Harvey/Orion and brought him into our home last Wednesday.

Initially, he found every tiny, dark, hiding spot he possibly could, and if he sensed any movement, he would freeze up absolutely terrified, and then eventually find a different tiny, dark hiding spot to try not to be discovered.

Luckily, we’re pretty good at knowing the kitty accessible hiding spots in his “home introduction space” (many of them are even there by design), and we made sure he had access to food, water, and litter boxes in places he felt safe and secure.

He stayed in hiding for 4 days, slowly building up his courage little by little under the cover of darkness at night, and then on day 5, at 4:00 in the morning, I awoke to find him sitting on top of the cat tree, out in the open!

He explored the room, relatively confidently all things considered, for about 45 minutes and then ran back under the bed. Later that day he started to poke his little face out at me intentionally to cautiously say “hi!”, and eventually, a few hours later as I was sitting in the bed getting some work done, he came all the way out during the daytime, made eye contact with me, and posed for a picture!

From that moment on, he started exploring more and more during the daylight hours, and he now officially has a favorite spot on the cat tree where he likes to hang out.

My next step is getting him to take treats from my hand. At this point, he doesn’t run away if I place them right in front of him, and he smells my hands and lets me pet him, and then he will eat them eagerly after I take a few steps away, so the trust is definitely building.

Showing an abused and neglected cat that humans can be trusted is a slow, gradual process, and I absolutely do not want to rush it.

He has been eating, drinking, and using his litter box like a champ, and he doesn’t show any hostility towards me (he just doesn’t really want to be picked up — but neither do a lot of Bengals).

He has made absolutely incredible progress in a remarkably small amount of time for everything that he has been through, and I can’t wait to see how far he will go with love and patience on his side.”

We are grateful to the Texarkana Animal League for reaching out to us and trusting us to give this boy everything we have to learn to love and to trust. We hadn’t worked together before and we are thrilled to show them with Orion’s progress, exactly what we’re capable of.

Love is a powerful thing! We absolutely owe it all to our stunningly patient and talented foster family, who just made all the difference in the world!

So many people love the wild look and active / curious nature of the Bengal cat breed. But looks aren’t everything! Unfortunately, not EVERYONE can handle how challenging Bengals can be.

🎤 The Pop Star / Opera Singer Edition 🎤

Do you like LOUD screaming?

Do you enjoy being woken up by that in the middle of the night?

No???

😹 Perhaps a Bengal isn’t the right breed for you. 😹

Not ALL Bengals are loud. But the loud ones - they are LOUD. They literally SCREAM! For fun!

Over the years we’ve had three scenarios:

Scenario One.

Bengals who scream for fun, and their owners don’t mind. These are cats that have plenty of stimulation, Catification, and daily / frequent play time. In the end, they’re screamers. They love it!

Scenario Two.

Bengals who scream, the family is sick of it, so they surrender to us. Yet in their foster home - they DON’T scream. Which tells us that there was something going wrong in the home. Usually it’s due to lack of stimulation. Bengals are EXTRA. Most people don’t realize that what a person “thinks” is enough play - it isn’t even close.

Scenario Three.

Bengals who don’t scream. At all. We get MANY of those.

This series is intended to share the good, the bad, and the mayhem of being owned by a Bengal.

Be prepared - for anything!