We were asked to take a lovely lady cat called Becky into rescue when her elderly human sadly died.  It struck us when she arrived that she was a rather large and muscular lass, but she was grieving and it had been a big upheaval for her, so we didn't say anything to her about it.  She cried quite a bit in the night at first  and we thought she had a rather deep and loud voice, but again thought nothing of it.   After a few days, she was having a wash during a snuggle session, and revealed the information that she wasn't actually Becky at all.  We've renamed him "Beckett" and  have no idea how long he'd been passing as a lady cat.

UPDATE: Beckett is now reserved for adoption.

He's been to the vet and had a health check, no apparent health issues.  He'd already been neutered but has now also been mircochipped and had a complete course of  vaccinations.  

Despite the gender confusion, he's been a typical soft tom cat.  He loves his cuddles and comes to sit on my lap the moment I sit down in his bedroom.  He purrs and snuggles until I have to move.  He's been used to being an only cat in his previous home so would probably prefer that.   He's not been used to being around children, and COVID issues mean we haven't been able to introduce him to any whilst in rescue.  However his nature suggests that he would be fine with sensible kids who knew how to treat animals with respect.  

He'd probably fit pretty well into any household who were happy to have a big lump of fluff on their laps for a decent amount of time each day.  He might do best with either someone who is good at photography and get can nice photos of black cats, or someone who just loves to cuddle and doesn't care about the photos ;) 

He'll need to be kept securely indoors for at least FOUR weeks when he arrives in his new home, until he's settled.  After that he's been used to being able to go outdoors so will need a nice safe garden to explore, well away from any busy roads.  We strongly recommend that you keep cats indoors during hours of darkness, with access to a litter tray, for their own safety and your peace of mind.  Black cats are particularly at risk of being of road accidents when it's dark.

All our adoptions come with four weeks free insurance through Pet Plan.

If you think your home might be the right one for Beckett please contact us at [email protected].   We always homecheck prior to adoption and ask a minimum donation of £75 for a neutered adult cat.

There’s more about our adoption process here: http://www.8livescatrescue.org/adoption-process.html .  Please note that the web page details our process prior to COVID and we are currently needing to adapt the process in order to manage adoptions safely for the humans as well as the cats.  Our homechecks will be done virtually on Zoom and it will not be possible to come to meet the cats in purrson.  The blog post on the Cat Chat website gives some idea of what adaptations to expect in the adoption process since COVID: https://www.catchat.org/index.php/blog/1847-covid-19-adapting-adopting

You’ll find more photos and stories  here: https://8livescatrescue.wordpress.com/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/8Lives/   There's a blog specifically about him here: https://8livescatrescue.com/2020/10/06/beckett-building-a-cv/