Dubai resident is looking for a home for herself – and her 26 cats

A cat rescuer in Dubai is appealing for help because she is having to leave the accommodation where she lives with her 26 animals.

Cynthia Lao, a 56-year-old from the Philippines, is trying to find people who could adopt or look after the cats, which have been rescued from the streets of Dubai.

Ms Lao, who works as a nanny, maid and driver, said that she could not afford to stay in the shared villa in Jumeirah 1 where she has been living after a friend who covered part of the rent moved out.

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She said that the current situation could force her to release some of the cats back on to the streets, a situation that “breaks my heart”.

“Most of them were rescued from the streets around Satwa Road, Dubai, some from Al Wasl Park or around Al Bada'a,” she said.

One option Ms Lao has considered is finding a farm that could take the cats, although she said on a previous occasion when some of her cats were rehomed on a farm, the cats appeared to have disappeared. As a result, she is not confident that another farm would provide a safe long-term home for her animals.

She said that she was being “forced out” of her rental property because she cannot afford to cover the monthly rent of Dh4,300 on her own.

“I used to share with a friend for years, but my friend has left,” she said. “I was paying a higher portion because of the cats, but at least [the former roommate] had no problem with cats. It is hard to find someone to share a space that accepts cats.”

Temporary support, but no long-term solution

A friend has helped her to cover the additional cost of staying in the property on her own until the end of this month, but Ms Lao said that this was not a permanent solution.

So far, she said that she had been unable find suitable accommodation, with her large number of animals making the search for a new home particularly difficult.

As a result, she is looking for people who could adopt any of her cats or foster them temporarily while she tries to resolve her accommodation issue.

“It would break my hard to put them back on the streets,” she said of the cats, which include 22 healthy and vaccinated cats and kittens, and four that are undergoing veterinary treatment.

Ms Lao, who can be contacted through Facebook, has lived in Dubai since 2009 and initially fed stray cats before, in 2011, she began to rescue them.

“I rescue and treat cats because I cannot just ignore them if I see them suffering,” she said.

If she could keep one...

Given the difficulty of finding shared accommodation where she could keep any cats, Ms Lao is looking to rehome all of her animals, although she said that if she could keep one, it would be a male tabby cat called “Jego”, because “he’s so attached to me”.

Among the other cats Ms Lao has are Fido, who is white and tabby, Fuji, who is ginger, and Celine, a tabby.

The UAE has a large population of street cats, but many experience injury and illness. There is an active community of rescuers, although many struggle with the cost of veterinary treatment.

A proportion of street cats are thought to be former pets who have been abandoned, sometimes, rescuers have said, because owners cannot afford to keep them or are unable to take them with them when they leave the UAE.

Several hundred UAE former cats, at least, are rehomed abroad each year, with many travelling to countries such as the UK and Germany.