24/07/2026
Hello Smile family!
Many of you come to the cattery and say, 'i'd love a job like this', 'you have the best job in the world ' etc etc. Well now's your chance. We need someone, or a couple of people, to work as a Cattery Assistant (Cat Slave) with us, someone who can double up with us on our busiest days. We also need someone, or two, or three, who can be able to take the reins on quieter days when only 1 of us needs to be on duty. We fondly call ourselves number 1's and number 2's. (Unfortunate associations with that I know, but it's happened!).
We are open 9-11am and 4-6pm every day of the week, 365 days a year. We generally start work, in the busy season, at 8am and 3pm so that we can sort the lovely gifts that our pusscats spend precious time making for us overnight and prepare/serve their meal choices.
Qualifications for the job? You need a PhD in cat loving and cuddling. You need a resilience to the accompanying pong to the above gifts. You need skin as thick as old leather for those times when our lovely pusscats sink their murder mittens in and chomp on our soft hairless skin because they don't know how to swear in English. You need to be patient and calm and open to whatever pusscat needs at any given moment which may change dramatically within a nano second, because they can. You need to just be you and work for our Masters. You need to be able to think on your feet and learn about each pusscat, watch for any signs of unhappiness or illness, identify time for play, time for loves, time for go away and leave me alone and so on. You need to be empathetic towards those older and/or not quite so well pusscats that struggle with their days to day needs. The list is endless. We need all of that and more! Whatever they need they get!
Just be aware it's not all cuddles, snuggles and playtime, it's hard work. Quite physically demanding in most parts with the day to day cleaning, litters, deep cleans, hoovering (which can be a blinking nightmare when pusscat furball x 20 decides it's time to moult, again, for the third time this year) and also the upkeep of the communal areas including the back yard and outside areas. The squirrels and birds are waiting for their treats too!
You also need to be good at dealing with our humans! They all have special needs, even the ones that come in and make out they're not bothered and don't care. These humans are giving us an enormous amount of trust. They want us to be their stand in slaves and love their pusscats. They also don't want us to be their stand in slaves because they get jealous, worry their masters will love you more, that they'll forget them, not want to come home and a million other emotions. All valid. We need humans that can deal with that and reassure, love, care for these cat slaves. Anything that they want they can have, whatever they need they can have, anything. We've never been asked for anything that we can't do, so we need a yes person who wants to help the humans go away and enjoy their holiday. Also someone to support their emotional needs when pusscats are staying with us for other reasons not just times for celebrations and holidays.
We need cover, as a number 1 or 2, mostly in the mornings but afternoons can also be very busy with ins and outs, deep cleans, admin catch up etc etc. We'll talk money as and when but we will pay on a self employed basis, you work the hours, we pay you, you do your own thing for the tax man as you wish. We'll schedule you in advance for days/shifts you can work then we'll mess you around and change them as Furball Doe and every other cat that day has changed their minds. We need flexibility as sometimes the cats slaves need a hand sorting out their comings and goings and we'll always try to help where we can.
There's so much more but a lot of you already know as we're only advertising within our Smile family as such, you know what we do, how we do it and why.
Be in touch, we'd like a couple of new people up and running as soon as possible so that our current slaves can slow down a little. Ideally email, text, WhatsApp, we're too busy to be answering the phone most days. We'll get straight back in touch with you and arrange for you to pop in and have a chat, see what sort of commitments you have and see where you could fit in. Only over 18's please up to 99+!
Message any questions that you have and no don't ask, you can't take any of them home! 😹😻
