Black Cats and Breaks

We got some lovely new pictures of Gil and Coral in their new foster home. One of our many black kitties this year, Coral is such a friendly cat! It looks like she and Gil are enjoying their new place. On the subject of black cats, Louise’s crew are doing well…a few typical ongoing health issues regarding their URIs but all are friendly. Haven’t seen the two new little ones that couldn’t be caught at this crew’s rescue site, but 5 adult cats have since been sighted there–all of the cats and kittens entirely black. This makes an incredible number of all black cats that we’ve rescued or helped this year. We’ve made another special appeal to try to drum up more interest in adopting one of these kitties, and Louise is thinking of planning an event for Halloween, with a black cat theme.

We’ve been getting regular requests for help with kittens…the end of September and early October always brings the second big influx. We’ve had to scale back our efforts, focusing only on people willing to do some part of the work themselves. Unfortunately, most often people just want us to take the kittens into the shelter immediately. But, with so little shelter support it isn’t possible, as doing so creates more work than we physically have time for, and puts the kitties already in our care at risk. This past week a woman called, whose husband had found 3 young kittens (5 or 6 weeks old) outside the building where he works. Since they were willing to borrow a cage and keep the kittens in their home until we could find another placement, we went out and helped to round up the kittens. They’d already caught 2, but the 3rd was hiding out in an equipment disposal area. I’d nearly given up hope finding such a small animal (which did NOT want to be found by us!) amidst piles of air conditioners and pipes…AND in the dark. However David set out the closed basket with the 2 siblings, and managed to track the kitten when it came near to investigate. The kitten tried to hide by burying its head in an air conditioner opening, but its little backside was still sticking out and David grabbed him up. The three must have been born outside, as they were not socialized, so we’ve asked the husband to keep an eye out for the mother cat. At around 6 weeks, the little ones should still be able to be socialized without much trouble, and are now tucked safely away in the couple’s house. New names are Himawari(sunflower), Tampopo (dandelion), and Sakura (cherry blossom). A cute crew, and the vet thought no serious health issues, though they did get some eye drops and flea treatment. We were really impressed with something Hitomi came up with to help socialize the kittens. She built a kind of enclosure, using flattened cardboard boxes, in order to keep the kitties inside a play area with her. We watched the kittens, though a bit fearful in the cage, relax and start to play with her in the “circle.”

Checked in on the new three a few days ago, bringing kitten food, and all still looked hungry but otherwise good. On the way back we decided to take a look around that neighborhood for a 2 or 3 month old kitten that had been seen earlier. Couldn’t find the kitten but saw another very very sick cat resting in a driveway. In as bad of shape as it was, we were still unable to catch it by hand, and it seemed uninterested in the food inside the trap (probably unable to smell it). There was obviously some kind of skin condition (scabies) combined with extreme malnourishment. I’ve never seen a cat so emaciated walking around out on the street (and that’s saying a lot). We tried talking with the people living in the house, who did appear to be putting food out for the cat…they seemed to have some investment in the cat, but were unable/unwilling to help catch it for us to take to the vet. Have gone back to the area every day since, but haven’t seen the cat again. It could be they’ve taken the cat inside, so the next step is trying to contact the people living there directly, and see if there is anything that can be done for the poor kitty.

In the process of creating an “Assisted adoptions” program in which we can list kitties rescued by others and help to facilitate adoptions. Newest listing is Gabriele’s little rescue. We’re hoping this will encourage more people to get kittens off the street right away, while we help to work out finding placements. It can be difficult overcoming that first hurdle of actually taking the animal(s) in, but people who have taken that risk have found that it’s an amazing experience helping to save lives and that it does work out in the end.

Our refrigerator suddenly quit last week…Hoping to find something used to replace it soon, but using a mini-fridge we also have, for the time being. When I opened the door to the fridge to find it wasn’t cool, my first thought was that one of the cats had unplugged it again (as Sumi had done so many times), in search of the perfect cat bed with a view. I remember when we bought our refrigerator, not long after we moved here around 12 years ago. To be honest, it’s now hard to imagine spending so much money on something so inconsequential! That was mostly B.C. (before cats!), since, though we had done some rescuing and re-homing, we hadn’t yet kept more than one cat at a time. What a difference a decade can make!

Lots to do, but decided to go out to meet Gina at the vegetarian festival late last Sunday, to pass out some of our informational postcards and have some nice food. We sloshed around in the rain at the festival, and met some people working for other animal welfare related groups. Also sampled some of the treats from various booths, including one selling fantastic (and hot!) lentil soup. Then we walked around the area to several vegan cafes to leave stacks of our post cards. Got a chance to enjoy more great food in relaxing atmospheres–even a fruit custard tart with a kitty shaped biscuit on top! Terrible weather, but a really nice evening, and I brought home some of the lentil soup for later, not to mention a slice of pumpkin tart!

Going out to ARK tomorrow for a visit along with Susan from Tokushima. I haven’t been out since May, so am looking forward to a chance to catch up with Elizabeth. I’ve really been missing Michigan this month, and all of its autumn beauty, not to mention apples! A friend brought me some tart apples this week–they can be hard to find here in Japan, where sweet apples are the norm. No apples out at ARK, but there will be some nice big trees to walk under, great company, and at least one good game of Scrabble!