Sumi-chan was found under a car at the top of a movie theater parking garage. An attendant told us that she had been wandering in the parking lot for weeks. She was crying sadly in the falling snow. We could tell that she was terrified and much too thin. We brought her back to the shelter that night, and watched over the next months as she slowly recovered from her traumatic experience. She had a previous owner, because she had a collar and a spay surgery scar, but even after putting up posters and canvasing the area, we weren’t able to turn up anybody who could tell us who she belonged to. So she moved into life at the shelter, and has since become one of our characters. Sumi has an expressive voice–wheedley when she wants a snack, grouchy if she doesn’t get it right away, delighted when she gets rubs, furious when another cat approaches her territory. This happens very infrequently, since Sumi’s territory has become the kitchen. Unfortunately Sumi is a cat who has developed chronic mouth ulcers, which can cause her pain between treatments. We need to offer her food regularly throughout the day, as it’s sometimes hard to know when she’ll feel comfortable eating. She loves her place in front of the kitchen heater, but previously used to camp out on the refrigerator. When asked what he would say to one of our cats, if they could really understand him, David said “Sumi. Please stop unplugging the refrigerator.” Sumi’s treatments and medicine cost around ¥10,000 yen every month, and we have to buy special food that is easy for her to eat. But she is still a happy expressive cat, most of the time, who purrs and seems to really enjoy her life.
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