Kittens R Us

June 6, 2009 : 11:10 PM
The kittens trickle in one or two at a time now, the lone survivors from litters that met with some kind of tragedy or another. We picked up two yesterday from in front of a shopping center–Saku-chan’s mom saw them there when she was out with a friend. They’re very thin and were just huddling in separate corners of a large cardboard box, when we arrived to pick them up. Once at the shelter they ate a little food in their cage and then back to huddling in separate corners. They look like siblings, and we’d expect them to take some comfort from being together, but it seems like they’re just focused on recovering from having had a rough time. Both fairly dirty, they were probably born outside, and they are at the cusp of being difficult to socialize. We’ll need to give them lots of gentle contact, to prepare them for homes, without scaring the life out of them (literally!). I put a hot water bottle wrapped in fleece in with them last night, and came back to see both of them stretched out on top of it, so at least they were able to relax a bit. They’ll both need to go to the vet on Monday, as they have thin yellow diarrhea, probably related to parasites or an infection from living outside. Chobi went to the vet’s clinic, to stay there for a bit and be monitored more closely, as he isn’t really gaining weight and also has diarrhea.

Still teaching extra classes to try to raise more money to cover kitten costs. We had hoped to arrange a fund-raising event, but haven’t been able to do so, though Takako has quickly put a Barbecue together for this weekend. We have to find ways to fund kitten care and adoption costs, as they are directly related to the focus of our work, and the lion’s share of our expenses. The main reason that we started our group, was to help people start/maintain TNR projects, and one of the biggest threats to these projects is kittens. It’s very difficult for people to do TNR and care for kittens or rehome them at the same time. Kittens abandoned at project sites or born to newly abandoned females can bring a project to a standstill. Between this and intercepting local cats or kittens sent for destruction (almost all sent are kittens), we have our hands full with kitten care again this year. I know that we’re doing the right thing saving these lives, and preventing so much more suffering with the trapping and neutering that we are doing along side that. I have to hope that we’ll get the help that we need. PAWS, as always, has been amazing in accepting 6 kittens for adoption, and they’ll take more as soon as we can get them there. I don’t know what we would do without those fantastic people at the Yokosuka shelter! It’s a great relief to know that we can keep working at rescuing, trapping, and neutering, and rely on some help from them with rehoming.