The New Year got off to a start with 5 new rescues…We got a mail from one of the feeders at one of our Osaka TNR sitesabout 2 new abandoned young cats. From the pictures that she sent, we could see that one looked to be around 3 months old, and the other a bit older than that. With the weather turning colder, along with the fact that an older cat at the site had died there, we decided that we needed to intervene as quickly as possible. David and I went out to the site with Gina and her mom, planning to pick up at least the youngest one, which we caught in a trap without any trouble. The other new cat looked under a year old, and we decided to trap him as well. 2 of the neutered cats remaining are somewhat friendly, so we also talked about a plan to get them off the street and check them for rehoming potential. We headed back with new rescues Zelda and Taiyo, and then discovered 3 more young cats outside the nearby train station. These three looked to be around 4 or 5 months old. They were too clean and interested in people to have been born outside, but were too wary to be caught by hand. A few hours away from the shelter, and without a spare trap or safe way to move cats around in such a busy setting, we decided that I would come back out with traps the following day. The 3 kitties were staying in a relatively safe place under bushes and behind a guard rail. However when we returned, this time with Louise along for added assistance, we were surprised to see two of the kittens across a busy street, begging food at a bus stop. Luckily we could catch all three and bring them back to the shelter, as they clearly wouldn’t have lasted long doing that.

Trapping used to be a job that David and I did on our own, so it has been wonderful having the support of caring people who are willing to come out to help with this work or even to do it on their own. As a matter of fact, the site that these newbies came from is one that we got a request from for TNR help last spring, and with the shelter in the middle of a viral outbreak, we never would have been able to take it on ourselves. Thankfully Gina stepped right up and organized the whole thing, finding a vet and enlisting Carey and Monique to help out. It was very encouraging to me at the time, and working together now makes the work so much nicer. After we were finished and had a last chat and warm up over coffee, I headed back to the shelter with kitties in tow. Quite an interesting train ride back for me, with 3 cats in traps on the train! Actually, they were very well behaved and didn’t make a sound–it was more the site of my bulky cart that drew attention. Zelda, Gemma and Pebbles (the girls), are now loving life inside–they purr, play, and love to be petted! Barney and Taiyo not so much. Barney seems protective of his sisters, and when they were outside near the guard rail, he actually put his paw out to keep Gemma (the smallest) from approaching us. Taiyo seems the most distressed of the five, and we’re beginning to wonder if we’ll have to come up with a new plan for him. We rarely see him in any relaxed state of mind, and he most commonly has his ears back. Keep hoping that he’ll settle in better, but the good news is that he doesn’t bite or hiss, which would make it difficult or dangerous to approach him.

Another newbie was found at a previous TNR site. This was one of the locations that we helped with years ago, when we first got started, and all of the cats there have since passed away. The older couple that had been feeding the cats at the site contacted us a year or so ago to ask about caring for one of the shelter cats in their home, since they missed caring for the TNR cats. They now have Mimi (previously Shana), who loves her home, and is clearly completely spoiled by them. When a newly abandoned cat turned up recently asking for food, Mimi was furiously jealous. The couple called us concerned about the new cat, and though really wanting to help it, they didn’t want to make life unhappy for Mimi. We went out and picked up the cat, who they had begun calling Jun, and she’s now staying at the shelter. She seems somewhat friendly, though is still on the nervous side. The main concern with her is how much she wants to get outside…there are eventually going to be opportunities to escape during enclosure cleaning times, and we rely a bit on the fact that the cats do want to be here, for the most part. We’ll have to keep security very tight for the time being, and see how she settles in.

Shortly before New Year’s Day, we went out to visit ARK with a vet that has recently been helping us. It was a nice chance to catch up with Elizabeth, and to introduce our vet to others doing animal welfare work. After a tour and a nice chat, David and the vet headed back to the shelter with a generous gift of cat food, and I stayed on overnight. I love some of ARK’s cat enclosures, and want to adjust ours in the same way, to be a bit more comfortable in winter. It felt heated inside, due to the vinyl wrapping around the outside which trapped the sun’s heat. Of course the cats also had small heated snuggle areas for when the sun went down, as our indoor spaces also have. See some pictures from our visit…

Opie has had his surgery to remove his tail, and he’s doing very well at the Animal Friends Niigata shelter. It’s difficult to know if he’ll ever recover an ability to control his elimination, but for the time being, staff at the shelter are manually helping him to empty his bladder a few times a day. This makes him more comfortable, since he’s not continually dribbling, and it also gives him a chance to spend some time out of his cage without causing hygene problems. I’ll be making a page promoting him for sponsorship there at AFNiigata, as they have a better set up for helping cats with special needs than we do. Everyone who spends any time with Opie thinks that there is something special about this little guy!

It’s hard to believe the winter vacation is gone, and that we’re already back to classes, which started this past Saturday. A few bumps along the road, but all in all we were able to rest up a bit before our schedules went back to the usual frantic pace. A couple of rare dinners out along with trips to the movies made it feel like a real vacation for the two of us! Now we have a fresh year to begin again, and though we certainly have our work cut out for us, we’re going forward stronger in number and in spirit. See December’s photo page…