Pumpkin Days

As it turned out, one of the new rescues was in fact an old TNR. It was Nozomi, who had apparently moved locations. Without ear-tipping, and given her common coloring, we actually had to take a new photo and compare it with an old photo to be sure. David was the first to guess, and even then, it took us around 48 hours! We’ve currently released her into the kitten enclosure, where several of her kittens waiting for adoption still remain. Our concern is that she isn’t able to stick to the area in which we are feeding TNR cats, and if not, will be unable to regularly find food or shelter. We’ll see how she does in the shelter, for the time being, but we’d rather not keep unfriendly cats in the enclosures long term. I’m actually surprised we were able to trap her so easily a second time, though she did hesitate long enough to make me curious. Anyway, she now seems to be enjoying her warm bed and regular meals, with no pining to be back out, so perhaps there’s hope for her to settle in.

The young kittens that came in a bit feral have all been socialized, and now can’t get enough attention! The transformation of the week is little Wednesday, who suddenly flipped her “friendly” switch. Once bitey, hissy, and hidey, she now nuzzles our hands and purrs to be picked up whenever we open the cage door. They are all the perfect set of Halloween kittens, all black, orange, and white with gray. We decided on Halloweenish names for those of this group staying at the shelter–Salem, Candy, Jack, Tricky, (Hansel and Gretel), along with little Wednesday the tortoise shell, returning from foster care. Unfortunately Tricky, has a bacterial infection and went to stay at the clinic today. All of this group’s health has become a bit suspect, since the vet evaluated several to have neurologically related eye problems. He thinks it’s likely that one of the mothers living at the TNR site has FIV or FELV, which has impaired the kittens’ development. They came in with gunky eyes and some upper respiratory symptoms, which have cleared up almost completely with treatment, but 4 have at least one pupil that doesn’t respond to light. Others have had persistent diarrhea, including Tricky, who seems to be the smallest. It’s one of the common problems with rescuing kittens from TNR sites…the adult cats have often been living badly before being trapped for spay/neuter, and their offspring regularly suffers from it. FIV is rampant in the stray population here, and it’s such a danger for these poor unaltered cats, trying to survive out on the streets. The cycle of suffering and dying is tragic, without intervention. There won’t be new kittens born at this site next season, and we have high hopes that we’ll be able to give each of these new little lucky rescues a chance for a happy secure future in homes, with families of their own.

Sumi chan has taken to drinking out of a large plastic pumpkin. This started a few weeks back, when we happened to use the pumpkin as a bucket for washing down the bathroom, and left a little clean water in the bottom. For some reason it has become her favorite water dish, so we have to fill it regularly for her now! Even Malcom, who lives with Sumi in the kitchen, has abandoned their usual water dish (which we also continue to fill) in favor of the pumpkin. No idea what the appeal is, but we’re always happy when they drink more water. I was in the kitchen with them a lot today, chopping vegetables for an enormous pot of mulligatawny soup. I like to make it in the autumn, when vegetables are plentiful and cheap, then freeze bags of it to eat through winter. Since coming to Japan, I add lots of Japanese pumpkin, which is green on the outside, but still very festive for the holiday!