Santa Maybe

Last big English class Christmas parties finished! I’m planning to substitute teach for a couple of classes next week, but then that’s it for a couple of weeks, so I can focus on the shelter work. One of the veranda group is losing weight, looks like due to mouth ulcers. Most of the veranda group is unfriendly, which makes the veranda the ideal enclosure for them, since they don’t have to deal with visitors. Señor is not completely unfriendly, but he is difficult to pick up, so a vet visit is going to be very stressful. We’ve put it off hoping the situation might resolve itself with a little extra attention and canned food at feeding time, and he seemed to improve at first, but is still losing weight. We’ll have to get him into the vet to run tests sometime this next week. We’re planning to try moving him into the kitten room, where he would be easier to treat in a cage, but we’ll have to see how stressful he finds that, and if we are able to clear or add a cage. Xena will go to see the vet at the same time to get an update on what the medical plan for her should be, as well. She’ll be a lot easier, since she loves people. Even the slightly feral cats in the shelter are difficult to attend to medically, as they go into a panic when we try to catch them. We’re now a lot more careful about accepting feral cats to be sheltered, but all of the semi-ferals that we have now came in as kittens, that we were unable to socialize. It’s just not always possible to know which ones will turn out to be friendly, and frankly, a lot of the success depends on how much extra time we have to work with the kittens after intake.

The kitten room is still packed, and two new adult cat arrivals are staying in cages there. Our volunteer went out to trap cats at the Biwako site on Saturday and found at least one new large black and white cat there. She trapped him and a ginger tabby–hopefully the ginger that we had already seen. Both were neutered, along with 2 of the rescued Biwako kittens (Nemo and Coral). The kittens were back to their bouncy selves in almost no time. The black and white appeared very unfriendly at the site, but has relaxed at the shelter, and seems quite happy to be here. He has a big wound on his back, which the vet said had actually started to heal, but still looks very bad. He is huge, so sticking with the “Finding Nemo” theme, we’ve named him Bruce, after the shark! His wound could have come from being recently abandoned and having to fight to stay in the new area. We thought that the ginger looked like it might be friendly, and adoptable, but he seems a bit stressed, now that we’ve got him at the shelter. We’re calling him Nigel, because he’s a talker. Both boys will stay at the shelter for the time being, as the weather has become an issue regarding release–snow this morning, which will be worse out near the lake. The meeting with the city officials regarding the Biwako site and our plan to put up better shelter has been rescheduled for this coming Tuesday. Really hoping that we can agree to maintain the site, and to work out a plan for the cats to be better protected.

Met with a new potential volunteer yesterday, who came out to talk with us and to look at the shelter. She’s a Buddhist monk, and is full of ideas for improving our Japanese web site. We talked for just a short time, since David is feeling under the weather with persistent pain, due to kidney stones. The shelter work is not easy under the best circumstances, so he’s really gone above and beyond by hanging in there while feeling so bad. We could both really use a break, as the last few weeks have been taxing physically as well as emotionally. We did receive some excellent news regarding a successful kitten rescue, that we were a small part of, in Tokyo. These babies were found in a Tokyo trash bin just hours after they were born, umbilical cords still attached, yet all have survived orphan care. Miracles do happen, and this is certainly the season! Speaking of which…some would think that I might have learned my lesson about cats and hats…they would be wrong! I noticed that one of the stuffed animals at my school had a Santa hat that was the perfect size and I couldn’t resist. See the corresponding web site post, and here are the outtakes…
Wishing everyone the kind of holiday in which your loved ones don’t try to force you to wear silly hats, or if they do, you at least get a lovely treat afterward!