Great news...a couple contacted us interested in fostering Fantasia! If all goes well, and Fantasia is able to get along with the couple's other two cats that will be arriving in Japan in six months, they'll adopt her! The other 2 cats are Persians too, so this woman has had lots of experience with long haired cats. We're out of our element, when it comes to hair like Fantasia's. We've had long haired cats before, like Muffin and Michael, but Fantasia has a coat that is much thicker and extremely prone to forming lots of little balls near her skin. She really needs regular brushing, which is hard for us to manage here. She's turned into a lovely cat, who is quiet and relaxed, but does like her food and a pampered lifestyle. Now that she lives full time in the house with the special needs cats, she is absolutely thrilled. She will love having a real home and people who have more time to devote to her! David will be bringing her out to Tokyo this Sunday, so everyone cross your fingers that she settles in nicely! New photos of Salem, Chiroru, and Skippy, in all of their new homes.

Wybie had another crisis of cold...we just don't know what to do with Deb, our little ground zero. When we cage her, she stops eating, and doesn't stay warm enough. She's happiest right in front of the heater, surrounded by other furry bodies. We can't afford to heat another room with the electricity bill already sky high from heating 3 areas 24 hours a day, which is absurd by Japanese standards. I don't know that our ancient breaker could handle it, even if our pocket book could! We're now trying to come up with a way to heat the other areas more efficiently, so that we might be able to heat a new quarantine area. Luckily Wybie is better after a repeat treatment at the vet Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. Deb is also doing great all of a sudden, so we are hoping to interrupt the chain of cold-passing by taking this chance to remove a few links. Our new volunteer, Sharon, came out today to take Wybie to a new foster home that she found, which is really a dream come true. Wybie is such an amazingly sweet little boy...so affectionate. He's obviously a bit weaker than the rest, and needs to get away from the constant assault on him immune system. I think he will love having some people to dote on him, and I'm looking forward to hearing how he settles in. Sharon also took 2 more to foster herself (Specter and Jack) since her current two (Gretel and Tricky) are going to a new home in Tokyo on Sunday. Clean up time in the kitten room will now be a little easier, since whenever I'm on my hands and knees cleaning the floor, Specter thinks it's time for "pony ride"! Clearly, he needs a little more attention and playtime! Jack also went along, and we're hoping that he'll get a little friendlier with some personal attention.

Penelope had her spay surgery a few weeks ago, and began losing weight shortly afterward. We thought it might be due to the stress, since she's still a bit feral, but we brought her to the vet for a blood test this week and he diagnosed a bacterial infection. The vet wasn't sure of the cause, though thought it wasn't necessarily related to the surgery (he didn't do the surgery, as we need to use a variety of vets for spay/neuter, due to the bulk of operations). We'll need to bring her back several times for treatment, and hopefully that will solve the problem. While at the vet for Wybie and Penelope, David looked in on Sumi. He said that she looks so clean, and seemed very happy. I'm not sure how they are doing it, but they clean her everyday, which must be nice for her, since it's so hard for her to clean herself. David said he was really impressed with her life there, and with how comfortable she is. Her health seems to be going up and down, but she was having a good day yesterday. I'm just pleased that she can have some comfort now, since she's had such a hard time recently. I do miss my monkey, whenever I go into the kitchen, which is so empty without her!

Speaking of uncomfortable...David spent most of last week dealing with a severe kidney stone attack. It was a really rough week for him, and we had to basically shut down for a few days, doing just the minimum daily care. Anyone who has suffered through kidney stones knows that the pain is almost unbearable. Thankfully, he's feeling better now, and we're hoping that he's out of the woods. Still catching up on emails and working on things that we had to set aside. We're hoping to firm up the spay day event schedule and start inviting people to come along on the flier pass-out days. A few new photos for the photo contest have been added, to benefit our group! We also have volunteers coming out on Friday and Sunday, and are hoping to get more organized before that, in order to get as much accomplished as possible.

Our article in a local newspaper came out this past Saturday, regarding the biwako project and getting strays spayed/neutered before spring hits. We've already had two calls from people wanting to start TNR projects in their areas, so it looks like it had an impact. We brought the reporter out to the Biwako TNR site to take pictures, as we did with the TV crew a few days earlier. Not sure when the TV program will air yet. We saw Nigel and he looked good! While out there this time, we decided to pick up one of the female 8 month old cats for spay, since she was so easy to catch. We named her Peach (Starfish from Finding Nemo), had her spayed on Saturday, and then brought her back to the shelter for recovery. She's responded to shelter life much more positively than Nigel did, easily letting me pet her, and not hiding away. She's not quite as friendly as Gil turned out to be, but we're debating about trying to re-home her rather than to release her. It's really hard to know with some of the TNR cats...Nigel seems very friendly when we see him out at the site, but he was incredibly stressed with life in an enclosed space. We're having the cats that will be returned from this project ear-tipped, since we need to be sure which cats have been altered, in case similar looking cats are abandoned at the site in the future. Ear tipping is one of those necessary discomforts for TNR cats, in order to better prevent the suffering and births of unwanted kittens. It can also prevent the adult cats' suffering, since cats are sometimes mistakenly trapped for a second time and even operated on, before it is discovered that they've already been altered. Besides that, it clearly identifies them as having a caretaker in the community, and not to be taken to animal control. Though it looks a bit painful, and some vets do a smaller cut than others, we haven't noticed any of the cats seeming to be bothered by it at all. We have tried to guess which cats will be staying at the shelter, and which will be returning, before the operations, and the ears are tipped accordingly. We've been wrong several times, but hopefully, adopters won't mind a little notch in one of their kitty's ears. We'll have to say that it adds character!