5 noisy kitties, and one very tired man left for Tokyo on Valentine's Day...I helped to get the three kitties from the shelter to the station, and onto the train. Fantasia, in a rare burst of opinion, complained throughout, but then the doors closed and I was left on the platform where everything was nice and quiet! David went on to meet Sharon in Maibara, to pick up Gretel and Tricky, and then the troupe was off!

Gretel and Tricky went to the same home on one of the Tokyo bases. The family is one that we hope to work with in getting more kitties into good homes on bases in the future. In fact, they took Nemo to his new home on another Tokyo base for us--we're looking forward to seeing photos, when the family sends them. Scooby was chosen at the last minute, as Lucky's foster care person decided that she wanted to adopt Lucky herself. So, the adopter initially interested in Lucky chose Scooby. And, of course, Fantasia went to her new foster placement. She immediately made herself at home, and is already Twittering, along with her new foster mom!  It appears everyone else settled in well too, and we have received lots of really nice pictures of Gretel and Tricky.

Also got good news that MIkan, the kitty we were helping a woman in Shiga to rehome, was adopted through JCN with the help of one of our volunteers last week. The woman came out to the shelter with the cat in December, and we were able to loan her a large cage, so that she could continue to keep the kitty at her house while we looked for the new home.

Scooby's new mom seemed to be attracting kittens this week...she called on Wednesday evening to report seeing a small stray kitten on the street, and we were able to advise her about rescuing it. She did an amazing job making a quick carrier, getting the kitten to the vet, and taking it home for the evening. She got it to ARK the following day, and they'll work on adopting it out there in Tokyo.

Poor Sequoia and Snickers had to make the trip back to the shelter. In Tokyo foster care for several months, they have been headed to permanent homes twice now, when problems (unrelated to them) cropped up. Since they both still need to be spayed, we decided to bring them back to the shelter, rather than place them back in foster care (though their foster care givers have all been very kind to them!). The two girls have settled into life in the Garden enclosure, rather than the kitten room, since we were concerned about the colds we've been dealing with there recently. All of the kittens are much better, but we are still hearing a few residual sneezes, and Sequoia and Snickers have not been vaccinated. We've scheduled vaccinations for this week, and spay surgeries 2 weeks after.

While David was in Tokyo, I stayed at the shelter and got started on our new quarantine room project. Our volunteer student from Sweden came out to help with the project and has been a good motivator in helping us to begin. With so little extra time, taking on something new can be overwhelming, especially when energy is low. However an extra pair of hands, that came with a new perspective, and a very energetic outlook, were all it took to get started! We got a lot of the cardboard boxes piling up, cleared out, and also cleared some storage space out in the back shed. The next step will be moving some of the stuff from the inside space to the outside space, along with getting rid of stuff that's no longer useful. We have a lot of old plastic litter and food trays that have cracked, and should really be tossed, not to mention other junk that's built up over the last 10 years. There are a few things that we're still looking for a way to dispose of, such as some old broken cat towers. We brought them to the dump, but they refused them, for some reason. So much extra space here, and no car, makes it easier just to let things pile up, rather than find a way to haul them away. I think sometimes the other factor, is that if we clear new space, people immediately imagine that we can accept more cats. This is frustrating because we'd need more than just space to increase the number of cats that are now being cared for by 2 people, with day jobs to cope with! Deep breath...

 

Our new elderly rescue, Oji,  is getting his shelter legs, and is now venturing away from his cushion to explore a bit and sometimes relax in front of the heater. This is where Penelope usually camps out, and she seems to be eating a little better, but she is still lethargic and is not putting on weight. We keep taking her to the vet for treatments, but it's concerning that she isn't making more progress. She is due to go back today, so hopefully we can get to the bottom of things. The last David checked, Sumi was having a good day at the clinic, though she seems to be alternating between good days and bad days. The vet has assured us that he's treating any discomfort that she has, which is a priority for us. David continues to remark on how really clean and comfortable Sumi looks, which reminds me that she's in a better place for getting her needs met now. One of the feral kitties in the shelter has just started having mouth problems, that look a lot like the kind that Sumi has had. Frances is not that old, and though not being able to touch her certainly complicates things, we are starting to plan how we might be able to have her teeth removed. The chance of being able to prevent the kind of suffering that Sumi has had to endure, makes the effort seem worthwhile. The first step will be tranquilizing her, and getting her in for evaluation, but her new sensitivity regarding food makes this more of a challenge.

We've finally worked out the schedule for our flier pass-out days...everyone seems to be available at different times, so it took a while to coordinate. I believe that we've settled on not going out on the 21st, as there weren't enough people available, in favor of the following Saturday and Sunday. We're also hoping to have at least a small group out on the 22nd and 23rd, when the staff from Animal Control are going out. We printed out lots of fliers, and are still working on the magnets. Should have everything finished in time. Will plan to add pictures from the events, to the February photo page!

---