Now we are promoting TNR in our prefecture.
When people complained about troubles caused by stray cats, we tell them the effect of TNR and how to get along well with stray cats.

In many case, one or two feeders feed stray cats without spay/neuter and people have troubles with poop of increasing cats.
And in most of case, resident say "Take all cats away from this area!" with anger, but our law doesn't allow to eradicate stray cats.
So we persuade them to try TNR, which is the only effective way to reduce cats.

We accept requests from the representative of neighbors' community association to try TNR, then we help them to trap cats and spay/neuter with registered volunteers.

Last week, a volunteer trapped and brought 9 cats and kittens from the lake side village, where many many cats were abandoned.

We have many other jobs and don't have enough time to do surgery everyday, but we are trying to spay/neuter strays as many as possible.

Yesterday, I attended the symposium about stray cats held in Osaka city.
Many volunteers, government officials, charity organizations attended, some of whom I know.
In Japan, the stray cats cause many problems all over the country now.
Most of case, some people feed cats without spay/neuter, so neighbors complain that cats increase and leave their poop or damage neighbors gardens.

All members think that the most important and efficient way to solve the problems is TNR.
Volunteers said "We need the support of local government.", government officials said "We need volunteers' help." so we have to cooperate strongly.

 I am an official of local government animal control, and I'm working as a volunteer as well.
So I understand both side of opinion.
In some area, it goes very well with cooperation between local government and volunteers, but in other area, volunteers work hard but local government doesn't support.
In our prefecture, we want to promote TNR as local government but we have only a few volunteers to help us.

I hope we could promote more and more TNR projects to reduce unhappy kittens.

Yesterday, I visited a president of neighborhood community association of a town in Hikone city.
He asked us if there are some good ways to reduce stray cats around his area.
Now we hear those kinds of requests everyday. Sometimes there are a feeder to stray cats and the number of cats increase, making many troubles between the feeders and neighbors.

Actually, local government doesn't have any rules to regulatory those who feed stray cats, we don't have effective way to reduce stray cats and the troubles caused by them.
We used to tell people "Don't feed stray cats", but now we have realized that it doesn't work at all.
People who feed stray cats think they are poor, so they can't stop feeding. Then, those people would feed them secretly and problem would not disappear.

Now we recommend TNR in those case. This time I tried to explain him how TNR would work to solve the stray cats problems and to make both people and cats happy.

Fortunately, he was very kind to animals and said he would try to discuss about TNR with neighbors.
Then he said, "I adopted a dog from your animal control office 2 years ago." and showed the female dog, named "HANA (it means flower)".

HANA grew up a very cute dog and is trained well, I was very happy to see everyone in her family love her very much!

Yesterday, I went to an old woman who asked me to trap a stray cat to spay.
Our group was registered as a city volunteer 2 years ago and she was the first client after we appeared on the city news magazine.

I visited her house and saw the black female cat, and thought that this cat was one of those we trapped and returned after spaying 2 years ago, but she claimed that this cat was another one, because her neighbor said this cat had given birth under old woman's house in last October.

She doesn't become forgetful - though she often says same thing - she remember many things clearly.But she didn't go out of the house and she didn't confirm the kittens by herself.
She stays in her house all day long and she can do her stuffs by herself.
But she has a respiratory disease and has to take on ventilator every time, so she can't go out alone.

 That's because I wondered if the cat really was another one...?


Another reason I thought the cat was same as we trapped before was that she was very cautious with the trap and she would never enter it.
I waited 30 minutes after setting the trap.The cat came and walked around and ate all food in front of the trap, then she sat next to the trap waiting the old woman came and feed her.
I doubted the cat knew of the trap!!

But the old woman kept going that cat was another one, so I waited more than 1 and half hour, but she ran away at last. So I had to give up yesterday.

I listened to her stories while we were waiting. I like to hear stories of old people, because they have had many experiences I never knew.

This time, she told about a dog she had kept by 5 years ago.
The dog was a male, Shiba mixed one and 17 years old when he died.He became senile and had many diseases.He walked around the house in the midnight, crying oddly, and failed to use his toilet.
The old woman had had hard days to take care of him.Finally the dog died on December 31th, the busiest day in a year here in Japan.She called a pet funeral company on the New Year's Day,  cremated the body and buried carefully as same as a human.
She said all family had cried and they still visit to his grave every year.

Then her grandchild wrote a composition about this story at her junior school, and she won the prize! Her teacher impressed with the composition very much and it was on the air at the local radio.
It was Great!! The girl had a very important experience, I think.

Now I have many requests for TNR here and there.
I visited some feeders to check the situation and arranged when and how we could trap cats and bring them to vets.
I trap cats or kittens and bring them to spay/neuter almost every Saturday, but yesterday, I couldn't trap any cats at the all places where I was asked by the feeders.
It's always like this...it's getting more and more difficult to trap cats at the same place, because the rest of cats would learn what traps would do for them!

I gave up and had to arrange for next time, and I had no choice but to stay home and do households.
Then, I took a rest with my daughter, who just ended her first entrance exam for the university.
This is the photo of my daughter and our cat, Tamasaburo.

My daughter is loved by cats, everywhere and everytime.
She can hold the cats who are so shy that no family member could touch.

Tamasaburo looks like very happy to be pet by my daughter!

We had the first snow in this winter.
In our region, only a little snow covered on the ground, but they have much more snow in the northern part of our prefecture.
I saw the mountains on the other side of the lake all covered with snow, though I didn't see the last weekend.

I came to trap some cats for TNR here, at the lake side.
It's cold outside but I found 4 or 5 cats and kittens there.
Some cats came near but others ran away as soon as they saw me.
I set traps and hide for a while, soon trapped 2 cats, which were rather friendly ones.

I saw some cats under the cabin, but I waited more than 1 hour, no cats appeared again, so I had to give up today.

Last time I trapped 4 cats and kittens here, and released after spaying/neutering.
I thought there remained 2 adult cats and 4 kittens, but I saw new other 3 cats today!
I wonder how many cats are abandoned here...

This is a place where many fishermen come around and give fish to cats, and some people likely to come here only to feed cats.
Now our group is planning to do something to stop cats abandoned here quickly and TNR for all cats here, with more comfortable spaces for them.

I got a phone call from a woman who wants to do TNR by herself, she wanted to ask how to do, so I met her last Sunday.
She is a nun, but she doesn't live in the temple.
She has rescued many kittens she picked up around her house.
Now she has 3 cats in her house and feeds 4 outside cats,of course all spayed/neutered except for young kittens.

These are her cats.
The ginger one, named Magu, was said by the vet "She has FEV, so she can't live more than 6months." when she picked up.

She felt very sorry and decided, "I'll give her everything she wants if she would die soon", but she has been alive for 7years and thanks to her dedicated care, now becomes very fat like a hot water bag!

The 2nd cat, also female, was accepted from a pet shop.

She wasn't sold and the pet shop owner was looking for an adopter,then came to the woman's house.
She is mild hearted and always try to mediate quarrel of other cats.

The 3rd cat, named Riku, is only male.His siblings were all adopted but only he was remained, so she decided to keep him.

Maybe because he is only male, he often picks on Magu.

The woman said "Everyday I say 'DAISUKI(I love you very much)' to them.I think it's very important."
I think those cats are very friendly and lovely, so I love them, too!

Today, I and Susan, the leader of our NPO Japan Cat Network come to an University in Nara prefecture to help students doing TNR for stray cats living near the dormitory of the University.
There are 3 cats here, a mother, a son, and a daughter.
Kittens are about 7 months old, and very friendly.

But mother doesn't appear...maybe she is very cautious and knew something wrong would happen with her 6 sense.
Anyway, we have waited all day long, hoping we could catch mother, but now it's time to go back...
The university students gave up to catch mother and she brought 2 kittens to vet.

And we borrowed the trap and leave there.
Maybe mother cat would appear after we have gone.
I hope she would success next time!

When we got back to home, the student called me and she caught the mother cat and brought her to vet.
She appeared to eat food soon after we left.
And the vet said that she was pregnant, that was why she was so cautious...

Anyway, we did it successfully!

Today, I brought cats to a vet clinic in Hirakata city, Osaka prefecture, about 100km from our town.
My friend, who is doing TNR program and rescue kittens in Hirakata city, told me that they would have neuter operations at free of charge, and they would accept more 10 cats, so asked me to bring cats there, if our group had unnutered male cats.

Of course there are so many cats in our region, most of them are stray and not spayed/neutered yet.
I called some of volunteers who are feeding stray cats and now doing TNR program with our group to catch males as much as possible.
Then, I put all 8 cats (including 3 kittens) in my car and drove through 100km to the clinic.

In Hirakata city, there is a park that is famous as many abondoned cats.
The leader of our group helped TNR here last year, it was terrible situation when she saw there first time.
Many volunteers joined and caught, spay/neutered 89 stray cats during 6months and 78 were returned to the park, 11 were adopted. In addition, our leader rescued more than 30 young kittens and almost all were adopted or fostered.
That is amazing!

Now the situation in the park looks like much better.
High cost for spay/neuter operation is always a big problem for volunteers of TNR like us, so it would be a big help that vets sometimes help us with cost down.

A worker of Welfare Soceity of old people came to me and said.An old woman has to be hospitalized and her nephew, a half Japanese Canadian came to take care of her.But the old woman was feeding stray cats and now 12 cats including 6 kittens are around her house, so her house is terribly messy.
The Canadian nephew said, "I have to clean my aunt's house, so are there anyone who will take cats away from the house?"
So, I decided to catch all cats and spay/neuter them, then ask a neighbor who is a friend of the old woman to keep cats for a while.

On Saturday, we brought many traps and cages, started to catch cats.
Neighbours are very good people and used to take care of the old woman and cats, so they cooporated to catsh the cats and said that they would donate for spay/neuter them.

Canadian woman said, "In Canada, Humain Society does all about animals and we don't have to worry what to do in such cases.Why aren't there the Humane Society in Japan?"
Yes, she is right.We don't have any organizations like Humane Society.Public animal control can only accept cats and destroy them, they can't make all of them adopted.

But there are many people who are kind to animals, so our NPO want to help those people.
It took whole day to catch 6 adult cats and 2 kittens.There still remain 2 other adults and 4 kittens, but they didn't appeared any more, so we gave up to catch them and decided to restart another day.
Then, we spay/neutered them and brought them to foster care.

Next day was Sunday, and we went to check again, but we couldn't catch cats anymore.I don't know where they go and what to do.
Then I had to go to over night work, because of Influenza, so I asked neighbours to contact me if they found cats again.

It was so hard weekend, but I was happy to work for people who are so kind to other people and animals!

For these 2 weeks, there increasing cat rescue offers.
Last weekend, 2 people called us and needed help.They picked up kittens attacked by crows in the park near they lived.The park was placed far away from each other, but 2 people called us almost same time.
Those kittens were 1 or 2 weeks old and one died soon...It must be very difficult to take care of 1 week kitten for someone who had not kept cats...

Then, I picked up 4 kittens that stray cats gave birth and gone away, under the neighbors's house.My friend, who is a representative of our cat rescue group, soon took them to vets and now they are fine.

And this weekend, an woman called me and asked our help to catch 2 female cats she is feeding, for TNR.She has been feeding them for a month at the parking lot of a supermarket with some of her coworkers.She is afraid that cats lool like sick, and also cats would give birth new babies, so she wants us to catch up them and take to vets quickly.

Today, I got up very early and caught both of them by traps.Our vets are very kind to stray cats and said that they don't look like having any diseases, and he will spay/neuter them next week and do some treatment if necessary.

Now these kinds of cats would increase day by day, it's also spring issues...

At the countryside in Japan like here, people usually keep their cats only outside, because when cats come into house, they scratch slide doors made of paper and wood or furniture.
Many of those people only love to feed cats, and they don't have responsibilities for them as owners, of course they never think of spay/nueter them, they often say "I don't want to spay/neuter them because they are not mine.I only give them some food."
Those situations often cause serious problems, you know, 2 or 3 cats soon would increase to 10 or 20 cats.Neighbors would call animal control offices or munincipal government and complain about that, ask officials to take cats away, but our law doesn't allow it, so animal control officials has no way to solve the problem.

I'm one of such official but I can't do anything about that as official, so I'm helping a cat rescue group and promote TNR as a volunteer.I think TNR is only way to solve these problems, but people won't believe in its effects at the beginning...That's also a problem.

Actually I keep my cats only in house and never let them to go out.It's not because it's safer for them, but my husband hate cats go out and come in with maddy foot...So he said to me when I brought the first cat from animal control center,"Don't let him go out.Our house would be muddy!"
Anyway, it's better for cats and I want also my neighbours to keep cats inside...but it's difficult to persuade them to do so, because most of people believe that cats would be happier outside.

What do you think of that? Which is happier for cats to keep outside or inside?

Our job usually ends on Dec. 28th and starts from Jan.4th every year.And we have a small ceremony on the last day to appreciate the work well done each other and also on the first day to confirm all members that we'll give all our effort to the job.
Now it's the period for preparation to meet the New Year's Day.We have to clean up whole house from corner to corner, cook the New Year's Day Dishes (we call OSECHI), and prepare some stuffs to meet New Year's Gods...very difficult to explain!
Flower arrangement is also a part of preparation for the New Year.It inclueds some plants like pine,bamboo,etc. that represent "happiness".

But now I'm boaring...I soon stop doing with household stuffs and do Internet sitting in Kotatsu...
I searched about TNR activities on WEB, and I knew even in America TNR program wasn't accepted in public up until just recently.
Now TNR activity is suceeding in solving cats' population problem here and there, also in Japan.
But I know still many people don't trust in the effect of TNR and some people, especially government officials, are still believing that "catch and kill method is the only way to solve all animal problems". It makes me so frastrated and disgusted.

So, my New Year's Oath is, "to persuade government animal control how TNR is effective and they should promote it with volunteer groups strongly"!