(Episode 1) 18 years of rescue cat activities come to a temporary end! It all started with a cat named "Chuko"

18 years ago, I began my rescue cat activities.

…Having said that, I didn't have any ambition to "become an activist" from the start.

I had absolutely no intention of doing so, but my encounter with that first cat led my life in that direction. I would like to talk about the cats I met during those 18 years, from just feeding them for my own satisfaction to TNR and rescue cat adoptions.

My marathon hasn't even started yet (laughs).

The other day, my 18 years of rescue activities came to a temporary pause for me, so I opened the note app for the first time in a while to record the trajectory of those 18 years that I spent running recklessly on my own.

At the time, my sister's cat, "Kotaro," was living in our house.

Actually, the first cat I ever had was Kotaro.

I've heard that stray cats gather at houses where there are cats.

Do they know with their "cat intuition" that "there's a cat lover over there"?

Are they spreading rumors at their 4 a.m. stray cat meetings?

One day, while I was idly thinking about such things.

Suddenly, a cat with a mysterious pattern, looking like a mix of tabby and tortoiseshell, was sitting neatly in front of our entrance.

My encounter with "Chuko," who looked like an alien

That cat was emaciated and skin and bones.

She was so thin that her eyes seemed to be popping out, making her look just like an alien.

I named her "Chuko."

At the time, I had just returned from Tokyo with my beloved dog.

While I loved Kotaro's charming face and gestures, I wasn't really that interested in cats themselves yet.

However, I couldn't just leave a cat that was this thin and clearly starving right in front of me.

I only had Kotaro's food in the house.
I snuck behind my sister's back and secretly offered her some kibble.

Chuko devoured it, making loud crunching sounds.

Watching her, for the first time, I thought about the existence of "stray cats."

How had she lived until now?
Where had she been sleeping?

From then on, Chuko started coming by every day.

She would wander in, eat, drink some water, and then leave again.

People say "cats are fickle," and I wondered if this was what they meant.

It was a completely different sense of distance compared to a dog that was always clinging to you.

Chuko with the skin on her back peeled off

One day, while that routine was continuing, Chuko appeared in a shocking state.

She came to our house with the skin on her back half-peeled off!

Whether it was a fight or abuse, I didn't have time to think about such things, and it wasn't the time to be saying whether I liked or disliked cats.

I forcibly shoved Chuko, who was desperately resisting and scratching me, into a cardboard box and rushed to a nearby animal hospital.

Fortunately, although she had a mild infection, it was resolved with stitches and an antibiotic injection.

"She's a stray, so it can't be helped.
...If you can, please take her into your home."

That's what the vet told me, but
at the time, I still couldn't bring myself to welcome a cat into my family.

However, from that day on, Chuko started coming right up to my feet.

I would apply the prescribed ointment, put on gauze, and wrap bandages around her torso.

Looking like she was wearing a belly warmer, Chuko wouldn't even show signs of dislike and would head off somewhere again.

Rumors in a small town, and a vanished shadow

I bought extra bandages at the drugstore and prepared high-calorie food so she could get at least a little nutrition.

By the time her wounds had completely healed and Chuko had transformed from an alien-like creature into a plump, cat-like figure, I noticed her belly was getting round.

Around the same time, the lady who ran the neighborhood shop
came to my house to thank me for the treatment.

It seems Chuko had been sleeping and living at that shop.
In a small town, news like that spreads in the blink of an eye.

Then why was Chuko so thin? Why were such terrible wounds left untreated? One question after another arose.

Eventually, Chuko's belly grew as if it were about to burst,
and one day, she suddenly stopped showing herself.

Anxiety swirled through my mind, as I was so ignorant about cats.

A while later, I heard that Chuko had given birth inside the shop where the lady worked.

However, she couldn't finish giving birth and was lying limp in front of the shop.

The cushion the lady had laid out outside the shopwas apparently stained bright red.

Without ever being taken to a hospital,
Chuko disappeared the next day.

I never saw Chuko again after that.

I heard a story later on.

The lady at the shop where Chuko stayed had extreme mood swings,
and there were days when she would dote on Chuko,
and days when she would coldly turn her away and not let her into the shop, even when it was raining.

The sight of Chuko sitting in front of my door that day is still burned into my mind, even now.

Was she asking for help,
or was she simply looking for a place to rest?

I wonder.

People who treat lives based on the ups and downs of their emotions should not be involved with animals.

Because animals that have no words cannot resist the whims of humans.

Then, was I,
who fed her and healed her wounds,
also just providing half-hearted help in the world of stray cats?

My encounter with Chuko
became the
all-too-painful prologue to my long 18-year story.

If I were the person I am now, 18 years later,
what would I have done for Chuko back then?