Greetings humans.

Ken, my former faithful servant, returned to Japan to visit me. While he was here, I heard him talking to Hiroaki, my current servant. It was good to hear that the trip to the Upper Hutt Animal Rescue Society (UHARS) for the Cat Lovers’ Meetup group went well. Adrian and Tory of UHARS explained their mission and told many stories of cat rescues. The members of the group were eager to get to the cuddling, but listened patiently anyway. They were rewarded with rooms of kittens! They could each pick up, hold, and cuddle a playful kitten.

Ken and Richelle were particularly interested in their former foster kittens, Blue, Green and Red, who had just had their de-sexing operations the day before. All were well, if a bit sleepy. It was gratifying to find out that all three were actually boys just as my servants had thought. There was a lot of fun in trying to identify them since they look so much alike. The vets had to remove their coloured strings, but my servants could tell Red by his reddish, more curly fur; Green by his chubby, cute face and Blue by his laid-back, calm manner. UHARS had their old names written on their whiteboard: Bruce, Teddy and Justin (changed from Justine, of course). Richelle wrote their colour identification names beside these so that anyone who contacted UHARS after reading about the kittens on the Neko Ngeru Facebook page or website would know which one was which.

Later, they all went to the other building where the adult cats were kept. The group members enjoyed interacting with each one, learning their histories and comparing how each played with different people. A few had been mothers when they were still kittens. One very sweet fellow was proving hard to re-home because he needs a special diet due to a treatable medical condition. The time seemed too short to get to know them all.

Even though many of the people who attended this event have cats in their own homes, they still came out to cuddle some cats they did not know. (I have spoken before about this mistaken idea.) Although they thought that their home cats would be jealous and could react when they smelled the evidence of strange cats on their servants, these humans still came out. Humans are an interesting puzzle to me. Did they do it because they thought those UHARS cats needed the cuddles? I must admit I do enjoy a good caress, so those homeless cats may have been lonely. Did they just like the thrill of novelty? I too enjoyed experiencing new things in a non-threatening way in my youth, though now I am old enough to know exactly how I like things and do not want any more changes, thank you very much! But, I digress. I think that humans should be allowed to care for any cat they can. They may be our servants, but we do not OWN them.