Portraits of Pushkin

Pushkin has moved to a new home, north of Fukui City, near the Kuzyuryu River. She is living with a family that loves cats and is giving her run of the house and the garden. That will surely be more interesting than my office. We sure do miss Pushkin though. So here are some of our favorite photos of a really wonderful cat.

FRANKIE/BIDDIE

Biddie is not a campus chikineko. She is a tortoiseshell cat my brother, Joe, and his wife, Angie have rescued and kept in the US for well over 10 years. She is a hard cat to capture on camera, but this turned out to be a nice portrait of her. She is a lovely cat, really.

Pushkin helping me in the office

Pushkin has been hanging out in my new office, helping me move and re-organize. She is awaiting a new home (three people have shown an interest adopting her into their families).

A collage of photos of Tiger Boy

I took these photos of Tiger Boy at play about a week before he was killed by a car (July 2008).

ELVIS in the wild

From the photo you would think he is a wildcat in the wilderness. Actually, he is the tamest of the campus cats and he likes to sit in the shrubbery outside the number two building (south wing) of the College of Education. This is really on the edge of the territory that Shaun, Orange Blossom and Caramel maintain, but for the most part Elvis does not go out of his way for a fight. Shaun frequently goes over to the swimming pool with me to visit Elvis, and Elvis often returns the visit to Shaun.

Welcome back, BIGWIG!

Two nights ago, as I was walking home, and Bigwig jumped out of the bushes. He looked a bit surprised to see me. I was very surprised to see him, since I had last seen him last year in November, on the university campus. I gave him some soft, easy-to-chew food and he seemed very pleased. It's good to see Bigwig survived the winter. He seems to be enjoying spring with Bootsie, Pancho and Tiger Baby. And a new cat has joined the Tennis Court Attachment. It is Guido, a male cat who had been living over by the east gate of the university (the tennis courts are on the north side of campus). Will try to get some photos of the new members of the campus cats. That would be Tony, Guido, and Buddy (and Buddy's brother, who I haven't given a name yet).

MISCELLANEOUS PORTRAITS TWO

It's Gus, Sheba's brother and constant companion. I think Sylvester, the big black-and-white tom who lives just outside the SE corner of campus is their father. Gus is such an agreeable cat. He doesn't hoard food or fight. He just wants to hang out. He has been a hard cat to photograph, but now that he trusts me to get very close, I will try for some better day-time portraits and action photos of him. He is a very unusual cat in appearance because of the way his black-and-white colors are distributed on his body.

Below it's Shaun. He thinks he is the boss of the Dining Hall Troop, except no one honors his leadership. Still, he is a really fun cat to interact with (as a human anyway). He is physically the largest cat on campus.





Last are four glimpses of Pushkin, who posed for me in the winter dusk.

MISCELLANEOUS PORTRAITS OF SOME CAMPUS CATS

Below is Sheba, of the Swimming Pool Gang.





Next, it's Orange Blossom of the Dining Hall Troop. If you like orange tabbies, OB is your man!









Below is the 'boss' of the Swimming Pool Gang, Elvis. He is overall the friendliest cat on campus. There never was a set of arms on a human that Elvis feels wasn't meant to hold him. He is adorable.






This is the last photo I took of Bigwig, late last year. He was always willing to sit still for photos. Such an agreeable old fellow.

Tennis Court Attachment

The Tennis Court Attachment of feral cats is comprised of Tiger Baby, his uncle Pancho, and his mother, Bootsie. Bigwig fathered Tiger Baby last year. Uncle Pancho, a brother of Bootsie, also stuck around to be a very protective guardian of Tiger Baby (who was, as is typical, the one kitten of three who survived). Bigwig was a founding member of both the Tennis Court Attachment and the Dining Hall Gang--as well as father to members of the Swimming Pool Troop (while his rival, Sylvester, who lives just off campus, on the SE corner, is most likely father of some of the members of the Dining Hall Gang).

And as for nicknames, Tiger Baby is also known as Tiger Bubby and Wheezer. Pancho is called Uncle Pan-pan. And Bootsie is called Bootchan and Boo-boo.




Tiger Baby, at about 6 months old.




At about the same age, hiding under a car with his uncle Pancho.




Pancho is a really good-looking cat. There aren't many around here with his colors.




Bootsie is called that because her feet appear to be in white socks.




I think Bootsie might be a sister of Ragi. They were born near the College of Education No. 1 building on the north side of campus, and Ragi moved southeast and Bootsie moved northwest.
Everyone who meets her thinks Bootsie has a very cute face. Tiger Baby is quite used to me, but Bootsie and Pancho are very afraid of most people--and the neighborhood residents don't like cats, so that isn't going to change much. Still, they are very friendly for feral cats, and they let me play with and hold Tiger Baby.

Bigwig ? - 2008

Bigwig was the patriarch of the campus cats. He, and a black-and-white rival tom named Sylvester, most likely fathered most of the cats now living on campus (except for the ones people kept as pets and dumped here in the past 3 years). Bigwig was fully feral, but he was a very friendly cat. He didn't like being petted or touched much, but he would follow me around on campus and come running to me when he saw me. He had to be the oldest cat on campus. I had hoped that by getting him fixed we could extend his life (really, all that fighting and roaming to breed were taking their toll). But he seemed to get weaker and weaker last fall, until he disappeared. I last saw him in front of the College of Education building number 1, where he appeared to be thin but otherwise all right--and he ate all the food I gave him then. But I never saw him after that, and it looks like he passed away during the winter.

Winter here is rather harsh for the campus cats because it is rather long and cold and wet, and there is a shortage of shelter for them. It might be easier on them if it were a little colder, but instead of snow, we usually get ice-cold rain. More than food everyday, what cats need in the winter is a safe and dry place to sleep. I have tried to help them by building 'neko-goya'--cat shelter boxes (which I will show in a future post).

By the end of his life, Bigwig had at least two families going. He had fathered cats on campus. I think he was, for example, the father of Tiger Boy. And I believe he was also the father of Shaun (they had very friendly interactions). But he also fathered a family just north of campus, around the university tennis court area (near where I live). He was a very smart cat indeed, as he had mastered how to cross the very busy circumnavigational road to the north of campus. He would come over to campus to get fed, but he would regularly go back to visit his family (which will be featured here as the 'Tennis Court Attachment'). When I first got to know him, I thought he was two different cats--the older tom I saw near my apartment and the older tom on campus near where Orange Blossom, Caramel and Shaun hang out. Sometimes he would beat me home!

He was, believe it or not, a very devoted father. He would go back and spend time with his beautiful little son, Tiger Baby (you will see him in a future post as well). They would eat together. He would stand back in a very protective stance and watch while Tiger Baby ate.

Some more photos of Tiger Boy

I found a few more photos of Tiger Boy. Thanks go to Kem for her graphic commemorating Tiger Boy. His life was all too short but he was such a good friend. In the photo above (his constant companion, his sister, Maya Girl is on the left), you can really see Tiger Boy's lovely set of stripes. He was grey with black stripes, but he also had a lot of brown and even orange-brown on his chest--which is why I named him Tiger Boy.

Taken before Tiger Boy was a year old.

Taken about a month before he died. He was such a handsome cat!

Tiger Boy would--like most of the campus cats--rest in the shade of cars. He was wise to cars and trucks on campus, but most likely a very fast-moving car at night on the road north of campus confused him as to how fast it was approaching. He died about 200 yards away from where he was born and lived most of his short life. So wandering wasn't really the problem. Speeding drivers who also hurt children and elderly are.

Maya Girl and Tiger Boy are looking at some bugs.

Ragi and her daughter Gwen

Ragi is the matriarch of the Dining Hall Troop. She is a lovely 'mikeneko', classic calico cat. She is not fully used to people--I saw a student chase her the other day, the guy was just goofing around, but such behaviour from people isn't really going to make Ragi trust people very much. She lets me pet her before and during feeding, so actually she is rather friendly for a fully feral cat. She was born on the campus, grew up here and will most likely die here. If I had a large house in the country, I would not hesitate to adopt a cat like Ragi. She would just need her space and to be allowed to come and go in the surroundings.

Last year, her last born litter of three had one survivor. I called her Gracie then, but her identity got confused with another lovely little calico kitten, also born last year. So that 'changeling' stayed 'Gracie', while the original Gracie is now called Gwen. Gwen is a short-haired calico, and her dark color is actually a striped grey, which is truly lovely. Gracie (the changeling) is also colored like this, but her fur is rather long and she is a smaller cat than Gwen. Gracie has moved over to the Swimming Pool Gang, and lives next to Elvis, the alpha male of that location. Gwen has moved to the edge of the Dining Hall Troop. She lives behind or amongst some houses (houses in town in Japan are usually put very close together, creating spaces that cats can hide in), and she visits me for feeding at a bicycle stand near the north walk-in gate of campus, right behind the number one building of the College of Education (where my new office is). Whereas Gracie is rather used to people--once you feed her you can pick her up and pet her, and she has lived in my office for a couple weeks to get over a bad cold--Gwen is like her mother, Ragi, very shy, although used enough to people to let them get close to her when feeding.




Ragi, mother of Gwen, Orange Blossom, and Caramel. Aunt to Shaun and Gracie.





This was a photo taken last year in July, of Gwen (front) and her mother Ragi (behind).