A better look at Gwen

Gwen is Ragi's daughter and the last cat to be born on campus. Like her mother she is a beautiful mike-neko (calico). The sentry who was here for a year because of all the construction traffic fed her for a year and then decided to adopt her since he liked her so much. She is very shy and a true feral cat, but she trusts him and can adapt to being a housecat. Good luck Gwen, the Dining Hall Troop members miss you.

My favorite picture of Ragi

Ragi (also known affectionately as 'Ragi-Mama') is mother or aunt to most of the Dining Hall Troop.

I like how I caught her with her tongue out here. Maybe I will use this photo at the top of the blog sometime.

June stayed with us for about a month

June stayed with us for about a month. She became good friends with Elvis and Gracie. June and Gracie were--immediately--like sisters. Being about the same age and both calico cats, they seemed to love each other. My how they loved to play too! Gracie really missed June when she joined her new family, but June went to be a companion to little O'Malley, the orange tabby we rescued earlier this year. Lil' O'Malley is now BIG O'Malley, and he and June really enjoy life together now. It seems that for a while O'Malley was a bored young male who was causing mayhem at his new family's house, but once he got June to spend time with, he settled down.

Here is a selection of my favorite photos of June when she was staying in the office. I really miss her because she was the MOST affectionate cat I've ever encountered. She must have stayed with the Swimming Pool group of cats on campus for about an hour before she came to me. That group consists of Maya Girl, Sheba, Gus--and now Buddy, a little all-black male who came from off campus this spring. Former boss of the gang is Elvis. And Gracie also spent time with the group (she started life with the Dining Hall group and then later joined the Swimming Pool one).










More photos of June, including ones with Gracie, can be found at my Picasa Web Album:


http://picasaweb.google.com/jannuzi/JUNE?authkey=Gv1sRgCPe8xdfpjKu3iwE&feat=directlink

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).