I have hated cats my entire life. And one of the things that used to annoy me was the idea that people loved an animal that was apathetic to their existence. They are selfish and they embody the exact opposite of what it means to be a human with purpose. It pisses me off just thinking about it.
When I moved to Japan I noticed a lot of stray cats. At night, they fought each other. During the spring they cried out looking for a mate, and one particular colony used my front door as their personal bathroom.
My wife on the other hand is the opposite. She loves them with all her heart. My wife has a specific giggle that she does when she sees something cute. It makes me weak in the knees when I hear it.
So, when I caught her feeding a black stray—after she told me we shouldn't—I tolerated it because that little demon brought out that giggle constantly. She named it "Kuro-chan."
Kuro-chan
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| Kuro-chan waiting for my wife |
The visits became a regular occurrence at exactly the same time every day, and depending on where she was, if someone walked towards my front door, Kuro-chan would sprint to her usual meeting spot anticipating my wife.
I typically get home before she does, and so I would have this feral cat sitting right outside by the back sliding door—waiting to be fed. I did not want anything to do with my wife's faux pas activities. Eventually that darn cat started to meow to get my attention because it knew that it could get food.
For the sake of peace, and so that it didn't attract attention I began giving the little booger some food. Most days it would eat and then leave. But even after being fed it stuck around for… attention.
The routine became established and Kuro-chan switched to associating me as the food person, and thus my wife trapped me into taking care of this [enter expletive here].
All for a giggle.
The Main Issue Around Stray Cats in Japan
For most people in Japan, cats are a sign of good luck, and prosperity. White cats are often associated with wealth and fortune. A lot of restaurants and shops have a statue of the beckoning cat. The white cat statue waving its hand as if to invite you into the shop.
Cats are loved by everyone—abstractly. In reality there are two classes of people when it comes to them. They are either loved or their existence is despised. Why do people dislike the little cute furries?
Aside from the fact that they don't respect property lines, and that they poop, fight, and the other "f" word wherever they want within their domain. It's the latter that people dislike about them.
Cats' pregnancy cycles are right around two months. After giving birth, a female cat's next heat cycle can begin as early as a few weeks later, though it commonly returns around 6–8 weeks after the kittens are born. Many cats can go into heat and become capable of pregnancy by about four months old, though the average is closer to 5–6 months. One detail that genuinely caught me off guard is that cats don't recognize close relatives, which means unneutered family members can mate if they're nearby.
Feeding feral cats will facilitate a population boom. That there lies the problem. More cats means more fights, poop, and "f" noises. It is quite unsettling.
But, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Kita-chan
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| Kita-chan |
To give credit where it's due, the best thing about Kuro-chan was that it learned my behavior well. She was apathetic to me, and only really liked my wife. She didn't stick around for the petting and playing if my wife wasn't there. It was my favorite feature about her.
Eventually another cat caught on to Kuro-chan's whereabouts and followed her. She was a greyish multicolored cat with a white underbelly. She was ditzy, clumsy, and very shy. She often came at different times of the day, and my wife and I would look towards the back window, and found ourselves saying, "あっ、来た！" (Oh, she came!). That is how Kita-chan got her name.
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| "yuuuuuge" |
The first time I ever met Kita-chan, was when she sat hiding underneath the air conditioning unit looking straight into my soul as if to say, "I heard that you were a kind human with…food."
The first week she started to come I ignored her. Hoping to deter her. I did not want more cats to come, but I made an exception this time. After I saw the cat look like it was weeping—tears streaming from her eyes, making sounds that felt uncomfortably close to sobbing.
And I get it, you're probably thinking, "Cats can't cry!" But I am telling you, that yes, they can. This little diva began weeping when she saw the empty plate after Kuro-chan left.
This made me feel sorry for her. And that's how I began feeding the two cats.
The Nightmare
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| My two little friends |
We made sure not to litter, and to clean up after them. Even going as far as finding where they pooped—right outside our front door—and cleaning that up. We held that routine for a few months with no issues. One day, my wife suggested we should stop feeding them, otherwise they could reproduce. We both took that probability for granted.
Kita-chan consistently came every single day, at all hours of the day. She just wanted to hang out. We bought a hair brush, and after she gained some of our trust she let us brush her hair, and massage her head. All at a distance, as friendly and sociable as she was, my wife and I were still paranoid of the possible parasites or fleas.
Eventually, I started thinking about what I could do for Kita-chan. We began researching options for them, and what we could do. I found out that cats were territorial. They fought because the male cats often encroached female territory. I figured out that our apartment shared a border with a rival male cat (possibly Kita-chan's dad). It explained why so much fighting—even before we started feeding the two—happened right around our backyard.
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| Rival Cat |
I hated cats, but I liked Kuro and Kita-chan. I learned who the different strays were around the neighborhood, and found myself in the middle of cat politics. Without realizing it I was defending Kuro-chan's territory when a rival encroached, chasing them away with a water gun.
In hindsight, I was a dumbass.
This went on for months. And then Kuro-chan, and even Kita-chan stopped coming. They were gone for a few weeks. And to our shock, Kuro-chan showed up with a litter of kittens. All of them were the same color as her except for one. Our horror came true.
Kita-chan came back, but did not approach while the kittens and their mother were around. She often came solo. But one day my wife and I saw her at the front door. She greeted us, and we gave her a nice snack, and we went on our way to the grocery store. I looked back at Kita-chan, she was grooming herself. I smiled, knowing that she was okay. Only, that image in my mind—seeing her in that parking lot licking her fur as my wife and I walked to the grocery store. That will be the last time I ever see her.
Sakura-Neko
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| Uh oh moment |
My wife and I stood in our backyard thinking what have we done! A litter of four, and a mother who looked more annoyed than happy. They were little rascals in the beginning months. It was cute to see them play, but they were exposed to the world's dangers.
I went out looking for where they stayed, because they only came to us when they wanted to eat. That was when we discovered that they were living around another person's house in the same neighborhood, and they were getting food from them too. So, we were only partially to blame.
My wife got in contact with a local volunteer that helped trap stray cats in our neighborhood for the purpose of spaying and neutering them. After which they were returned to the neighborhoods they were caught in. This is called TNR Trap-Neuter-Return.
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| Kita-chan |
In Japan, much of that work is supported by the Animal Action Fund (どうぶつ基金), a public-interest nonprofit that helps fund Trap-Neuter-Return efforts nationwide. The organization issues free spay and neuter surgery tickets to volunteers, local groups, and municipalities, and cats that go through the program receive a small V-shaped cut in their ear as a visible sign they've been sterilized and returned.
The clipped ears look like the petals of a cherry blossom, and thus these cats are referred to as "sakura-neko" or cherry blossom cats. The main idea is to cease euthanasia to allow the cats to live out their lives peacefully with the support of the community without reproducing.
I think of it as the cat catch-22. When people hate cats, they ignore them, and that neglect allows their numbers to grow. Ironically, it's responsible care—not resentment—that actually reduces the population.
The volunteer came over, gave one look and understood the problem. She assured us that it's a common problem with a simple solution. I just had to catch them one by one.
Shiri-chan
I searched endlessly for Kita-chan. I had read that a cat's territory often spanned a few acres, and I had covered about ten looking for her. But alas, we came to the conclusion that either she was killed, run off by another cat, or taken in by a forever family. In a fantasy of mine I hope that she is okay, and is enjoying her life with a family, but strays are rarely so lucky.
Kuro-chan, had four kittens that we knew about. Each one had their own personalities. One of her offspring reminded me of Kita-chan. She was always curious. She often was the last to leave, and stuck around looking through the glass window at what we were doing.
She showed keen interest, and thus we named her "Shiri-chan" because she seemed to "知りたい" which means she "wanted to know."
Whenever we ended up giving her food, her siblings hissed at her, and refused to allow her to eat. It used to enrage me, because they were tolerated only because I didn't want to scare her, and I had to hold myself back because I needed the little demons to trust me enough so I could trap them.
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| No tailed cat: Debra |
Shiri-chan was only able to eat after the rest of them left, and so I formed yet another bond with her. She became my buddy, with the exact same gentle personality as Kita-chan.
One day, I saw her walking with a limp, as she came for dinner. The other siblings came and began eating, and Shiri-chan sat there quietly sobbing. It looked like she had a rough time, and that was when I decided that I needed to trap her first.
The volunteer had only a kitty transport for me to use, because the traps were being used by other people. I had to grab Shiri-chan, and put her inside the carrier.
One morning, she limped over, from underneath the AC unit, and I put out some wet food for her. She ate quietly, and as she finished I pet the back of her head which she let me do. I grasped the back of her neck slowly lifting her. And as I lowered her into the carrier she spooked and tried to escape, but it was too late.
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| My buddy being sad |
I can still hear her meowing, "Why?" It broke my heart to see her like that, but I knew she needed help. I didn't tell the volunteer about her leg hoping that they would notice, and show her compassion.
The volunteer came later that day, and picked her up.
A week went by, and I got a call. The volunteer told me that Shiri-chan was social enough for her to find her forever home. She said that she already had someone who would be willing to adopt her. But she thought of presenting the idea to me first.
Shiri-chan had an opportunity to be loved and cared for. I wanted to adopt her. But my apartment didn't allow pets, and I was not confident that I would be able to take care of her the way she deserved, so I opted to yield her to the volunteer.
I never saw Shiri-chan again, but the fact that she is safe somewhere is enough for me to be happy.
Meanwhile the other little shits were becoming a problem. I didn't form any more bonds with the other cats, and they didn't seem to mind. I fed them, and cleaned up after them when they pooped. I was only doing that because I liked their mother, Kuro-chan. Though, it seemed like she didn't want anything to do with them either.
Trapping Kuro
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| A miracle |
Kuro-chan and I understood each other well. And we didn't cross any lines. However, if there was any cat that I thought would be the hardest to capture—it was her.
The volunteer let me borrow a trap, and advised me to put the food inside it, without letting the trap go off, so that the cats can get used to it. She told me she would come back in a week. That night I set the trap forgetting to disable the door. Kuro-chan came for dinner seeing the food inside the cage. She was completely unbothered, and walked right in. The door suddenly closed.
She looked confused, giving me the same look as Shiri-chan, "What the actual 'f' do you think you're doing?"
Luckily the volunteer was quick to pick her up, and that's all it took. She returned, and had trust issues with me for about a week, but she seemed to not care after that. Our trust and relationship was restored like nothing happened.
Trapping the rest of the cats became like a routine. I worked with each one individually, gaining their trust and at the first opportunity breaking them. One cat in particular, the one we called "Biri-B" because she was afraid of everything was pregnant with 4 kittens at the time of her operation. Mind you this kitten was less than seven months old! That's when I realized I had to speed up the process.
One by one I caught them. And by the time my wife and I had to move all the cats had the sakura mark on their ears. Before we finally left they stopped coming over, except Kuro-chan.
She knew something was up, she was always smart.
I visited her one last time, I fed her and tried to teach her to follow me, but she wasn't having it. I figured it was because I lived in a different cat's territory. I walked away seeing her groom herself after finishing her meal, and that was it. The last time I ever saw her.
Rules of Thumb: To Feed or Not To Feed
The question: should you feed Japan's stray cats? First, don't do what I did. Blindly feeding them without knowing if they are sakura or not could do more harm than good. However, there is some etiquette to consider.
- Observe their ears, if it looks like it's been clipped, then no problem. It means that there are people in the neighborhood that take care of them. They are not any one person's cats, but they are part of the community. So, it's okay to feed them as long as you clean up after the cats, and remove any litter that may have accumulated.
- As a tourist, if the cat does not have a clipped ear, then this means the cat is still considered completely feral. If they look healthy, do not feed them. Avoid contact with those cats. However, personally, if it looks like the cat is starving, or dying, then I think it's okay to feed them. It's an act of mercy.
- As a resident, if you encounter a non-clipped cat, and it's one that you recognize, consider looking into finding a volunteer. There are resources and volunteer groups all over Japan that would be happy to help with guidance. If you decide to go this route, then you might be expected to lend a hand.
Remember: there is no way to know if the cats are disease or parasite free. If you decide to interact with them, you do so at your own risk.
Final Thoughts
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| Goodbye Shiri |
The entire experience, I hate to admit it, taught me a lot about myself. It exposed my ego and how toxic I actually was at times. It forced me to slow down, learn patience, and accept that neither people nor animals can read my mind—and that expecting them to was unfair.
More importantly, it taught me what it means to take responsibility for someone who can't take care of themselves. By proxy, it helped me understand the mindset I needed to have before the birth of my child.
A cat's personality doesn't bend; it only responds to its environment. I don't love cats now, but I no longer hate them either. I've found a middle ground. Maybe there really are three kinds of people.
And all of that was for a giggle.
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