Earthquake Pets

Pssst!!

2012-02-19T21:43:00.000+09:00

Friday I found out I get another dose of volunteer leave as it is a new calendar year. Yesterday was presentation day and the minute I got to the computer today, I booked a flight. Baddaboom! I'm off again:-)

Alex super vet tech!!

2011-12-11T16:23:00.000+09:00

This week sees the departure of an amazingly inspirational volunteer. She came in from the States with Kinship Circle the first time round, went home after 3 and a bit months, came back again and has been doing the massive rounds that the volunteers of the Inawashiro shelter do with nothing short of vim and vigour!!
She is headed back Stateside to get back to life that she put on hold by selflessly coming out here to volunteer for 6 months. She is bringing a little bit of "Made in Japan" back with her a mom cat and two of her babies and a pound dog. Thing is, she wasn't expecting to bring back the doggie and the costs associated with doing so are creeping up. A friend of hers created a chip in for the venture and I have posted the link below. I hope you if you have any spare change knocking around you could send a little her way and help get this 1 year old pound baby out, and over to the States with her. Thank you

http://animaltransportforalex.chipin.com/alex-lanes-rescue-animal-transport-mission-japan-usa

WOW!!

2011-12-09T21:59:00.000+09:00

Where on earth does the time go? I've been very remiss with regard to my blogging. The semester started in second gear and quickly revved up to 5th. Life is coming at me hammer and tongs and I'm thoroughly engaged in deflecting, delegating, defying and deliberating over all the curve balls with my name on them. 3 more months sees me at the end of my 6 year stint at this institution of 'higher' learning. Time to move on, not far, just a realignment of what matters in life here. While my brother is calling this readjustment my mid-life crises, I'm calling it prioritising :-)

I haven't given up on the Northern furbs (or the ones in Okinawa either, having picked up two kittens in the last 4 months). I was able to negotiate a donation of $15,000 worth of science equipment for our volunteer vets in Fukushima and continued to collect donations of pet food and pet items. In my blog hiatus I was able to send over 100kg of food North and what seemed like a billion kennels. I am now very well acquainted with packing tape and cardboard boxes. While I thought I would eventually have mastered "a technique" I'm sorry to report the packing gene did not get passed down and I suffer greatly every time I come near the sticky stuff :-) "Sure it is for a good cause" I console myself.

So I'll keep it brief for my re-entry into the world of blogging and leave you with a little Okinawan lad we picked up in an awful state at a 24 hour charity Mararthon for Tohoku.

Pelos

World Animal Day

2011-10-04T23:40:00.000+09:00

October is choca-full of animal-ness with vegetarian awareness month, vegetarian day, No harm done week and today; World Animal Day. This is the month that it is all happening in the animal kingdom............... internationally that is. Here in nihon-land we are little bit behind the times and the concepts of having a day for everything if it doesn't fit in with a numbered date.Although us here at JEARS are trying our hardest to change that state of affairs. We have a candle light vigil going on on Facebook and have changed our profile pics to candles. There is also an awesome virtual site where you can cyber-listicly (once again I apologise to any English teacher who ever endured me in their classes!!) light candles. http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=JEARS (it is free and easy to do) We have chosen to honour the fourleggeders of Tohoku.Not only those that survived the horrendous natural disasters of March 11th yet are at the rainbow bridge now because of human rules and regulations but those who are STILL waiting to be rescued.The international community are most likely not seeing reports on animals in and around the zone but be assured those poor haggard souls are still scraping by. So if you have a minute or two please let JEARS know you are supporting them with your thoughts.

On a personal note, I had a pretty successful week as far as getting the word out was concerned. I was interviewed for the national newspaper; The Japan Times and believed I was a contributing person for Maruko's story. The article turned out to be about JEARS, Maruko and I. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20111001cz.html#.Toa4YE2LgJY.facebook It was picked up by a Brazilian daily today and wheee heeeee we are off. Maruko's camera shy family and I are in touch and it is certainly a wonderfully happy ending. So if I can just send a little prayer up to the people in heaven's animal department, that there may be many more reunions like Maruko's I would be a happy camper. I might just slip Setsuo's name in there a few times too because I'm three brick walls short of a dozen at the moment.

Abandonment- a first hand account

2011-09-28T14:31:00.000+09:00

Two wonderful volunteers from Tokyo, Anna Vieste and Etsuko Hori, recently spent time at the JEARS shelter in Inawashiro, Fukushima prefecture. A formerly popular ski area. I say "formerly" because the name Fukushima is now internationally synonymous with the sentiment `Danger Keep Out` and the droves of visitors who sought out Fukushima's natural beauty are thin on the ground these days. The JEARS shelter is located about 130km away from the TEPCO plant. The shelter offers sanctuary to abandoned animals from all over Tohoku and peace of mind to pet guardians who temporarily place their animals in JEARS care while they get the rest of their lives up and running again. Anna penned the following account of her recent volunteer experiences with the human Angels of Inawashiro. Her trip to Namie, a town 30km away from the nuclear plant.

A surreal story of the forgotten fourleggeders of Fukushima.

On Saturday we (Etsuko and I ) went with Alex to Namie town in Fukushima to do some food drops. After showing the appropriate passes we entered the abandoned town, geiger counter on lap and face masks uncomfortably in place. Alex said we should put them on when the counter hits 2.0 which it did well before the entrance to the ghost town. At first it seemed a li...ttle surreal how the counter started climbing up 2 - 5- 10 -12 -13 -20 finally up to 30 .The strangest most unsettling part of the trip was the totally abandoned town..houses unlocked with slippers neatly arranged at the entrance. Deserted businesses, machinery left to rust , a little van left neatly at the side of the road ivy creeping up over the windshield and doors, grass covering the foot paths on the side of the roads .

As we stopped to leave yet more food at a designated spot 2 young cats came running up right in the middle of the road seemingly unaware of what a road should be. We left food near houses were their feline occupants had been left to fend for themselves and saw kittens born well after the quake growing up in a world devoid of humans. Alex told us of a recent trip where she had spotted wild boars and babies which had now started breeding.

Please take me with you!

We went to visit and feed a poor dog that had been left chained up by a sad little dirty filthy kennel........its only shelter. JEARS had been in contact with his owner begging to take the dog and care for him assuring the owners that they could visit whenever they liked but they refused and said they go twice a week to leave food.(as if that was more than enough) They warned that there were now wild boar and he wouldnt stand a chance. Their warnings falling on deaf ears. We saw animal footprints near his kennel out of reach from his leash so he is being visited by others who may want to take his food. He fell in love with Etsuko and we started sobbing at having to walk away from him praying his owners would come to their senses before it was too late.

http://www.facebook.com/AnimalRescueJapan
http://jears.org/See More

Then the eeriest of all ... the spiders! They were simply everywhere spinning their webs from power lines on sign posts over almost everything...The absence of movement and human vibrations creating their ideal environment. Even a trio of wasps nests that had taken over the eaves of a house didn't deter them . At first we marveled at their bright lime coloured bodies and strong webs but the further in we went and the more spiders we saw the admiration turned to an uneasy nervousness. There were just so many and they were simply everywhere that we wondered how many may be there in a few months time.

When and if the inhabitants of these deserted towns ever go back what will they find? How will the animal inhabitants cope with their return? How will the animals cope with the coming winter?

JEARS does amazing work leaving food, capturing cats to spay and neuter, caring for any sick animals they find. And all WITHOUT government assistance! There is no animal fund no money coming to help these poor creatures or assist their owners to be able to take them to temporary housing. Its so sad and seems actually barbaric that they can just be treated like the rest of the abandoned objects left to rot and rust.

The girls at the inawashiro shelter do the drops twice a week rain, hail, shine and radiation . It takes about 6~7 hours to drive there do the drops and get back. Sometimes Alex Susan or Selena have to do this alone if there is no one else available to help! AMAZING!

I had a lift back to Tokyo the next day ..my new family member Sophi in her carrier (and her complaining meows) on my lap appreciating my life all the more and as always in complete admiration and gratitude of the important selfless work JEARS does!
— at Tokyo, Japan.

For those animals who didn't make it, those who were rescued and those who are still holding on in the hopes of being rescued.

World Animal Day .October 4th 2011

Catching up with old friends

2011-09-23T13:24:00.000+09:00

While up in HEART I had the privilege to reconnect with a few rescues from Iwate ken. Pitan and Taro the two corgis Tiffany and I pulled from Miyako pound and Ofunato pound.

http://earthquakepets.blogspot.com/2011/07/and-then-there-was-taropart-1.html

Pitan, while still a little on the corpulent side, had definitely slimmed down. The butt waddle wasn't nearly as pronounced and she didn't need to rest every five steps.In fact she was quite chipper and was well able to keep up with her companions on the walks. The only thing that would stop her dead in her tracks was the remotest inclination that we may have possibly walked through the teeniest split second waft of something edible.She was a machine when it came to all things food.The volunteers ate lunch down in the lower office with the four legged inhabitants who resided there. Although Pitan had only just joined the pre-fab gang she had already gently asserted herself as "Chief Lunch Implorer" by simply being persistent. The others would soon realise they were onto a loser begging for tidbits from ravenous volunteers but Pitan's resilience remained undeterred.Her furry companions would drift off into their afternoon siesta while Pitan remained ever vigilant in the presence food. She was a hoot. Second place on Pitan's list of 'likes' was petting. This lady likes her shoulders rubbed and ears scratched and sure, if we weren't useful for getting food out of, at least we could bestow that upon her, right?:-) She was in great spirits and it was wonderful to see her doing so well now all this lovely lady needs is a home to call her own.


On her way to becoming a super model:-)

Maruko's happy ending

2011-09-18T14:16:00.000+09:00

Maruko,last week at HEART 6 months on

This lucky lady certainly has a guardian angel or two shining down on her. In brief, she was trapped under rubble left in the wake of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. She was stuck for 11 days. When she got out she was surrendered to the city pound and was due to be gassed the day we met her. Along with a local vet, a local couple and our three Japanese speaking volunteers, we argued, beseeched and plagued the city hall officials to show mercy in her case. Begrudgingly they did. Maruko spent time in the Niigata shelter and the Heart Tokushima shelter where The video I made of her and her story was posted on their blog. Her owners found the site and got in touch.Today she was flown up to Sendai where her owners met her for the first time in 6 months. Local TV were there to report it.

Long version: (because you know I don't do short very well;-))
SO for the background of all the original shenanigans at the city hall you can read these blog entries.
http://earthquakepets.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-human-one-fourleggeder-two-heroes.html

http://earthquakepets.blogspot.com/2011/04/we-had-been-told-she-was-large-dog-but.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAdW_2sfZxkThe walls of bureaucracy that we kept coming up against had no right to be there given later information. Maruko should never have been in such a precarious situation.

It turns out that Maruko's owners had indeed handed her over to city hall on account of having nowhere to keep her after she was retrieved. She was handed over to be taken care of. Yes, you read right, TAKEN CARE of. They never signed any paperwork to relinquish their dog as is the case when someone does not want their pet any more. They believed Maruko was going to be held so they could sort things out and then they could come and get her. They returned to get her and the city hall would not divulge any information as to Maruko's whereabouts. The only thing they were told was that Maruko was still alive. The college age daughter pursued as many avenues as she possibly could to find their dog and find her she did. HEART has a blog and they wrote up Maruko's story and added the video I made. About 6 weeks ago Heart got a phone call from Sendai that ended in tears.The Maruko in HEART's care was indeed the Maruko they had been looking for. Since then all the angel's in charge of fourleggeders have been setting things in motion for her to be back where she belongs. Today was the culmination of those efforts and Miss Maruko has gone home.... FINALLY ;-)

Maruko at Sendai this morning

Beating the heat!

2011-09-16T22:52:00.000+09:00

We lucked out! There was a typhoon on the horizon a few days before we headed up to Tokushima. It miraculously dissipated before we got there. We had a rain free, hot and sunny week to work under and we just did a handbrake skid in sideways arrival back to Okinawa before typhoon 15's presence started to be felt.

Our week was HOT. without a drop of rain from the heavens but we had sound counsel on how to keep our cool.

1. Only walk in shaded areas.

2.When close to a natural water source, get in.

3.If no natural water source is available but there is water provided, get in.


4.Try to drink plenty of fluids even if a friend is IN the water source.

5.Don't take no for an answer when it comes to getting your fluids despite obstacles.

We had a teency tiny glimpse of everyday life at Heart Tokushima and were humbled at the fantastic things being achieved there.Susan, Hitoshi, Yamada san, and Tamura san and their wonderful supporters are truly national champions for the furbies that cross their path. Thank you for doing what you do and doing it so well!

Round 4 :-)

2011-09-06T15:46:00.007+09:00

Yup, I'm heading North again. This time to HEART Tokushima where many many of the animals that were rescued have found warm hearts and plenty of belly rubs. The official "disaster period" as declared by the Govt. will end on September 11th, 6 months after the tragedy. It makes sense to move on and look to the future but with some of the tiny isolated communities only seeing the START of clean up work it is hard to fathom such a final statement.There are regular Face Book calls from many of the established groups for hands to help in the clean up operations.

I`m getting asked one question with more and more frequency lately. It is, "Is there still stuff to be done?" You wouldn`t believe how much `stuff` there still is to be done on all levels. I'm only really dealing with the animal side of things here so that's what I'll stick to.

For the animals affected by these events it has been nothing short of a nightmare, especially in the Fukushima area. A brief recap: Folks were told to evacuate and not to take their pets, they'd be back in a few days. They weren't allowed back. Then restrictions started to ease, people started to go back to either continue to feed their animals OR let them loose. Then the evacuation area became mandatory and people were shipped in in buses (one person per household) and they were given two hours to 'raid ' their own house for important documents. NO pets allowed to be taken back. Then the 20km exclusion zone was calcified and apart from a few stalwarts the area became off limits to everyone.It has been that way since May.There have been some "official" vet team trips in to assess the animal situation, some trips not allowing animal retrieval AT ALL. In June there was talk of extending the radius to 30km but the plan was successfully argued down given that radiation does not infact actually travel in concentric circles like the founders of the 20km zone seemed to believe. Air had been monitored and it was discovered that particles had traveled in a tear shape pattern to the North West. Since the beginning of the Summer some residents outside the 20km zone but directly under the radiation graphic have started to voluntarily evacuate and many times the animals don't go with.What JEARS are facing now are ghost villages, and because spay neuter was never really a big thing here to begin with they are getting inundated with litters of kittens and puppies. It is heartbreaking to watch unfold, there are so many 'if only's'about the whole situation. I don't want to look back and have those thoughts about my own actions, so I'm still here and still standing up to be counted.

I come bearing donations :-)

.................Still Waiting..................

2011-08-30T15:34:00.000+09:00

So after not seeing any movement or hearing any updates a month down the road for Setsuo, I rang around just to be sure that no one else had been contacted. Numbers can get lost, wires can get crossed and things can go astray.Given the circumstances it wouldn't be too wild a concept to get your head around.Not sight nor sound had been heard about Setsuo. A call to City Hall was in order.

I called. I was put on hold. I was hung up on........ inadvertently....maybe? I called again. I was put on hold again.A voice came back and said "Sorry the person you wish to reach will be back after lunch". Ok, Human to human, a step in the right direction at least. After lunch I went through the same drill and was told the person I wanted to speak to wasn't coming in for the rest of the day and that it would be better to call tomorrow. Alrighty, any particular time? "yes, before lunch". 10 o'clock the next morning......well you get the picture! This went on an entire week. I made 18 long distance phone calls from Okinawa to Iwate. Yup, stubborn, I know. But if you want the job done, you gotta do it yourself, right? By the time call 12 was put on hold, the lady on the recievng end of my stalker-like repetitive calls and I were on first name terms, she also realised I wasn't going to go away.

Finally my lucky day, I got to talk to the vet. He acted surprised that JEARS hadn't heard from the family. Knowing and understanding their reluctance to give personal details out over the phone, I gave them my personal details and asked the City Hall to please have them contact me directly. They assured me this would happen forthwith. After all they had the documents Setsuo's family had to sign to turn him in right?........right?

A few days later, the groomer lady we had been in touch with before, called me. She said City Hall had called her looking for the contact details of Setsuo's family. As they say here....... eehhhhhhhhhhhhh???
(start your crescendo by the fourth 'h' and you'll sound completely native like!)

She then took it upon herself to do the contacting. She tried in vain to get in touch.So she determined that they had moved on and away therefore we could re home Setsuo. nnnnnnnnnggggghhhhhhhhh doesn't feel right , does it? I want to hear that from the horse's mouth. I was led to believe Setsuo was given up reluctantly and under duress. Am I naive to think they'd be thrilled to see him again after what they believed they had done? I know how I would feel, but maybe I'm extrapolating again. Every so often I have to remind myself that the average Joe Soap out there isn't as barmy about animals as I. This unfortunately is a 'watch- this-space' kind of story as my 18 phone call legacy will attest, I'm not going away any time soon:-) Gambarimashou!!

Setsuo

2011-08-25T17:06:00.000+09:00

And from there he huddled in the back of his carrier, in the back of the car the whole journey back to Sendai. Except for the service area stop.

We pulled off at a plush rest stop that I had used on the previous two trips. They had the swankiest, dark wood finished, spacious, wheelchair accessible, toilet ROOM, that I have ever seen, let alone at a road side service area. On my first trip in March this place had notices up in all the western-style toilets apologising profusely for the ice-cold unheated toilet seats that their esteemed patrons were accustomed to. They were of course trying to save electricity when there were rolling power cuts throughout the Northern regions.

My intention, on this warmer night two months later, was to let Setsuo out to stretch his legs, clean out any messes made in the carrier, and play for a teency bit of respite from his cramped quarters. Every cat (9 total thus far , (not all together)) I had given "stretch time" in this room, had gingerly stepped out of their crate, sniffed the air, approved the interior finishes and come for cuddles.

Naively expecting the same, I lifted the latch on the gridded door, stepped away and waited for Master Setsuo to put in an appearance. He was a no show. My upside down head slowly lowered to level with the portal he should have peered through. Sure that, I suppose would freak anyone out! my hair and countenance succumbing to gravity, was just too much for the furry fellow and he hissed and lurched at me.......... Ok message heard loud and clear. I`ll just be over here in this corner if you need me. To which his reply was "Enjoy your corner, I'm staying here!".

Again, naiviety reigned supreme in my grey matter and I believed for a second I could out-smart the cat. Note to self: Regardless of Eureka moments and idea bulbs flashing in mind's eye, YOU, a humble human can never "out-smart" a feline. I unclipped the top section of the kennel and removed it. Exposing Setsuo to the full glory of the designer roadside potty stop. He instantanteously took a liking to the gap between the floor and the large ceramic pipe in at the back of the toilet bowl. Rather than try to hoosh him out I went back to my corner of the room to see if curiosity would get the better of him.After all, the chrome finishes had attracted all his other furry predecessors in this joint. I waited, waited and then waited some more. Nope, I was witnessing the first kitty transported with the curiosity switch turned off. No worries, I knew he had been through a lot so this extra open space was probably not as enticing as I thought it could have been . Time to get Setsuo back into his comfort zone, reclip the carrier, position it as close to the back of the loo as possible and entice Setsuo back in. Looks plain and simple in black and white right? It did in my head too, Setsuo's logic was a tad different. The bend in the toilet piping had a lot more stability to it than the plastic carrier. A lot of epithelial tissue samples from me later, Setsuo was back in the carrier. For the rest of the trip home that is where he stayed because that is where he was somewhat reassured and felt 'protected'. I had wanted to do my best for him and his comfort levels but failed, by expecting him to be like all the other cats I had helped bring back. Instead I think I unintentionally managed to stress him out more.Sorry Setsuo!!

After a night in Sendai, we drove him and the rest of the gang to Inawashiro. He stayed edgy for a while but eventually grew to trust the volunteers there. He has been moved again to the JCN in Shiga where things have gotten a whole lot better for him.

I have just one niggle with regard to his case though. It is a niggle I'm working on but I keep meeting brick walls. It always seems easier for folks to say 'no' outright as it eases their work burden. Setsuo`s owners don't know he is still alive. They were obliged to hand him in to city hall which, as I have said before, means a one way ticket to the pearly gates. I confirmed with JEARS and told city hall we would keep Setsuo as long as it took the folks to get back on their feet. We just needed to know from them, whether they would like Setsuo back in a year or so, OR should we try to re-home him. City hall said they would be in touch.....................................................................................................................

In Limbo

2011-08-11T12:43:00.002+09:00

There are some stories that have taken me a while to get to because of the 'grrrr' factor they raise within. They just make me want to rant, rant and rant some more. While I promise I won't go ballistic don't judge me if I get a little tetchy around the edges while recounting this one.It is a cat story (sorry they were underrepresented in this trip!)

Setsuo was always in the background, an add-on when it came to the last trip north. Calling the Hokenjyo he was appended to the main conversation as oh, we have a cat too.　An after thought because he was shy, fearful and didn't know what on earth was going on. Bounced around from one bizarre situation to another he preferred the simplicity and safety of the back of his carrier.His doting people had been told they　could then couldn't be then could be again accepted by the evacuation center as the second floor of their house was still "habitable" but the structure was "unsafe".

Side note here: The earthquake of March 11th produced hundreds of after shocks. In many people's mind an aftershock is just a little readjustment shake after the main event. These rockers were of a magnitude that would be reported in the news as individual full blown earthquakes had they not come in after the big guy. Now there is a science behind it, (as there is everything) but I'm not au courant. Them there scientists can decipher which shake can be dubbed an aftershock and which is an individual seismic event. I just know the earth is moving for me and it is not a joyous event!

This house still had residents

So those who were eventually asked NOT to seek refuge in the community evacuation centers were obliged to go back to their homes that for the most part were gutted bare structure on the first floor and live on the second floor. Possibly an ok temporary solution if it hadn't been for Mother Nature's constant rocking and rolling.

So Setsuo's family were borderline. Accepted into the evacuation center but their permanence there was in limbo until a city official could go around and assess their abode. They managed to keep the second floor relatively sealed so they could keep their Setsuo there. The young lady visited every day and made sure he was doing alright given the circumstances. The family stayed at the center. These living arrangements were endured for 3 months before the family finally got their own prefab in the temporary housing areas. Sighs of relief were issued all around. Finally Setsuo didn't have to live alone in an unsafe,leaky second floor. He could be with his people at last.

When the local authorities were assigining the first groups of people to their new quarters little thought was givent o neighbours sticking with neighbours, pet owners alongside pet owners, old folks neighbouring young children etc. You know, the way neighbourhoods naturally evolve? But it seems these situations became issues for people that were living in each other's pockets. Setsuo ran into the non-pet owners problem.

Neighbours on BOTH sides of Setsuo's prefab developed instantaneous skin reactions to the cat living next to them. A cat that they had no interaction or face to face time with. Suddenly it was imperative that this feline was moved on. Nothing else could be causing this blemish free incessant itching.It could only be a cat as neither unrelated neighbour had had these symptoms before. Setsuo's family fought a losing battle for him and at the end of the day it was how he crossed our path in hokenjyo, a very bewildered and fearful moggie.

Romeo and Juliette

2011-08-07T15:57:00.000+09:00

JEARS has conducted their rescue, retrieval and reunion operations in all manner of vehicles from fuel efficient and powerful Hiaces to held together with duct tape and prayers yellow plates (below 660cc engines).Private, rented or donated all the four wheelers have made it possible to achieve so much. Many of these conveyances have seen better days. On the day Jackie, Talles, Nick and I ventured up to Rikuzentakata to get Tufty, we got the plush Honda Odyssey. We could most certainly fit a dog in the back after our food drops and supplies distribution. This was going to be smooth as clockwork.

We were ready to go at 11am but somehow didn't get on the road until 3pm. Between mysterious flashing lights on dashboards, to sudden ferry requests we had a later start than intended. I have already told you some of the story of that night here

http://earthquakepets.blogspot.com/2011/05/retracing-steps.html

Our main purpose as I said above was food drops.When finished we would call into Dr. Takahashi to pass on the yoroshikus of the JEARS team. Then swing by Hokenjyo get the dog and head on back to the Sendai base. So simple, clear and easy yet pretty far from how it all panned out.

We left Rikuzentakata that day with 8 animals instead of the one we had planned for. Two of those sweethearts have just been returned to their human family in the temporary housing, Romeo and Juliette. We had picked them up from the owner's daughter because their real "Mum" was too upset to hand them over. They had been taken care of by their vet since March and had been given free run of his garden on one of the hills above the city.

They were hilarious, It was like they were siamese twins. They ran around the garden seemingly attached to each other. They would instinctively know when the other was turning. It was like they were velcroed together. We decided a soft sided carrier would be the best option to transport them in. They of course had other ideas and I don't think we had rounded the first bend in the road when Romeo had already chewed his way out of one of the mesh walls. They weren't too happy about the concept of enclosed space given their 8 weeks of fresh air and free rein.
One sturdy wire cage later and we hit the road. They were noisy house guests but only because they had no idea who all the strangers were. There were around 10 volunteers sleeping in the Sendai house that night, plus all the animals. That is a whole lot of change for two little bewildered furbs.

We drove them up to Inawashiro the next day where they were warmly welcomed by the Fukushima JEARS team. They have spent 3 months in JEARS care and last week they were returned to their doting family where it was revealed that these two cutie pies not only have the looks but that they are unsung heroes. Sylvia was part of the reunion team so I'll let her fill you in on the dynamic duo. I loaded it as a JPG file so if you click on it it should increase in size........should!;-)

Thank you's

2011-07-29T19:26:00.000+09:00

You can never say these two words enough. Sometimes events are so overwhelming that these two little words seem minuscule in comparison to the experience lived through. I know I have said it before but I want to thank you again for the messages of support, financial donations and basically the outpouring of belief that I have been on the receiving end of since choosing this amazing, heartbreaking, heart warming, depressing, uplifting, upsetting, enriching,frustrating, mind blowing path.

THANK YOU, Thank YOU, THANK you for helping me to help!

Pet products

2011-07-25T22:20:00.000+09:00

I am a sucker for those info-mercials. I know......... any modicum of respect you previously haboured for me is now out the window! I don't instantly pick up the phone and dial. I just ponder, mull and ruminate about how flat my abs could be and how under my bed would be the perfect place to stow the latest, muscle enhancing, must-have, cheap, plastic contraption from the sweat shops of Asia. I scour the local sports shops,locate the object of my desire and then start the pondering, mulling and ruminating process all over again. The argument rages for days inside my head, I need it, I'll don a bikini this summer if I get it,
It is a waste of money, It'll just gather dust right alongside all the other unused fitness equipment.
No, no, this time it will be different I'll really use it,
gadget graveyard!!
skinny thigh magic thighs!
clothes horse!
flat abdominator abs!
junk!
buns of steel.... and so it continues. Sometimes reason wins, sometimes my perceived needs get the better of me.Reason is always right of course, if it doesn't win round one, the purchase, it always wins round two, the inevitable elevation to dust collector status.

So how does this have anything to do with pets? well you know the pet industry has boomed in the last 2 or 3 decades, right? And by boom I mean you can pretty much purchase the pet version of anything human. From Chaise longues beds to brand name poop bags there is something for even the most discerning pet.(or owner) Going to buy a new bowl or leash is not a choice between two colours it is a choice between two aisles of the same product. Some of the stuff is definitely really brilliant, inventive and actually useful. But boy oh boy is there a lot of crap out there.Like the TV ads, I get all psyched up about the latest craze in pet toys and weirdly devised treat dispensers. I spent a fortune on all types of canine "add-ons" when I adopted the first pooch after the second I discovered cats had a completely different set of needs so off to the shops with me again!!

One of my own dogs Snuffy has the bejaysus scared out of him every time we have violent weather. There is no consoling him. Once the skies light up he paws and paws and paws any part of your body he can see.I have spent ages on line trying to find something, anything, that will allay his fears and save my sleeping head from abrupt arousal. As with the bowls there are many solutions to the one problem. Fear of thunder remedies are a lot more costly though. Add to the retail price shipping fees to Japan and you are already through the roof.

One product stood out, the Thundershirt. Its premise was simple, a swaddled dog. I imitated it and the concept seemed to work somewhat. Then I started volunteering up north. One of the awesome volunteers from the States, Lexie, http://injoyphotographyblog.com/?author=1 had contacted a few pet related businesses before leaving and let them know what she was doing. One of the many generous donations she received was a package of Thundershirts.

Eight with his Mum.

The third time I went up, I saw some still left and was thrilled because I knew the dogs we were going to meet the next day and I knew at least two of them NEEDED stress relief. I would take a few more of the smaller ones just in case. If these coats could help anyone then the little Shizu Eight, that Jackie and I met the last time would be a prime candidate. We met him again and his owner was thrilled that we had remembered her and her little boy, Eight, who was nine years old. He was quite used to being dressed up and took to the coat immediately.We distributed 5 coats that day and the turnaround that was the most precious to see happened to Puru.

Puru is short for Puru puru, it means tremble in Japanese. The owner had adopted this dog from the pound only a few months before the tsunami. He had seen him there sitting in the middle of the room not making eye contact with any of the workers, not budging from his spot, just shaking. What possessed this man to save this dog instead of the others was pity. He said he looked lonely. So he took him home to meet his other Shiba,Leon. They didn't get along..... at all .....for the first month. I don't know how many people who read this are involved in animal re-homing but the average family who decides it isn't working out for whatever reason, never gives it a month. Miraculously somehow the dogs reached a truce and they then resorted to tolerating each other with the odd spat here and there.Puru was still shy and a bit skittish and never seemed to relax like he was in his own home.

Then the tsunami came and their lives were re-prioritised. Like a lot of other souls who survived, they took stock of what they had left and decided it was much more important to them than they had given it credit for before. Puru and Leon became inseparable. Puru was still the more reticent of the two but at least Leon was there to catch his back. You met them in an earlier post but this time we came bearing a gift of a different nature, one of the Thundershirts. I was excited as I had seen instant calm on Eight's demeanour when we strapped him in. I was completely and utterly unprepared for what Puru did once we had him all kitted out.He fell asleep. He fell asleep standing up! Yes, upright on four paws this dog closed his eyes, relaxed his mouth and fell asleep in front of all present! My photos only look like I caught him at a bad moment with his eyes closed but there wasn't a bad moment he was just so chilled out he took forty winks.His owner nudged him, he opened his eyes, the owner had nothing else to say to him, so realising he wasn't really needed, Puru slipped back into his oblivion.The owner nudged again. Puru opened his eyes again, moved towards his person got petted and was about to return to the land of nod when his "dad" decided that this was too freaky. He took the coat off, and Puru resumed position a little further back from the goings on.

Taro's teeth. (part 3)

2011-07-21T23:33:00.001+09:00

By the time we stopped at a convenience store 2 hours later the smell was gone. Not gone gone, we had just become accustomed to it and had probably absorbed a lot of it! Like garlic it was probably going to be coming out our pores for a few days afterwards. A quick leg stretch and inside with us to join the other volunteers from other groups from other prefectures in the line for the toilets. This convenience store was the last stop shop before the expressway and business had never been better. We parked outside for 30 minutes to walk the dogs, eat our food and confuse our sat. nav. lady.

When we had pulled into the parking area there was an older man with his two dogs just hanging out. After we had dealt with nature's wishes we approached them with Pitan. Yup, she wasn't a dog's dog she simply said "oh" and turned and walked away. Taro was curious, slightly assertive but passed the encounter with flying colours. It turned out this man was the father of one of the ladies working in the shop. We swopped dog stories and then nature's call resounded in the dogs' ears so we humans wished each other luck whilst the fourleggeder at the end of my leash set his sights on the far end of the lot. When the staff of the store weren't too busy, the daughter came out, took her break and shared a bag of chicken nuggets with her Dad and the dogs. Dad passed along our story and she came over to talk and say hi. There were no customers in the shop so the other staff member came out too. A staffless convenience store...

We talked for a little bit, they petted the dogs and then Taro, mid petting session, did what he had done before except this time I didn't have the benefit of daylight and I missed the signals. The lady was thankfully fast enough and it turned the conversation into "whoaaaaaaaaa that was lucky!! did you see that? wow! No, no I'm fine, all ok, promise" We Gomen nasai-ed (apologised) as much as was humanly possible before they made their retreat back to the safe zone behind the cash register. Obviously the universe's cue to hit the road!! We were packing everyone back up and making sure they were all watered, wee-ed and secure in the back when one of the shop ladies approached with two cups of piping hot coffee as a "help" for our drive back to Sendai. So she had nearly lost a right arm to one of our charges and yet here she was gifting us coffee? These folks can certainly teach you a thing or two about humanity!!

Ok Taro that is a score of almost two, you sort of need to give us a bigger window when you are planning that.A fairly uneventful long drive back to Sendai saw us pull in after midnight. Everyone was tired it had been a long day. We unloaded the car and set everyone up inside the house. This is when Pitan decided to start up her bark-a-thon.We tried all the tricks in the book and just when we thought we had cracked it she would start up again. From pee time, to more walks to draping the cage with a towel to being in the same room with her all worked well for the initial 10 seconds. We broke down and gave her more treats and if she is getting one Taro needs to get one too. Treat went in, both dogs were calm, next to fill up their water bowls and bed. Tiffany put the water bowl in Taro's cage and bammm Taro left his signature on her arm.

I'm in awe of Tiffany, she didn't even curse! I most certainly would have been a motormouth at the universe in the same situation. We cleaned, washed and disinfected. Tiffany assured me she had had worse and this was a walk in the park. I wasn't so sure and kept proffering more sanitizer, disinfectant, salve, bandages and anything remotely medical.It was close to 1am nowhere would be open. We'd deal with it on the morrow.

She was right, in the light of day things didn't look as angry as they had before. A trip to the drug store and she was sorted out.Taro on the other hand had a little secret that he didn't let us in on. Something he hid away under his matted fur that hadn't seen a brush in a very long time. His coat was a dust laden grey where it should have been snow white, it was dense where it should have been smooth and dull when it should have been sleek and shiny.

Taro's elderly Dad similarly to Pitan's , had been taken to hospital. Taro had always been kind of nippy but Mum knew how to deal with his idiosyncrasies. But Mum needed to attend to Dad and all the turmoil that came with having a natural disaster on her doorstep.She asked her adult children if they could keep Taro for the time being. One agreed. Taro was kept in the garden on a chain and treated gingerly. Then, by the looks of things, not treated much at all. It is easy to get haughty-taughty about this, but this family had also suffered their losses in the destructive tsunami. They were granting their Mum a huge favour. Taro unfortunately didn't win any friends in all his changing, unfamiliar, uncomfortable circumstances and it was finally decided that this 7 year old should be relinquished to the pound. In Japan, owner turn ins, 9 times out of 10, means only one thing. Taro would be meeting his maker.

Enter JEARS, and sure you know what we did. Amn't I after telling you?:-) I didn't tell you his secret though, I didn't know it at the time we picked him up, nobody did.I'll let you google it because it and its images make your skin crawl with the hebegeebees: Blowfly.Taro must have had a cut somewhere and that cut wasn't tended to. It most likely would have been hard to find in his thick tufty coat. It is not known how the original skin break happened but the blowfly took advantage of it. Slowly and steadfastly they made their advances on Taro's body invisible under the cover of his hair.The fact that he still had a twinkle in his eye through what these guys were doing to him was a testimony to the fortitude of animals.Taro had their eggs and maggots everywhere and for emphasis I'll say EVERYWHERE again so you get the picture. He must have been in an unbelievable amount of pain and by rights he should not have been letting anybody within 10ft of him. But he craved the petting and the tickles and it was presumably those brushes with the sore points that triggered his outbursts.

Taro is not the first and definitely won't be the last to come to us with pre-existing conditions. These animals have been through and survived more than most of us at the other end of the newsreel can imagine. My heart goes out to them and it is what keeps me returning.

Taro (part 2)

2011-07-16T01:11:00.001+09:00

Japan gets hot in the summer. Not just hot but humid too. The number on the thermometer really doesn't make it unbearable, it is the humidity that takes care of the discomfort department. Despite its northerly coordinates Tohoku was on a par with Okinawa in the temperature stakes.I would wager though that the humidity wouldn't have been noticeable if it weren't for the deluge sandwiched sunshine. Once the heat was turned back on the moisture could be seen visibly rising from puddles.

We had been flitting between rain showers all week and Hokenjyo-day was no exception. We just seemed to time things well. Random stops at random places when showers subsided or in the short lull between downpours, we managed the storms :-). We lucked out at Ofunato; a fairly long dry spell in which to do our picking up. After getting Taro we had intended to see if a groomer, who I had been in touch with on my last trip, would spruce up Pitan given her matted derrière. The boy kitty we picked up, Setsuo, had come in a carrier that was hers so it was a perfect excuse to stop by. We were to follow the pound worker to the groomer's house.

We bade our farewells to the vet and were pulling out of the pound gate with windows down and arms waving vigorous goodbyes. [Side note-In Japan, departures have a tendency to be lengthy with those staying behind energetically waving until the departing are out of view]. So we were heading down the street rolling up the windows with the remaining officials still enthusiastically sending us off in the rear-view mirror. And just as the window reached its resting place at the top of the frame IT hit us.
OH.
SWEET.
MOTHER OF &^%*@#!!
The smell!!!!!
The smell....... the smell..... the Smmmmmmellllllll! Quick down with the windows. One last wave, and a frantic rush to get those vitreous protectors DOWN for the love of God.....DOWN!!!!! OH Taro, you come with more baggage than bargained for in this packed to the gills vehicle. So Pitan, you are forgiven, if this groomer says yes, Taro my friend, YOU. ARE. UP!! A few twisty windy tiny well ventilated roads later we arrived at the groomer's salon. The flat-packed wire cage we thought we had spare turned out to be missing a door when we de-flat packed it. We ended up not making a carrier drop off but rather asking permission to borrow one. Ok hopefully we'll be more successful in quest two.
-We have seriously pungent dogs in the car, would it be at all possible to use your facilities to wash them or even just one?
-Sorry, I'm heading out.
-Oh.... ok.......:-( Gambarimasu!! (we will endure!)

So our fragrant companion infused his odour so deeply in the car's air system on our way home that for the duration of our subsequent long distance trips we would have wafts of his presence each time we turned on the air conditioner even though he had been safely transported to the Bandai shelter. I apologise profusely to the next lot of customers that car serves, I just hope they smoke!!!

And then there was Taro...(part 1)

2011-07-13T23:24:00.000+09:00

You know sometimes I have so much to write I end up writing nothing because I don't know which story I should go with next!! Is there a word for that? I know writer's block is one side of that coin, how do they refer to the other?

Pitan chillin` at the vets!

I had to make sure I had the telephone number correct. Another corgi? I never see corgis here and now there are two in hokenjyos miles apart that need picking up? You met Pitan briefly earlier on. Remember? the sweet, very well-fed, rotund in the nether regions, 12 year old, cardigan corgi.She loved her people and their food scraps, in fact people = food scraps. So much so that whenever we were about to put food into our own mouths we had a backdrop of an urgent Pitan bark "Me too, me too!" "Hey guys! over here" Admittedly we were overly generous with the treats when we had to get her into the travel crate but the buck stopped when the latch was fastened. She was fine with that until any type of food appeared on the scene outside her reach, then she would noisily assert her claim to it.

Sheesh! when did steps get so high? You are going to lift me right?

We got to the Ofunato pound and the familiar friendly faces I had met the last time were there to greet us. The wonderful new, initiative taking vet and his equally positive thinking assistant. Enter Taro, a Pembrooke corgi. He is 7 in dog years which makes him 49 in ours, but like all in their forties and beyond, he was in complete denial. I knew we were going to bond! He strutted his puffed up chest once out of the pound's cage and promptly took the official for a walk, even though the original intention had been the other way around. He was raring to go, glad of his taste of fresh air.

The vet told us he had a bite history that was sketchy.Hmmmmmmm,...."sketchy" ...doh-yu imi? (what does that mean?) Well, A-PAR-ENT-LYYyyyyy he had snapped at a family member and since they weren't Taro's direct owners they decided to lighten their burden and send him to the pound.
-Ok, so "snapping" or actual biting? through play? teasing? out of the blue? food related?
-"Ehhhhhhmm... don't know for sure"
-Do you know if it is with Kids or adults? males or females?
-"Ehhhhhhmm... don't know for sure"
-Ok so the history is "sketchy" right?
"Yeah, yeah that is right, sketchy" :-D
Sometimes you just have to give up when you are ahead. Knowing that there was potential for teethiness was our "ahead" in this instance. Our taking him or not taking him did not depend on how many oral/dental infractions Taro had tallied up beside his name but rather on what we could avoid doing to make him feel the urge. It wasn't other dogs. He met Pitan in the carpark, they checked out each others calling cards and then pretty much ignored each other. Ok one common cause off the checklist.

We had taken ages to get to Ofunato, much longer than expected. I have a deep distrust of the digital navigation systems that come with rental cars. To compound matters, up in Tohoku, there wasn't always a road where these machines said there should be one. My Google maps was great but it was on the iphone which of course meant mood swings between full signal and "no service" while pulled over and stationary trying to get back on track. 2 Electronic mapping devices, one paper kanji map, and a tsunami razed coastline were all the ingredients needed to get me utterly lost on the way down. We practically "handbrake turned" into the parking lot of the pound, to meet at our appointed time.

We cut it so finely. The desk warriors were punching out and leaving. A few young ladies were the last of the trickle as Taro was handed over to us. We'd had the "sketchy" conversation at this stage and now had moved on to his family's story. The ladies were mesmerized by his beautiful eyes and his enthusiasm to be petted. We paused our conversation and watched the three ladies interact with a dog that was clearly loving the attention. Then his movements changed. It was so very minor but there was a pause in his little hind leg happy dance. He remained motionless for a split second. He had stopped the raspy dog laugh and now his mouth was slightly closed over. It takes longer to put into words what actually happened there and would be totally imperceptible to people who haven't seen it a few times. It happens in the blink of an eye.I saw it and pulled him back, just as he had decided 'snack time'. Not far back, just out of reach, back. Normally there is a pre-launch growl or teeth baring moment but Taro gave us a very little window of time to work with. Ok, so note to self, triggers could be crowding, females or that one of them touched a sore spot. Something to work on.

We also picked up Setsuo, the one year kitty who I'll tell you about in another post. And that was us: two corgis one cat and two volunteers hitting the road for the trip back to overnight in Sendai before the next day's trip to Bandai near lake Inawashiro.

This is what it is all about

2011-07-12T16:26:00.003+09:00

This is a short video made by Kinship Circle, the US group that had some of their brilliant volunteers come over and volunteer with JEARS. KC has firsthand disaster experience having assisted in the Chile earthquake, Brazilian mudslides, and hurricane Katrina animal rescue efforts. JEARS' volunteers had the Japan knowledge and extensive sheltering experience in this country. Both groups' strong points complemented each other and they have built up a working relationship since March. I volunteered first with JEARS, then with Kinship Circle then with JEARS again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHsaaoNfQTU

The full circle

2011-07-08T14:38:00.000+09:00

You remember those two dogs? You know the one who wouldn't leave his injured friend? The heart-string tugging video broadcast about a week after the tsunami? Well, for about a month after on all the animal sites and pages I've "like-d" or become a member of since airing day, regardless of original topic, conversations would somehow revert back to "So does anyone know what happened to those two dogs?" It seemed the world could only rest easy knowing that those two sweethearts had been taken care of. While I would roll my eyes and say "again?" I'd fervently scroll down to see if any of the comments held the answer.I heard a happy ending and I was content. That was until I read a completely different happy ending and then another and not hours later another. Not even similar versions of the endings. I, like every other follower of this tragedy was looking for something positive in the rubble left behind.

When I went up the first time, it was only going to be once. Then a second time fell neatly into place when I discovered my university gave its staff "volunteer leave". Attach that to Golden Week and hey presto! a pretty sizable chunk of volunteering time. I couldn't use all those unique leave days on the second trip and since you don't let leave like that fall through the cracks,I managed to wedge the remaining days between a national holiday, a weekend, a lecture free day and magically came up with one more week of volunteering. Coming from Okinawa (2,600km away) I had to try and do longer stints since it takes 12 hours of travel time door to door and longer again if the highly unreliable Skymark airlines is being used. Having the extended stay up there meant I'd repeatedly be driving the same long routes. I have had the great fortune to meet many of the animals and people on these routes more than once. Like I said in the post before this, "follow-ups are the bee's knees":-)

One story that warranted a follow-up on my third visit north, although I was not part of the original contact team, was the skinny dogs story. Twitter had been ablaze with pictures of these two rib visible miserable looking animals. When the initial meager details hit the "tweet set" in the early evening one of the later days during my second trip one of our teams was heading back from Fukushima the other was coming in from the Ishinomaki area. It would have to be added to tomorrow's "To do List". I was going to be doing food drops, with the Canadian vet tech,Jackie and a local lady, Miyuki, so that ruled us out. The other team seized the opportunity to investigate.

They found, as the photos depict, two skinny dogs. A 15 year old Mum and her 12 year old offspring, except her son looked a lot more haggard and emaciated than she did. What unfolded was a sad human story as well as a sad dog story.The volunteers' offer of help was gratefully accepted and the pups were brought to the vet. They were given meds and sent on their way.

Last week, a month after the initial contact, we dropped in unannounced. We found slender uber-friendly dogs with bright eyes and wagging tails. We called the owner and asked if we could see them close up. She brought us around the back and the dogs were ecstatic for the human company. They were in much better condition than the previous pictures I had seen and did not look sorry for themselves at all.

Now if the dogs are happy, I'm happy. I may not like that they stay outside BUT it is what they are used to and that is one thing that has been brought home to me time and time again on these trips. No dog I am caring for is ever ever EVER going to be tied to a stake and left outside to entertain themselves, well........ unless they've rolled in something! but even then it is only until the bath water is ready.

All over Japan you see dogs tethered on short ropes or chains to their dog house out in front of their people's residence. I always felt pity for those animals because they aren't in the company of their humans. Twice now, I have been on teams that have picked up animals, dogs in particular, who have just not been comfortable when we brought them back to the Sendai house and kept them overnight inside. Sure how can they do their job of protection if they are lounging around on the inside? Two dogs Tuftie and Taro who didn't meet but both displayed a similar easing of tension when we put them outside in the shade. In fact Tuftie made himself right at home in a box that donations came in!

Anyway, now I'm doing what I do best, getting off track! These two dogs in Sendai were looking much healthier had a lot of food and sufficient supplies. I asked the owner if there was anything else she needed and she said no all was good. I asked about the flea routine and she said there was none. OH!! well things aren't so "good" then. One thing that I have learned here, is that you can't come over all opinionated and bulldoze anyone who you think is doing the wrong thing by their animals.Japanese folks respect authority but are skeptical of random foreigners descending upon them preaching about the right way to do things. Reverse the situation, I'm sure you would be too.There are options and alternatives but flea meds, being a fundamental part of pet care especially outdoor pets, make me preachy. Gomen ne?! She figured because there was no grass and they were living in the suburbs that fleas wouldn't be a problem. I told her some of the not so happy flea related stories I had encountered in animal rescue and appended them with the offer of medication.I said I didn't have any at the moment but would send her some if she wished, that way I built in an escape route for her should she think that me sending it to her was too much hassle. She accepted.

Before leaving Okinawa a great friend, (hey Deanna!!:-)) set up an appeal for funds for car rental. It amassed to $600: enough to send 160kilos of donations north and rent a car for the week we were there.There was enough left over to buy one box of frontline plus. I didn't want the other dog getting jealous because of preferential treatment so When I returned to Okinawa I went ahead and bought her a 3 month supply too.At least these pups will have a flea free summer and my fellow happy ending addicts can rest easy.:-)

Photos: Lexie (In Joy photography), Tiffany and Kate

Revisiting a tale or three

2011-07-05T23:33:00.001+09:00

Follow ups are the bee's knees:-) We were able to stop off in Rikuzentakata, kasestsu Jyutaku and we got to visit Fu Mi and Shou's new abode. Just in case you didn't read their story the first time around here is the start:

http://earthquakepets.blogspot.com/2011/04/tears-and-their-lessons.html

Here is my trip two follow up: (a little ways down the post)

http://earthquakepets.blogspot.com/2011/05/retracing-steps.html

And here is the ending........ for the time being:

I mentioned that I got a very effervescent phone call before trip three. Fu, Mi and Shou's human Mum had finally received her Kasestu room, and she was heading straight to Animal Friends Niigata to pick them up. She was nervous about whether or not they would recognise her. By all accounts they did. She was thrilled when we stopped by on our way back to Sendai. She and her three teenage to adult children with one spouse and one baby and the three cats squished over and made us some room at the low coffee table in the cramped living room. I had brought her some butter salt cookies from Okinawa as a house warming gift. One that will be consumed quickly symbolic for a short stay in the new lodgings. Mi was in great form and quickly had a go on every seated lap just to try it out for size.

A very astute little kitty, it wasn't long before the cat presents from Okinawa were discovered, broken into and consumed. Having the way paved for them Shou and Fu soon joined in.

Shou was clearly much more relaxed than when I met him before and Fu was as adorable as ever, finding his new diaper to be a great aid to his sliding power.
The family will stay in these living arrangements for a year or more. Obviously they hope to get out sooner but there are many things to be sorted out first. They have their privacy, their family and their cherished four-leggeders and that is a huge first step.

Kasetsu Jyutaku

2011-06-29T17:45:00.000+09:00

From the moment we got off the train in Izumi-chuo to the second before the taxi to take us back there arrived, we were wet, very wet. Okinawa's rainy season finished earlier than usual and we were smug with ourselves for having got off lightly. The week in Tohoku most definitely balanced my rain rations out. In fact I may even be over my rain quota for the year after the last few days. It sure knows how to do weather up there! Still, I had my trusty JEARS emblazoned jacket and was ready to face the elements:-)

We visited kasetsu jyutaku, the accommodations people move out of general evacuation centers to. Rows and rows and then more rows of prefabs. They are small with a mini-miniature-kitchens, a living room, a stand up bathroom and sometimes one more room off the living room. Most are connected to a distribution center. These are not all equally equipped so while the residences are exact replicas of each other the received items are very different. One of the locations we visited was not getting regular supplies of pet food and once the word was out that there were pet volunteers in the vicinity, heads kept popping around corners.

Earlier on in the allocation process people were randomly assigned their new abode. This has given rise to pet owners living next to non-animal friendly types and in a later tale I'll fill you in on one owner's dilemma. The venue we stopped off at today had already got their ducks in a row in this regard and many of the fur parents were off to the back of the facility. This was where we met Kelly. An almost one year old German Shepherd. There was some serious adoration going on for this young boy.His family had decided the flooding gravel pathway was not suitable for their pooch and they laid down teracotta tiles for him. They were living in the last row of the prefabs so they were able to stretch them across to the fence. The fence, now there is a good idea,they attached his name plate so passersby could call to him and a tarp was run from the roof to the fence to protect Mr.Sociable from the sun and the rain. Under which they placed his kennel/carrier.

He was and is ADORED. The husband came out of the house when they heard us and positioned himself at Kelly's side and proceeded to show us all the tricks the young fella had been practicing. For his reward he got a raw hide stick which every so often he would drop so anyone could pick up and he could gently take. He was a very sweet boy.The family told us of their other dog who didn't make it, a collie who was Kelly's best friend and mentor.

The family evacuated when the sirens went off and left their dogs behind. They weren't allowed back to their home until the next day when the waters had subsided. They found Kelly a good bit away from their home trapped up to his shoulders in a pile of debris, they took hours to dig him out but they managed. He had a badly gashed back leg and even though the fur has grown back over it, it has grown back discoloured.His people said his overall behaviour hasn't changed since the tsunami and that he is still a puppy in an adult's body.They went back everyday they could to search for his buddy but to no avail.Kelly is now getting double the love as his people are getting over their heart-breaking decision. Kelly is going to be just fine.

Sweet & Sour

2011-06-27T23:23:00.001+09:00

Remember me?

Hmmmmmmmm today was .....great....kind of. I'm on the fence. It was truly wonderful to conduct follow ups with animals and their people and to see progress and change. However we also came across resignation which by rights we should have seen more of and most likely would have had this happened in a different country.Japan's 'pleasant' veneer of tatemae (public face ) and honmae (true/ private face) has its pluses and its minuses. Belle's owners dropped their public face and succumbed to their honmae in public. They can't continue to take care of her.They don't want to take her to temporary housing because everyone lives in everyone else's pockets. Belle has taken to barking quite alot recently and they don't want to be the cause of aggravation to the neighbours who reside in the same pocket they do. Her people have asked their 'before the tsunami' neighbours to watch her. Two families take it in turns to feed and walk Belle each day. I told them what JEARS can offer but they insisted they could manage. My heart went out to Belle. I didn't want the neighbours to simply "manage to" take care of her like an extra chore. I want them to give her the love and attention any dog deserves especially in their twilight years. Just in case you didn't read the earlier post Madame Belle is 11 years old and an up to the neck in water tsunami survivor. I wish the absolute best for any fourleggeder that crosses my path, but the ones getting on in years have a special place reserved for them. We left the JEARS contact information should the neighbours decide that their Belle chore is too much for them. Had her coat not had loose tufts attached to it or her bed not been muddy and damp from the rain I'd have left a happier camper but who am I to swan in and demand my ideals be upheld when I'm not there to pull my weight in the whole equation? I did all that I could there and then. I've been in touch with a different neighbour san between my trips up north, I'll be the fly on Belle's kennel wall for JEARS.

Belle receiving Tony's donation

2011-06-26T09:55:00.002+09:00

No, no technological miracle will be happening in this space anytime soon! So until this body gets to a real internet facility photos in the blog will be wishful thinking. This is my third time up here and each time I have remembered one more thing that I longed for the last trip up. I was brimming with confidence about having all my bases well and truly covered, counted and included. The only spanner in the works is the lack of an internet connection.iPhones have the capacity to be great and when they work I can do stuff like this, posts to blogs.Fingers crossed it stays in a good mood.

We traveled North to Miyako city Iwate prefecture.It was a long trip. We had a rendez-vous with an elderly lady who had for some reason evaded the city hall rule that all owner relinquishments get gassed. She had managed to persuade the folks there that she was a life worth saving and had been in residence for two months. That is rare in city pounds, very rare indeed! The bright side was that she'd circumnavigated the rules, the darker side was that she hadn't been well taken care of during her time "inside". She had a pretty goopy eye infection and a rather matted tail end.I won't get graphic but I'll give you three guesses what her TAIL end was matted with.... Oh, and the first two guesses don't count:-(

Pitan a 12 year old Cardigan Corgi had been surrendered by her elderly owners because her 'Dad' had been hospitalized in a bigger hospital in another city. Okaasan (his wife) was having trouble with the long commute and couldn't care for their short furry family member. So she turned her over to city hall. Pitan must have lived the life of Reilly at home. She was one of the lucky ones and didn't spend her days tied up outside the front of her house. She was an indoor dog, rare in the countryside, and quite possibly a well-table scrapped dog.

In polite company you do not mention a lady's weight, well she is out of earshot now so between you and me, this girl was FAT! She was 14.6kg and anytime their was a lull in activity she plonked herself down, splaying her back legs out at unnatural 45 degree angles either side.She'd look up sweetly and say "Are we done yet? Did I do well? Treat please" Apparently she was down a kilo since entering the pound but her distinct waddle told us she needed to lose more - a lot more! City hall had me fill out all the paperwork and within the hour Pitan was ours. The staff were kind enough to let us know her vet's name and upon leaving the pound we made a beeline for their offices.

Pitan getting vet checked before heading to the JEARS Fukushima base
Another great vet. I haven't had much dealings with vets at home in Ireland so I can't comment on standards there but here it can be a very 'luck of the draw' affair. Pitan had drawn the lucky straw with this country clinic. Albeit, a bit all over the place, her vet was great, to the point and was clearly excited for her when he learned what her future held.These kind of vets are a great source of motivation.

Handsome strangers

2011-06-23T22:03:00.000+09:00

What a long day! it started at 04.20am in Tokyo and will end in about 10 minutes at 22.00. Since Skymark (Japanese Ryanair equivalent)were their usual reliable selves yesterday we managed to miss all subsequent Tokyo reservations and had to spend the night there, (unfinanced by skymark I might add).We caught the first bullet train up this morning and reached the JEARS house by midday after picking up our rent-a-car..... PAUSE[][]... HOLY MOLEY You guys are amazing!!! You utterly floored me with your EXTREMELY generous donations!! I can't check the amounts on my phone but when I opened the page on this public computer in this public place let me just say that everyone here thought I was a lunatic!:-)

After we had de-bagged ourselves in Sendai we went on a blind date. Two dogs had been tweeted in the last time I was up here and when the other team went to see them at that time they found two very underweight, unstable unhealthy dogs. They brought them to the vet for the family who had recently evacuated from the coast.They were given medicine, advice and fluids to set them right. I hadn't been with the first team but I saw the photos and heard the story firsthand. Today we found them again. Aside from the usual marks life leaves on 10 year old and 14 year old dog these two were well on the road to good health, no ribs showing, bright eyes and wagging tails.Hopefully by some electronic and digital miracle I will be able to add the before and after photos here. Watch this space:-)

Where does the time go?

2011-06-21T17:26:00.000+09:00

You promise yourself you'll post every day then that gets reduced to 4,3,2 times a week. That becomes an easy once a week, I mean anyone can keep up with that right? Two weeks have passed and there has been an empty inbox in this corner of cyber space. Gomen ne? as they say here, a friendly way of saying I apologise and hope you'll find within to forgive my errant ways:-)

I should justify my absence by remarking that no laurels have been rested upon here. I am closing in on the one tonne mark of pet items packed, wrestled with, got stuck to and eventually shipped from Okinawa to mainland.My furbs are wondering if they'll ever get that shady corner of the living room back again, especially since the Okinawan sun has been putting in full work days in the last few weeks.

So I'm boarding a plane again, then a bus, then another train and most likely a taxi. Door to accommodation door: 12 hours.Quick rest and on the road again. I've mapped out two hokenjyo visits and a third is pending. What happens in between is anyone's guess.

I had two very special phone calls this week. The first was from a lady you met earlier, Miyuki san. Her dogs are doing well and the big news is that they got their electricity back. Think about your longest blackout and then multiply it by three months.Oh, and throw no running water into that mix too.She is busying herself with collecting yukatas for the young ladies and jinbei for the men in her village so they can celebrate their annual summer festival in the proper traditional attire. A Yukata is made of light cotton with vivid summer motifs printed on it. Nearly all village summer festivals throughout Japan see the womenfolk don these pieces of art. I'm going to stop off at the mall on the way home to-day to see if I can find any with Okinawan motifs on them.

My second, I picked up the phone and heard a voice bubbling with good news. GENERAL rule of thumb for relaying important information in Japanese conversations: Preface your point with a few token banal utterances. Weather is a good neutral starting point. As is the rhetorical "are you well?" to which a nod or an affirmation is made and the courtesy inquiry is then reciprocated. Conversing parties agree, all is well or weather is (insert adjective) and now you can smoothly progress to topic at hand. The voice said "I'm getting my cats back today......... Kate, is that you?" ...... in that order. Fu, Mi, and Shou are going home, in fact as I write this they are with their human mum again. I'm hoping my volunteer trip this week will take me by their new temporary living quarters so I maybe pop in and say hi.
don't you just love happy endings?:-)

Gadgets

2011-06-11T00:58:00.000+09:00

I added two new 'gadgets' to the blog this week both collecting donations. The first one is called Greenies after the famous pet treats and the other Kate's northern efforts PART III........ . Greenies is for JEARS the volunteer group I connect with while up in Tohoku and the "Efforts" one , an awesome friend put together on my behalf.

As you know I have been collecting donations here and sending them north. Well, unfortunately for me they don't travel for free so things have been 'budgetarily' rearranged (:-))(sorry Mr.Agnew!!)so one button will go to offset my shipping costs and animal needs on the ground and the other will go to the charity I volunteer with. Either way it all goes to the animals affected by the earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear crisis in Fukushima.

Sayuri

2011-06-10T11:40:00.000+09:00

I got an eye! she has eyes!! after about 20 blurry photos of this young lady, there it was as clear as day, an eye! and oh what a beautiful eye! I know she had two but I was quite content to have caught one on "film". We almost missed her because we had been heading for the Akita dog's residence with the last of our supplies. Just treats and toys, not the essentials but definitely the welcome bonuses in a furbie's day.We met the owner at the Japanese military water station. She had come with a wheelbarrow and 4, 5 gallon plastic tanks for water since this area still had no running water 2 months after the day.
I try and avoid using "furball" when referring to pets, as to my mind that is what cats drop all their airs and graces for the production of.HOWEVER, bodily emissions aside, it was the only word that could describe 7 month old Sayuri.
She was an Old English Sheepdog (OES), or for anyone who grew up in Ireland, the Dulux dog:-).She was close to full grown and still had the boundless energy of an excited puppy. She wouldn't sit still for a second, "yeah new friends!"better run up and down the fence for that one!, "ooooooh treats!" whhooo hooo need to run around the garden to celebrate that!!" and she'd be off.A hazy ball of white and grey tearing around the area in front of her house.While she was on her mission we spoke to her family. Sayuri was their second OES and they had her registered at the Japanese equivalent of a Kennel club. After the earthquake, members who were connected to the OES group bandied together and got lists of all the OES owners in the affected areas. They had sent regular care packages to families who had old English Sheepdogs.I don't know if this is happening for other breeds but I was pretty impressed with that generosity. So Sayuri was getting quality food and now she had treats and toys too, that could only mean one thing..... another 5 laps of the garden:-)

Riku

2011-06-08T21:50:00.000+09:00

This is Riku, He is 15 and he is being driven demented by the dust raised from around the reconstruction areas. He has lived a relatively quiet life on a little island in Matsushima bay. There were about 10 houses in his little hamlet off the beaten track. Actually, I'm not sure there was much of a track to call a track. But he lived there with his elderly owners. We met his human mum first. She and all of her 70 something years were hauling water tanks up to her house. The Japanese military had a water station here and residents were coming with receptacles of all shapes and sizes to stock up on freshwater. Can I just point out that this was already 2 months AFTER the earthquake and tsunami? The remote places had still not been reached for basic utilities. Gas and electricity....luxuries.We offered to carry her water tanks the few meters she had left but she assured us she was fine and used to it.

Riku was momentarily unsure of us and then he went into fully fledged meeter and greeter mode. He was fine with the two new faces coming towards him and was quite happy to get his ears scratched. Quick look inside...... ahhhhh that is why he is happy to get his ears scratched. Still on the ok side of an infection. Right, so how do you tell the owner politely the world inside the dogs ears is being irritated by the dust,scratching and should at the very least be cleaned out with tepid water? Dust she has no control over and sure didn't I just see her lugging the only water this house is going to see for a few days, up the hill? Raiding the donations in the back of the car found us with pet wipes for ears, a low dosage hydrocortisone cream, and cotton swabs. It was the next best thing and hopefully this will tide Riku over until owner-san can make the trip to a vet.

Thank you for donating. It is only because people gave those kind of things that we were able to help Riku out.

Hokenjo's and Aigo centers

2011-06-08T17:18:00.000+09:00

"Protection facilities" and "Tender care centers" are two misnomers of the highest degree.The names would suggest that they take positive nurturing action on behalf of their four legged charges. The hokenjyos attempt it for five days if you are a dog and three days if you are a cat. After that your spirit will find itself in front of the pearly gates with a fierce headache and a sore throat.You'll have been asphyxiated by a lethal gas along with other lost, relinquished or "stray since birth" animals. This happens the length and breadth of the country. Gas has cheaper overheads than individual injections, it also means the staff at these places do not have to have direct contact with the animals being euphemistically "put to sleep".

Before any high horse is "got up upon" this situation does not only happen in Japan. Be advised to check your whereabouts before throwing any stones.Methods may be different, time frames for reprieve may be longer (or shorter) but it is happening on everyone's doorstep. It just depends on how big an area of your personal rug you'll allocate to sweep it under.

It is from one of these centers the Maruko story came about and then the Tufty story a few weeks later. I am heading back up again at the end of this month and my main focus will be dealing with these centers up and down the coast and hopefully getting animals out. JEARS just got 35 animals of all shapes and sizes out of a Miyagi prefecture hokenjyou and sent out a plea for temporary foster homes.

Little bit of background knowledge of animal ownership in Japan. If you have a dog, you are obliged to get an annual rabies shot and register your dog with your city hall.You can get your dog's rabies shot at your vet or a subsidised vaccine at a rabies prevention clinic in May. The vet option is a little less stressful for your pooch as the world, his wife and their dogs attend the "Shot in the Park" events.This registration tag attached to the collar is what will get you your dog back if it should decide to go for an unaccompanied stroll. It unfortunately also makes it too easy to dump an animal, as by removing the collar people render their once cute puppy "owner-less". Microchips barely got a look in until the Ban event (Dog survivor, stuck on floating debris found 3 weeks after the tsunami), now they are being considered.

The animals find themselves in the hokenjyous for two main reasons. First, because they have been displaced. No one knows where they came from.Locals call in the stray and the officials go out to trap them and bring them to the facility (Tufty, below). Second, they are relinquished by owners. In Tohoku's case these owners may have no other means of supporting them anymore OR the place that they have evacuated to has a no pets policy and they either have no one or don't want to impose on anyone the care of their pet. JEARS has been trying their damnedest to get to those people before they sign away their pet's life.An owner turn-in is a death sentence. Speaking to the caretaker we can let them know about the free boarding, open space, two walks and care the animal will have until the people in their lives have got themselves right way up.

The first group of hokenjyou temporary residents are harder. The city has assumed responsibility for them and will only let them see the outside world again if they are to reside IN that city's jurisdiction and at a stretch the prefecture. This is where it gets difficult for out of prefecture volunteers with big hearts, broken Japanese and a passion for animals to accomplish what they came for.(Maruko, waaaay below).

So that is tentatively what I am steeling myself for, for the next trip.I hope there will be many more Tuftys and Marukos on the next trip.

Positivity

2011-05-30T21:52:00.000+09:00

Miyuki san

Ok, need to get back on track after yesterday's little debacle! I have someone else I'd like to introduce to you. Her name is Miyuki, We met by chance while visiting evacuations centers. Oops! already I feel the need to go off on a tangent. All evacuation centers were not created equal. The one we met Miyuki at was a beautiful one, if those two words are permitted to be used in the same sentence. It was a Temple with hardwood floors, shoji sliding screens, carefully tended rock gardens, blooming Cherry blossoms and old moss covered stone lanterns. If a set researcher were looking for an old style traditional Japanese setting this place checked all the boxes. She was just stopping by and we were getting set to leave. I don't recall who engaged who but after 15 minutes we had a plan of action for the rest of the day.

Now best friends

Miyuki had grown up in this area and she knew lots of people, as small town Japan tends to stay small. She had two old Shiba inus and gratefully accepted the bags of food we gave her. She then spent an impromptu afternoon driving us around the local area visiting families with pets. She was an amazing person to be with as sometimes the locals were a bit wary of package laden grinning foreigners approaching. Miyuki broke the ice and was visibly able to relax people further when they realised she was a local and not another well intentioned outsider. We met Puru and Leon, another two Shibas (popular dog in these parts) who didn't not like each other at all before the tsunami but were now best buds and inseparable since the dreadful day. Belle who I told you about earlier. A small Shih tzu called 8 who had become despondent and wouldn't let his owner out of his sight.Goku, who hadn't barked much before but had a real issue with people in his garden now. The list went on, we met all types and heard many amazing stories from both ends of the emotional spectrum.
We were driving from place to place and our stocks were running low. We would have to drive three hours back to get stocked up again. Miyuki said there was a shop that sold pet food up the way and if we wanted we could shop and stay over in her house and start up again the next day. We were low on funds and didn't want to impose. By staying over she may feel the need to feed us, and I wasn't having that after all her kindness. So we said our goodbyes and promised to meet again the next morning with a car stuffed to bursting with donations.Just one thing before we leave,

K:Ehm but well, sorry to bother you but could I make a quick toilet stop before heading out?
M:Sure but we have no running water, nowhere does. Luckily ours is Japanese style so it is deep.
K:Japanese style? You mean a squat toilet? Yes, I know them.
M:Ehhh.. well ours is old. Much older than new squat toilets.
KOk!

Not a fence, they are the train tracks.

Miyuki drove us to her house, where we would have been staying had we accepted her kind offer. She lived two rows of houses and a train line back from a river bank.The debris got denser and higher.Until we came to the station. That was cleared because a station always plays a focal point in a Japanese town. When people meet they meet "at the station" however small or insignificant. It was starkly the only area clear because people had been using it for corpses.

We met her two dogs as you saw above and then inside because I wasn't sure if I could hold on any more. My attention quickly moved from my bladder to my vision as they opened the front door. The front door perfectly in tact was a complete and total facade. It was the shell of normality that faced the outside world.Once opened there was just a corridor to walk on, the entire front room had no floor boards and you could see into the bowels of the house. It was covered in white powder to prevent mold and rot settle in. They were all living on the second floor as so many families in the area were. I'm glad we had said we wouldn't stay before seeing her family home because it would have seemed we were saying no because of it rather than genuine will to get back to our four-walled, with floor abode. I used the toilet, it was old Japanese style.

Where it all started

2011-05-29T16:00:00.000+09:00

I lived in mainland Japan for 11 years. In that time I rarely if ever saw stray dogs and if I did they usually had their chains still attached. I could probably count on one hand the number of loose dogs seen in those 11 years. The most common way people keep their pets here is on a short chain tied up outside their house. Some have shop bought kennels others have DIY enthusiasts as owners. Cats? Always harder to say with cats. People tend to leave them go walk about even though there are quite a few deadly viruses out there for them to come in contact with. I won't bore you with the details, but personally speaking if an animal is in my care then I'm not going to risk its life by letting it be exposed to prevalent diseases, cars, inclement weather, other people and in Okinawa's case, snakes.

Now I call Okinawa, (down south near Taiwan) home. I love Okinawa for its subtropical beauty, crystal clear seas and for the most part nice weather, although last night we had a doozie of a typhoon.

Okinawa is a far far cry from mainland when it comes to animals. I was here 2 months and I had already seen plenty of strays but what started this ball rolling were the four puppies frolicking around the convenience store parking lot at night.Convenience stores are open 24/7 and this one was on a particularly busy thoroughfare. The Mum dog was tethered in the back and she was barking frantically at her babies to come back. But they were pups and they were having a wild time in each other's company.What kid is going to listen to Mum when a game of tag with your siblings is so much more fun? I watched several near misses with cars pulling in. It was something I didn't want to watch but couldn't pull away from. I asked the staff, they wanted nothing to do with it and said talk to the owner of the adjacent dump.I had to leave and come back the next day.

I met him and told him what I had seen the night before and told him it was kind of scary.Was there any way he could maybe block their "escape" route. He kicked me in the stomach with his reply. "Sure if they get run over, then I don't have to find homes for them".While I was choking with incredulity, he said "do you want one?" I said I want them all.So that is how I ended up with tears in my eyes, lump in my throat and four of the cutest, flea ridden, little monsters in the back of my car.

They say the 1000 mile journey has to start with one step, I've done more than 1000 miles on this road but there is no end in sight because this is the prevalent attitude on Okinawa, drastically different from pet lovers on mainland.There is a neighbour down the road who keeps a female mix breed on a chain out side the front of the house.She never has water, she has no shelter from the elements and she is walking around in her own excrement as the chain is the length of her body. The family doesn't get them spayed. The dog gets pregnant, has the pups then once they are weaned the cutest female pup stays and the Mum and her babies get sent to the pound. As it is owner relinquishment Mum will get gassed within a few days. The puppies will get longer as potential adopters go for "Cute" rather than good nature.

Purebreds cost a fortune, yet even though people have paid an arm and a leg for a puppy-mill pet shop dog they will still have it tied up outside the house. A friend has very wealthy neighbours, as evidenced by their decision to be ostentatious with their material assets.Several high end Italian cars, a TV screen my friend can watch perfectly well from inside her own house.Statues in the front yard, not the garden gnome variety, I'm talking full size Davids here.But their miniature dachshund is tied with its lead to a kennel that has a door in but only one wall. This creature gets pummeled in storms.

I said earlier we had a pretty rough typhoon last night. There is usually a spike in requests to animal rescue groups in the aftermath of one of these storms. Animals, scared out of their wits, decide running from "it" is a better option. Today, coming back from the shops I saw a very underfed, rib visible, skinny dog. I had an opened bag of dog food in the back of my car and thought I could catch this fella and see him right. I prepped a bowl for the food, made contact with him, he continued on his way for a bit. Instead of following on foot, I decided to drive ahead so he would be coming my direction. I pulled over about 20 meters ahead of him, got out and waited. He was coming towards me, I opened the back of the car to fill the dish. He passed a house where the owner was sweeping garden debris from his drive. There was a stray cat in the drive, that caught the dog's attention. The cat darted, the dog followed as did the home owner. I turned and ran with the bowl of food in time to see the owner corner the dog and beat him several times with the broom. My shouts at the man were barely audible over the dog's yelps of pain. But he heard me and turned, giving the poor creature an escape hatch, which he thankfully took. When I get angry, I get tongue-tied, maybe this is my inbuilt self-preservation mechanism but the only Japanese that would come to my head was 'BAKA' (stupid).Very frustrating for a language major to be left speechless.

The pet owners I met in Tohoku restored my faith in Japan as a nation of animal lovers at street level. Yet my neighbour this morning blew that all out of the water.Down here he is not alone, there are unfortunately many more cut from the same cloth They are the reason I took this path and why I can't just sit back and watch.

People

2011-05-27T18:05:00.000+09:00

Comedian san. We joked and then he would joke even more. Whether it was with a quick word or an oscar winning mime. This guy had all the volunteers in stitches. He had good English too and was proficient enough to joke in it for our benefit. He came from Tago town the next station down the track. He arrived on a mama-charry, one of the standard bicycles everyone had before racers and mountain bikes came on the scene. He was really too hip a person to be seen on one of these. But there he was.Closing in on his mid forties while on the bike, instantly 10 years younger when off. He had his baseball cap on backwards, yellow tinted work glasses and would smoke when every one else did.

We arrived in with pet food and asked if any was needed here before we went out on our rounds. Everyone pointed at him. If we had some to spare that would be nice but if not, not to worry.We gave him a bag each for his two older Shibas and cat. I was a little hesitant because I thought, given that he was volunteering at this place then he, like me, didn't have needs. I thought because he said "only if we had some to spare" that he, like me, didn't have needs. I thought because he was in such an upbeat mood that he like me didn't have needs.

I was wrong. The tsunami came. He held his wheelchair bound grandmother's hand until the water got high enough for him to swim out of the back window of their house, all the while supporting her. They both survived, their house did not. Same fate for his place of work, his car and all his worldly goods. The mamma charry he arrived in on was donated. That was now his sole means of transport.Yet here this young guy was, spending two back breaking days cleaning debris for friend's family. I only discovered his story at the end of the day when we had no food left. We brought extra the next day but he wasn't there.

Our taskmasters!

2011-05-26T22:04:00.000+09:00

Promise it will never happen again boss!

Study carefully! This is how you win treats.

We had to come home and answer to the boss almost every evening. This time I had overstepped the line and was not taking my play duties seriously. A stern word from Mikei put me on the straight and narrow I was simply going to have to be a whole lot cuter in all my endeavours. I needed to learn from the Master of Cute. Her wise words set me right. However she was always looking over my shoulder to see that her good advice was not falling on deaf ears. While I was assigned Mikei, Jackie was being scrutinised by Yuki. It is always hard to concentrate when the boss is looking over your shoulder but Jackie survived unscathed and did a stellar job while at it. The pressure was immense, Yuki needed regular status updates and would stare her down until she got them. One of the perks, KITTENS:-)

"I want to know all about you... ON THE HOUR!"

These little ladies and their mother were handed over to us from the Ofunato city hall.All three came with respiratory infections and Momma kitty was not the best patient. Her babies were just fuzzy goof ball bundles of cuteness who when they sneezed would topple over with surprise at what had just happened. All needed several vet visits and it was touch and go for the babies on one of the nights. Happy to say everyone pulled through and they have relocated to Shiga Ken. Home of the wonderful Japan Cat Network Shelter. Four boxes of Okinawan donations headed here and there'll be another 2 tomorrow.

Dogs can smile too

2011-05-20T19:17:00.000+09:00

Today's post is a demonstration of team work and coordination by several animal rescue groups. Every one is there under a different organisation sporting different colours and sometimes using different techniques but the underlying goal is the same, to remove as many animals out of harm's way as possible. Today Last Chance for Animals caught, Kinship Circle transported and JEARS sheltered. Those tasks rotate depending on the calls received, that was the way the cookie crumbled today.

It was to be a 5.30am start but we slept late, so it turned out to be a 6am start instead. From just north of Sendai to Iwaki city via the expressway under normal circumstances should take about 3 hours when abiding by the speed limit. However this was Golden Week, a period of 3 consecutive national holidays when the entire populace of Japan gets time off from work and school simultaneously . No one wants to sit at home, so everyone moves and they move in their droves by any form of transport that will take them elsewhere. Public transport is usually choc-a-bloc, with seats being reserved weeks in advance. And roads? well, don't mention the roads! Nightly news broadcasts the record breaking traffic jams from around the country. Over the years the best approach I have learned to getting out and about in Golden Week is to leave early, crack of dawn early, hence our scheduled departure time.I added an extra hour to the journey length calculations and figured we'd hit the 10am kitty rendez-vous in front of Iwaki station on the nose.....despite it being Golden Week.

The plan was over-cautious to say the least. Speed limits were 'kind of' adhered to in some places and carefully considered in others ;-) My "Leave Early" motto worked like a charm, the roads were empty as empty can be.And that is what had us sitting in front of Iwaki station an hour before our meeting time. Chance to get some Java and find an ATM that works for overseas credit cards. Four banks later we were cashless but caffeinated.

family

7 cats 2 to go.

The reason we had driven to this location was to pick up 3 cats and a dog Throughout the journey there numbers had increased into 5 cats and a dog. When we met our contact they had 9 cats and a dog. Sure was going to be a squeeze but we could make it work..... somehow.The kitties we picked up that day were primarily found wandering. They were in various states of health and with it, in various moods. They had all been picked up around the border of the exclusion zone and brought to us here down in Iwaki so were going to need their radiation levels checked upon arrival. While traveling up to Niigata they launched into several rounds of kitty choruses. This usually pre-empted a feline organic deposit.We would find a service area on the express way and stop off in the disabled toilets. Giving the kitties cage by cage 'stretch time' and us 'eliminate source of foul odour time'. With everything wiped down and the cuddlies all tickled up we would set off again.Reaching Animal Friends all the furbies passed the radiation level checks. They did not have to proceed to segregated quarantine.A good wash to make them feel better, a vet assessment and as much food as they could dream of in the "incoming" quarters. Then when they were sporting their new do's a photo to post on the "Found" website so hopefully their people will recognise them and they can be re-united.

Re-united. There are so many wonderful wonderful stories of reunions. Everyone loves a happy ending they are so emotionally contagious. Happy endings in the animal rescue world are the highs that keep the volunteers coming back to help out again and again. We landed in on an unexpected high that morning in Iwaki.

Chappy when we met.

Everyone's focus was on how the 5 cats had morphed into 9 and how the cages were going to be arranged in the car. Off to the side was Chappy, a 15 year old Shiba who was clearly unimpressed with all the goings on. In fact she was positively withdrawn. She didn't wag her tail when we got down to her level to say hi. She didn't recoil, she didn't look away, look down, look scared she just looked blue. She sat passively by as the cat shenanigans were happening all around her.She seemed to enjoy getting her chin rubbed as she would proffer it up just a little as you were scratching it. When you stopped she just resumed her depressed posture.

She had escaped the tsunami but her family's house had not. It lay in rubble. Her owner had been evacuated to a no pets evacuation center.When he and Chappy found each other again rather than cause hassle at the center he brought her 'home'. He visited her and fed her every day. But then he and his wife were moved to Government housing in Chiba. Government housing the length and breadth of the country does not allow pets in any shape or form. He asked family members to care for Chappy but she escaped and went back to the pile of rubble she had called home. For a few days the son and daughter-in-law tried to catch her. Chappy wasn't having any of it and she wasn't going anywhere with anyone who weren't her 'direct family'. Home is where the heart is right? The family members got in touch with Animal Friends (JEARS) and through a group AF were working with, Last Chance for Animals, Chappy was finally caught. And now here she was sitting in front of Iwaki station with 9 cats and a whole group of people she didn't know. No wonder things weren't thrilling.

What Chappy didn't know was that her people were in transit to see her, ALL her people. We got the call that they had arrived. She spotted them coming from across the taxi rank.She stood up, she squinted and if she could have spoken she'd probably have said "What the......?!AAAHAHAHAHAHHAHHHH"
The grandchild arrived first with his mother, then a Dad. With each new arrival Chappy's elation reached new levels. I thought if a dog could burst then this was where it was going to happen. We watched as this previous bundle of sadness turned into an overjoyed firecracker of excitedness. Circling, jumping, tail wagging licking and dog laughing*,. When she calmed a bit she only had eyes for her family. She wouldn't move away from them for anything, she gave velcro a run for its money.Then joy would well up in her again and she'd have to do her happy jumpy circle dance.
But I hadn't seen anything yet Chappy's Dad was yet to come.About 15 minutes later an older man and his wife traversed the taxi lot.The son holding Chappy let her leash go. All the volunteers gasped, one made a lunge for the leash. Chappy was only going one place. She beelined for Dad. He dropped his bag got down on his knees and wrestled with her while trying to get the treats he had brought her out of his backpack. Chappy only wanted him and his pettings. Ok then, when she saw the treats she wanted those too but just to take and put to the side for later.Right now it was all about contact, contact and more contact. She was oblivious to the world around her. She greeted and played with the man's wife but she was a true blue Daddy's girl and she had no qualms about showing it.Whoever coined the phrase jumping for joy did so because they were at a dog reunion. This 15 year old was hitting the high spots and she was over the moon.

Things quieted down as Yoshiko explained what was going to happen from here on. Chappy was coming with us and not going with her people. Her people weren't back on their feet yet and had no place for Chappy and where they were staying had a steadfast nationwide no animal policy. Where they were staying 235km, 3 and a half hours away. Today they had traveled that distance to say hi to Chappy for 20 minutes and their next train back was soon, too soon. The older man teared up and gave the bag of treats to the nearest volunteer. He got close to her face and talked softly to her. She listened attentively. He gave her the final ear scratch and picked up his bag. They all walked away, turning every so often to wave. Chappy's eyes followed them in bewilderment. When they were out of view we gave her some more of the treats her person had brought.Comfort food.She was the last passenger to load into the car and the quietest the whole way to Niigata. We had a crate for her but she needed some extra care and love on the way back so she nestled on the volunteer's lap wondering if what had just happened had been real or just a dream.

*Dog laughing: http://www.petalk.org/LaughingDog.html

Chappy getting some love after her emotional roller coaster

I just couldn't resist..... How the furbies get their way!!

2011-05-18T22:13:00.000+09:00

The copy and paste didn't work correctly these "House Rules" are taken from here: http://mythicalmaze.tripod.com/id5.html.The furbs in the pics are my housemates:-)

House Rules...

Dogs are never permitted in the house. The dog

stays outside in a specially built wooden compartment
named, for very good reason, the dog house.

2. Okay, the dog can enter the house, but only for
short visits or if his own house is under renovation.

3. Okay, the dog can stay in the house on a permanent
basis, provided his dog house can be sold in a yard
sale to a rookie dog owner.

4. Inside the house, the dog is not allowed to run
free and is confined to a comfortable but secure metal
cage.

5. Okay, the cage becomes part of a two-for-one deal
along with the dog house in the yard sale, and the dog
can go wherever the hell he pleases.

6. The dog is never allowed on the furniture.

7. Okay, the dog can get on the old furniture but
not the new furniture.

8. Okay, the dog can get up on the new furniture until
it looks like the old furniture and then we'll sell
the whole damn works and buy new furniture...upon
which the dog will most definitely not be allowed.

9. The dog never sleeps on the bed. Period.

10. Okay, the dog can sleep at the foot of the bed.

11. Okay, the dog can sleep alongside you, but he's
not allowed under the covers.

12. Okay, the dog can sleep under the covers but not
with his head on the pillow.

13. Okay, the dog can sleep alongside you under the
covers with his head on the pillow, but if he snores
he's got to leave the room.

14. Okay, the dog can sleep and snore and have
nightmares in bed, but he's not to come in and sleep
on the couch in the TV room, where I'm now sleeping.
That's just not fair.

The ladies

15. The dog never gets listed on the census
questionnaire as "primary resident," even if it's
true

Like chalk and cheese

2011-05-17T23:10:00.000+09:00

Before starting into this entry I just want to let you know that there were some problems with posting and for some reason my Waterlines post and the Retracing Steps post have landed on the page in the wrong order. So if you didn't read the latter, scroll down a little and you'll meet Dr. Takahashi of Maruko fame.

I teach. I use chalk. I don't like chalk. I prefer whiteboards. My national university only extended its whiteboard budget to a few classrooms on each floor and for some reason each semester, I always seem to land the rooms with the chalkboards. Cheese on the other hand, is a different matter altogether.I love cheese of all shapes, sizes and smells. In fact the more pungent the better the cheese.Like chalk and cheese, a saying used to demonstrate vast differences; .

In Retracing Steps I revisited Rikuzentakata. We got a call while there that Ofunato city hall had a dog. Oh Ofunato! city hall of city halls, the grief you put us through last time for poor Maruko. Just the mention of your downtrodden name was enough to make my hair stand on end. Your absolute conviction that rules were never meant to be flexible and the battle you staged to adhere to that principle was still a healing wound in my mind. What kind of mood were you in this time? I steeled myself, I didn't have the valiant Dr. Takahashi this visit. I was apprehensive about having to do Japanese officialdom on behalf of a poor dog when I regularly stumbled over Japanese officialdom for myself. At least I live through the quagmire of my errors, if I slipped up this time a life was lost.With my heart in my mouth I parked our car in front of the city hall.

We met a local lady who was a friend of the Maruko supporting couple. She had several animal people connections, from vets to groomers to folks who just wanted to help out. She led the way, as I was mentally psyching myself up for Battle Royale part II. We had just crossed the threshold when a grey haired man in the city hall's working uniform got out of the elevator. He gasped, beamed and bowed deeply. I remained stone-faced I had a showdown to attend to and I was fired up. I had settled on what I thought was the perfect combination of polite yet firm, Japanese words for the occasion and by golly I was going to use them. Our leading lady stopped, turned our direction and started the introduction formalities. Wait! What? Ohhhhhhhh! the penny dropped! Officialdom in Japan changes the 1st of April every year. My previous paper pushing nemesis had been transferred and in his place this smiling affable middle aged vet. Someone in my heart started a very loud chorus of Hallelujah, my head told it to be quiet because we weren't finished yet.

We were asked to drive the car around the back to meet our charge, a larger side of medium, rusty, Shiba cross. He was in the cage Maruko had been scared out of her wits in. He on the other hand was quite chilled and seemed to be enjoying the change of scenery. He had been found strolling around the river, no-one around knew him. His posters were posted but to no avail. He was a friendly fellow and took to his leash without any problems. He took us on a short exploratory walk where he conducted his business and then was quite prepared to leave.Except while he was on his walk the vet asked if we had room for a Momma cat and her two still nursing babies.A quick phone call to the shelter where they would possibly go and approval was received. Yes, we had room at the inn for this little family. Some rearranging of vehicle contents was called for and the two cats we already had with us lucked out and got shotgun on the co-pilot's lap for the long journey home.What a huge difference from a few short weeks before. They took our contact information, thanked us profoundly and said they would be in touch when the next case came up.There were 4 officials bowing deeply to the back of our car as we pulled out of the pound.

One more stop before we could hit the "fast" roads. A rendez vous with Romeo and Juliette. Two miniature dachshunds.Their young owner had had their recently built house razed to the ground and her vet was housing her pups in his own house. 8 animals and three humans made the journey to the halfway point of Sendai that day. 4 of the animals for temporary shelter the other 4 looking for forever families.

Water lines

2011-05-14T22:34:00.000+09:00

I'm standing up.The waterline is visible above shelves just below ceiling on the inside of this house. It stayed like that for an hour when the waters rose.

Front garden. Water line across the windows.

Water lines.They are everywhere. In the majority of photos I took of people with backdrops, there they are, lurking discretely on walls, fences, trees,windows and even trucks that some how managed to become immovable.A silent yet glaring reminder that there was water here. Here, where there shouldn't have been.
Belle is an 11 year old arthritic German Shepherd. When we met, she was basking in the sun, but with one eye vigilantly observing the red cross volunteers set up station across from her. We approached cautiously hoping to catch her owners at home to see if they were alright for pet supplies. Belle, the ever watchful guard dog, brought the other eye out of resting and observed our approach with all the aplomb of a queen regarding her subjects. "Yessssssssss! what can I do for you?" her weary eyes relayed. We edged slowly closer. Belle's regal demeanour was shattered as she awkwardly found her feet to do the guard dog thing she had spent so many years perfecting. We proffered hands for her to sniff and let her know we had love to share. We passed the smell test and she plonked herself back down on the futon in front of her hand made kennel. A kennel that remarkably had withstood the torrents of water the tsunami had brought inland.

As with many dogs in Japan, Belle's owners had her tethered. A very unfamiliar sight to me when I first came 16 years ago. One I am still not 100% comfortable with seeing today. My furbies have the run of the house (see earlier recliner mention!) and would only be tied to something if under anaesthesia at the vet clinic! If an animal is to be tied out then a longer chain/rope would appease my sensibilities more.But that is just me. I am not a one to preach or change a country's habit. Some topics you can raise in conversation but need to be aware that things won't change over night.Obviously I believe my way is right or I wouldn't mention it but equally the tether-ers believe their way is correct too. Especially when it appears in advice sheets from city hall that citizens whose dogs are tied out should keep the chain/rope short so as not to bother passers-by.

Belle was used to her tethered life and luckily for her her people had the foresight to disobey city hall guidelines. She had an ample supply of rope and had she been a spring chicken she probably would have been able to bound across the street to greet the treat laden volunteers.But in her silver years her body had taken on a stooped stance and she shuffled when she moved. She had no external injuries just a few healed over old dog bumps and hairless patches on her elbows from the hard ground. Normal wear and tear for a dog of her years.The aches and pains of ageing clearly laid heavily on her joints when she moved which is why her tsunami story caught us off guard.

Chez Belle

She had, as always, been tied to her kennel when the first waves came in. Her kennel floor doesn't touch the ground so she would have been able to get inside for a while to dry her feet. But when the larger waves started to flow there was no keeping dry. There was also no escape. The leash buckle held fast to her collar. When the waters got deeper and she couldn't touch the ground any more she'd have been swimming against the onslaught of seawater. If you have seen any tsunami videos you'll know what a fierce current this flow of water created.Yet there was arthritic 11 year old Belle swimming for her life against it. When the flow abated the water stayed high for over an hour according to the neighbours who "evacuated" to the second floor of their homes. Belle also found refuge on the 'second floor of her home'. Except.... her second floor was well below the water line and well, as you know she was still attached at the neck. So for one hour, this old dame clung to life as death had a near vice grip on her collar.With odds stacked against her, she survived.

I didn't meet her before the events of March 11th and I wouldn't have met her if it weren't for March 11th.Yet her story of resilience and the innate desire to stay on this side of the pearly gates will stick with me.Her shelter still stands and she has two futons to sleep on, one on the sunny side, one in the shade. She is still tethered, I still don't like the idea. But had she not been she most definitely would not have survived.Cheers Belle! May you have many more years in front of you and may all of them be tsunami free!

Retracing steps

2011-05-14T18:37:00.000+09:00

Dr.Takahashi is on my left. look just over his shoulder, you can see the water lines.

As you know by now this trip north was my second. I hoped to pop in and say hi to a few of the four-leggeders I met on my first trip and to touch base with the "two-leggeders" who were STILL on the front lines! On my second day we did an animal pick up run and our final destination was Animal Friends Niigata. This has been the primary stop for animals not only from the nuclear exclusion zone but also from the entire length of the devastated coast. Two American NGO's/NPO's (Kinship Circle and Last Chance for Animals) have been working with three Japanese based no-kill animal rescue groups.( Heart Tokushima, Japan Cat Network, Shiga and Animal Friends Niigata) and all groups have until the last week been bringing their rescues directly to Niigata. Last week saw the first transport of dogs to one of the outer lying shelters to make room for all the incoming pets. I missed their departure by 10 hours and with it I missed Maruko. She now resides in Shikoku. I am hoping to get a picture or two to pass on to Dr. Takahashi. That may take a brief detour onto the pages of this blog:-)
Speaking of Dr. Takahashi, He and his staff are back to business as almost usual.There is still evidence of water lines around his office. They managed to evacuate all but one of their four legged residents at the time of the tsunami.They just didn't have enough hands. The good news is that the staff had the foresight to put the furbie on the second floor and tales of survival were shared on everyone's return. It gave me great great pleasure to be able to show him the Maruko's story video I created.Just in case you didn't see it the first time, I will shamelessly post it here again .m(-.-)m
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aivh7fXE85U&feature=fvsr

At Animal Friends I was able to meet up with Fu, Mi and Shuu.The three kitties we took in from a large Rikuzentakata evacuation center. Mi was her usual cute kitten self, Shuu a little unsure of this "new" human and Fu as adorable and loving as ever. I took a lot of photos and some video because I knew the next day I'd be heading out to where their family were.

Shuu

After a very delayed start, we finally made it to Rikuzentakata, a town frequently featured on the national news here because of the extent of the damage caused.We stuck our heads in the main office and introduced ourselves. I explained I had been here three weeks previously with an animal rescue group and that we were back to see if any one had animal needs.We were told we could set up in the morning, like the last time, but if we liked we could give the supplies in now. Before doing that I had one quick phone call to make. "Moshi Moshi! Konbanwa, Kate desu!", "Where am I? Ehmm, downstairs by the entrance" Waaaaaaaaaaahhhh click! Five seconds later a tracksuit clad lady was tearing down the school hallway in my direction, excitedly repeating my name. She unexpectedly bear hugged me and we got down to cat talk. I showed her all the pictures and videos I had taken the day before and she teared up.Each new photo would see her put her hand over her mouth and whisper her kitty's name. She tickled each kitty photo under the chin or pat them on the head telling them she wouldn't be too long more. She asked them if they were being good and eating well. I told her to take the phone and show the photos and videos to her human family here. She came back 10 minutes later red eyed and puffy faced. We hugged good night and I said I would see her tomorrow.

            We settled down for the night. 10.30pm, earliest night I have had in a very long time. It was bucketing down and the wind was picking up.The safest, driest place was the shelter of our car. Parked beside the Japanese military trucks we blanketed ourselves up and attempted getting comfortable in 'Hotel Honda Odyssey'. The name sounds so much more luxurious than the experience! We woke several times during the night because we were convinced we were experiencing earthquakes. Nope, just the wind we were told. Like with any 'camping trip' we woke up with the first light of day, i.e. way too early to feel remotely human without copious amounts of caffeine. Our scheduled start was 9am, it was still before 6. We drove our cars around to the front of the school and watched the world surrounding it wake up. Only two dogs were were still there from the last time. One seemed very depressed and wouldn't let us approach him very unlike our previous meeting. He looked fed up, as I can well imagine he was, at week 9 of bike shed life. Some treats were left within reach and we hoped his owner would show up at our session at 9am.

           The other little fellow, was an energetic little black pomeranian .He had smiles and love to share. Everyone was his friend. He excitedly welcomed us and indeed anyone who came within his range. I didn't see anyone with him last time but this time I saw a lady grooming him as we were leaving. I stopped the car and jumped out to tell her about the possibilities of sheltering her dog if she was having trouble. It wasn't her dog and she didn't know whose dog it was. She just stopped by to make sure his water was fresh and to 'groom' him everyday. Groom him with her fingers. I knew we had a brush in the car. I had brought it 2,600 km from Okinawa. Now the question was"where in the car?' We are talking needle in a haystack here. We had crates, dog food, cat food, human food, beds, shampoos, meds, Sleeping bags, extra clothing for the cold....... the only thing we didn't have was the proverbial kitchen sink!! I dug deep and found the buried treasure, right next to pet shampoo sheets for small dogs. Perfect!! I went back to the lady and she gladly accepted the donations.

   I wished her the best and gave her a flyer in Japanese about the group's activities. She thanked me and then said wait a moment. Out of her pocket she pulled an origami frog and handed it to me.I have often received paper cranes in my time here but never a frog. The cranes are a symbol of long life, my mind raced, frogs? She explained that the Japanese word for frog is Kaeru which sounds identical to Kaeru meaning 'return' the distinction is that the kanji characters are different. She said she was giving me this in the hopes that the happiness I had just shared with her would be returned to me some day..........................................

A simple but precious treasure

Winds of change

2011-05-10T15:29:00.000+09:00

Having said I would start at the beginning I find myself leaping forward into real time as today marked a momentuous occasion in the lives of pet owners around the beleaguered nuclear plant in Fukushima.While it took a mere seven days for the earthquake and tsunami issues to take a back seat in the international media.The radiation problems would frequently raise their ugly heads again and again when there were protests in Germany, discussions in Britain and sit ins across the States. The main focus of these awareness raising campaigns were the dangers of nuclear power generation and the consequences on society if something went wrong.


Sunday saw a march through Tokyo calling attention to the plight of the animals left behind in the 20km zone.

Japan has had quite a few quake related nuclear accidents in the last decade. They have been minor belches as compared with the current full-scale manifestation of chronic acid reflux. People have been "re-located" temporarily in those situations but never as long or as strictly enforced as this mandatory evacuation. People were told they would be one or two days away from home. At the 6 week mark it became a mandatory evacuation and people were given a few short hours to get in and out of the area and retrieve anything of importance/ value they felt they would need. One person per household donned the tyvek suit and protective eyewear and sped into the zone to grab everything on the lists compiled by family members waiting in the evacuation centers.

Stop for a minute. You have an hour. Grab everything that is important to you and leave forever. No turning back. 60 minutes for you ALONE to gather a lifetime of mementos.......for EVERY member of your family...... not to mention all things official, but I am assuming you know where those documents are and that would be the easy part. Your dogs are thrilled to see you they wag their tails, yeah!!!! My person is back! You enter the house your cats practically trip you up with every step you take as they wend their way around your moving legs. You stop for a minute to pick out a piece of paper you can feel the purrs vibrating against your leg as little miss kitty brushes the length of her body past your shins..............Now walk away. Leave them there, pour out whatever food is left but leave your pets where they are. They are not allowed to evacuate, people only. No pets permitted.Once you leave today, the "zone" will be sealed and your beloved furbies in there with it.How would you react?

The Japanese have a long standing reputation as law abiding citizens. In these circumstances they were no different, they did as told. With precedents, residents from around the nuclear plants have been allowed back in after a day or two.According to form this should have been no different, except it was. Very different. When the exclusion zone was at advisory level. Animal rescue groups were going in and finding all types of animals running loose, tethered animals who were skin and bones for lack of food and water and the worst sight of all were the dead animals most still tied to their kennels in their own front gardens.

Every so often the government would come across a hold out like the man below. This 83 year old told the police he would rather die than leave without his dog. I know this makes me look fickle, but I am requesting permission for him to be added to my list of heroes that have come to light in the wake of these horrible events. This story was taken from Kazuyoshi Nagashima san's blog. A Kanazawa politician with a big heart for the animals.

富岡町に住む83歳のこの男性は震災時から3日間ほど避難拒否をしていたといいます。
しかし、逃げるよう説得された時に「ペットはダメ」と言われたものの、「犬を連れて行っちゃダメなら俺は死ぬ」などと主張し何とか連れ出すことを認めてもらったと話していました。

I always start these entries and say to myself "Right, this is going to be short". Obviously I still haven't got my head around the definition of short!! So finally to the news that was released to-day that made me take the leap to current time was that the government has finally seen the light and will be letting people evacuate their animals.From pets to pigs, a lot of the animals will be catered for. From the bottom of my heart I just hope they survived this far.

Hitting the ground running.......................

2011-05-09T00:58:00.000+09:00

First of all the principle behind 'hitting the ground running' is that you are unencumbered and good to go literally from the moment you cross the starting line. Having sent all received non-perishable donations via post that left my personal weight allowance free for things that had to get there in more of a hurry. Flea/tick preventatives, food and veterinary supplies which were being sucked up by the vacuum of need were going with me personally to feed the black hole this awful disaster has created. I carted a very manageable 20kilos of donations and thankfully didn't overly upset any sensitive Skymark airlines counter staff at the airport by being excessively weighed down.Sure don't they have enough to deal with?

Any way, 12 hours after locking my university office door I was standing at the door of my Golden week home. A house in the suburbs of Sendai which has become the staging area for volunteer operations. A somewhat central point between the Niigata receiving shelter and the affected areas. I use the word "somewhat" because while the journey from the East coast to Sendai remains constant at 4 hours the affected areas range from 2 hours to 10 hours drive away from the house. The scale of this disaster is unprecedented. The coastal area affected by the tsunami is much longer than the length of my own country, Ireland.

This time my application to volunteer was accepted by an American volunteer group, Kinship Circle, who have international disaster experience. Read Hurricane Katrina, Earthquake in Chile, Landslides in Brazil. They are there for four-legged victims of disasters. I wanted to be there too! their disaster experience and JEARS' Japan experience promised to make an absolutely formidable force for the animals and pet owners affected. I was looking forward to being part of the bigger picture....... so was the youngest cat when I got back home!

Well,Well,Well! Long time no post!

2011-05-07T10:47:00.000+09:00

I haven't been the best of a blogster have I? I know a bad workman always blames their tools but I will duly accept half the fault for having tried to convert to the cult of St. Mac while volunteering in a very challenging environment. I am starting to believe that I am genetically wired to be a Windows user although I feel obliged to admit that the Macs have have won me over with their sleek, smooth, good looks. I never thought myself to a 'cover judger' but this 'book' won me over at first sight!!

I'm in Niigata airport ready to fly home with a head full of stories bursting to be written down. The beginning is always a great place to start so it is there I will share with you first.

Some of my own crew "pre-approving" the donations!

Collecting donations. I put the usual ads in the local classifieds and received a steady trickle of responses. I posted it as my status on Facebook and was 'liked' and commented upon by many. Then an AMAZING lady, Amanda, took my pebble-in-the-pond style requests to the public and made them into an avalanche of donations. She wholeheartedly put her back into it and I was inundated with all manner of pet items and financial donations. Now how to get all of this up to where it was needed. Two days before leaving I took a trip to the airport to check with my airline if, given the circumstances, they would allow a volunteer exceed their weight allowance to bring donated supplies to pet owners and animals in need in the Tohoku disaster area. Emmmm no! Clear cut and straightforward "No". I took the line that these particular rules were made for times and situations when normality was ...well, normal, and that the area I was heading to with these well intentioned donations was far from that status. Again, the words a person on a mission doesn't like to hear were repeated, " No you can't. The rules are the rules." Thanks Sky mark airlines for adding fuel to my fire, I was going to get them there with or without you. Would have been nicer with, but hey where there is a will there is a way, right?

Post office: Turned out to be surprisingly cheap. I was able to get several 15 -20 kg packets out with them. But had a meltdown over the last and heaviest package. The large dog crate I donated myself which I had filled with donated dog food. The one I had weighed so carefully the night before, the one that read under the 30kilo limit at home but seemed to have put on weight in the half mile between the house and the Post Office. Again the same line was used and the same reception of said line was received in return. (I really am going to have to work on my lines!!) I was so utterly disappointed about the bureaucratic inflexibilities I encountered. There was absolutely no budging the staff over the set boundaries created for 'normal circumstances'.

I wished I had my camera so I could show them their fellow country men receiving these donations the last time. To explain the story of the middle-aged woman who broke down in tears when we asked her did she have enough food for her dog. To share pictures of Ryu-chan's life in a cardboard box outside a freezing evacuation center in Iwate until our donations gave him a crate and blankets. Or if they were cat people maybe they would have been moved just a little by Fu, Mi and Shou who had lived in their owner's car for three weeks.Having these stories in my head made me more determined. That package was heading North.

Since I didn't have the time before flying as I had morning classes to teach on departure day, my wonderful better half found a courier service that was ready to oblige with the task of dispatching the crate and food.　All donations were divided up between the three JEARS shelters The tangibles went to Tokushima and Shiga prefectures and the monetary donations went to offset vet bills in the Niigata shelter.

Counting down

2011-04-25T21:48:00.000+09:00

I can hardly keep my head on straight let alone focus. I have 3 days of normality before returning to chaos. Three days of business as usual before unadulterated mayhem. It is mind blowing to know that in this same country only a couple of hours up the road pandemonium reigns supreme.At the very same time I was sunning myself on an Okinawan seawall just T-shirt clad and flip-flopped last weekend, someone in an Iwate school gym/shelter was willing their coat to close a little better and their new shoes to be half a size bigger.

I'm sitting here at home with one of my fourleggeders on the kitchen chair beside me, another on the recliner (no-less), another actually using a pet bed(!) and the newest addition is honing her mouse catching skills upstairs lest that be a problem for us in the future.My blessings are counted and they are all within my reach.Overseas family by phone and furbs by just crinkling a treat bag. Yes, I know the correct later half of that sentence should read " ...and furbs by calling their name." but they don't do names anymore they have informed me, they do names ONLY if followed by treats. They have us well trained, and we are only too happy to tickle exposed bellies, throw slimy half chewed toys or (even though it took a while) give up the recliner:-)

Tonight I spoke with the lady who gave the group her three cats to mind. She was upbeat even though she is still living in a school gym 6 weeks after losing everything.I admire her resilience, she has been told they will start moving people into temporary quarters "soon" and that the latest they will be housed will be by July. In my head I raised my voice and said "WAIT.......Did you say JULY? I can't even begin to imagine" however the words that I put to my voice were along the lines of "not long now". I sure hope her number comes up sooner rather than later.

She had been in touch with the shelter and they had told her the cats were doing well. I'm going to be at the shelter by the end of this week. I promised I would take photos of them and send them to her.She is missing them like crazy and is worried if they'll recognize her after so long.While the photos help, a cuddle or five would definitely go a lot further. Well, all you animal lovers out there know that yourselves! Go on, give the furries in your life a snuggle right now, because you CAN:-)

I've the last of my donation pick ups tomorrow evening. I'll most definitely be overweight again. THANK YOU for making me so. This is one time it really doesn't matter.I only wish I had more hands oh and of course baggage allowance.

Ding Ding Ding!!! Round TWO

2011-04-18T00:14:00.000+09:00

This is the last year in my current job and a fact that is not overtly advertised was uncovered ten days ago. I found out that we are entitled to 5 days of volunteer leave per annum! Add that to my upcoming Golden Week holidays and I am free and clear to head north for 9 days to volunteer for the animals again.I'll be using two of those unique days and save the rest for a little further down the line. That way, further into the academic year a banal one day mid-week national holiday combined with one personal day could mean 8 days of dedication to Tohoku. Sorry for the lapse into numbers there, but juggling the personal days, with national holidays, with "refresh" days, volunteer days, "mental" days and "special circumstance"days may seem like hair splitting to folks in a western work environment but it is power for the course at this National University. The skill and dexterity required to navigate officialdom and kanji-dense paperwork is a constant eye-opener, both in literal and metaphoric terms.

Bureaucratically signed off on, I am endorsed to hit the road........... as long as I wear a mask. I will, and I shall provide photographic evidence thereof. I'll use my personal weight allowance to get animal supplies north with me but it is only 23kg/ 50-ish lbs of checked in luggage as in only 5 or 6 bags of pet food. I use my carry-on allowance for personal stuff, you know like a change of clothes or two.------side note!!!---- Here, (as in , "in Japan") you are allowed to have a "shopping bag" full of omiyage (souvenirs), in addition to your carry on bags when boarding. On my last trip to Tohoku the bewildered X-ray machine staff were scratching their heads at my outwardly touristy "I Love Okinawa" emblazoned bag filled to breaking point with pet pee pads.They dutifully scanned them and now they grace the floors of the wonderful Niigata shelter I had the privilege of volunteering for.

I copied the "wish-list" from the JEARS page. If anyone wants to help out, I am more than willing to bring this stuff up with me or even ship it to one of the shelters in the JEARS coalition. They predict that the kitten formula and puppy formula is going to see a hike in demand as the Fukushima cats and dogs that have been let loose to fend for themselves since the evacuation advisories mix and match.This, paired with the fact that spaying and neutering is not as common in Japan as it is in the west when it comes to responsible pet ownership should see a population explosion within in the next few months.This formula is nutrient dense and can also be used to provide sustenance to the animals coming in from areas their owners had not expected to be gone for very long from.These guys are often in very very poor condition.

COMFORT ITEMS

fleece blankets warm clothes for dogs-all sizes dog toys cat toys scratching boxes or posts washable dog/cat beds or pillows treats

HOUSEKEEPING

newspapers (for cages)

rolls of plastic “potty” bags (100Yen store) pet sheets

bath towels washcloths paper towels

laundry detergent dish detergent heavy duty trash bags antibacterial hand soap (volunteers)

CATS DAILY CARE

canned cat food (Anything high quality as incoming kitties will need al the nutrition they can get)

dry cat food (Anything high quality as incoming kitties will need al the nutrition they can get)

(KMR) kitten milk formula sturdy food and water bowls katsuobushi litter boxes

litter box sand cat shampoo/conditioner nylon collars

TRANSPORT AND SHELTER

dog crates and kennels cat carrier

DOGS DAILY CA RE

(Anything high quality as incoming doggies will need al the nutrition they can get)

canned dog food

dry dog food (Anything high quality as incoming doggies will need al the nutrition they can get)

sturdy food and water bowls Puppy milk formula Epiotic Ear Wash Liquid

nylon collars and leads (all sizes) dog shampoo/conditioner

MEDICAL

sterile gauze saline solution

bandages for dogs and cats antiseptic wipes for pets cotton balls Q-tips

Pedialite (Non-flavor, non-sugar re-hydration food for infants (good for dehydrated malnourished animals)

Maruko's story the you tube version:-)

2011-04-13T13:55:00.000+09:00

Maruko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAdW_2sfZxk

There wasn't a rude name under the sun that my computer didn't get called while making this video. As mentioned before, I am technologically UNgifted and am of the generation where computer games were rectangles that went up or down on either side of a screen rebounding a square 'ball' back and forth. Today's cyberlife is foolproof, which is precisely the reason I can't get in;-)

So I said "watch this space" right? Well, sorry for not having given you that much to look at since I have been back. Work started and the nose got re-positioned to align with the grindstone again. In the in between parts I have been keeping my volunteer experiences very much to the fore. I managed to secure a donation of 500 packs of really awesome Indian curry to the very hard-working volunteers based out of Niigata. If you are in Japan I thoroughly recommend you try these 'excellent-for-camping-trips-bags-of-delicious-ness':-) They do mail order too.One tip, go with the milder ones first because they sure do pack some punch in the spicy stakes.
http://www.indojin.com/zstore/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=53_36

So what next? I am heading up North again for 9 days and will be volunteering with the same group. I will not be using paypal .....at all......ever again if I can help it. As I said before, they froze the account and have not been forthcoming as to what happens next.I will keep donaters informed personally rather than publicly.It is a bit of a shame that a person genuinely wanting to be proactive has so much red tape between them and the good deed.This time I'm choosing the "simple" route, if anyone wants to send me on my way with a bag of dog food, a cat scratcher or a hamster wheel, I will be more than willing to take them on their behalf. Same goes for cash in brown paper envelopes. That will be used to whittle down the recently replenished pet food section at a branch of Costco in Tokyo.
earthquakepets@gmail.com if you would like to ask me any questions.

Aaaand she's back.

2011-04-07T11:18:00.000+09:00

My two feet are now back on the island I call home. It is great to be here and not there but also hard to slip back into my "normal" life. Add seven days of very little sleep to the cocktail of devastation, language barriers and confused animals and you have yourself a potent concoction of frazzled emotions. That is of course if emotions can be "frazzled". I know they can be 'mixed' but that just seemed too tame a word to use when trying to paint a vivid picture. So back to meetings, orientations, schedules and appointments............. hmmmmmm the box I am trying to put my northern experience into so I can file it away is not closing properly.

I haven't found anything yet that is more mentally satisfying than volunteering for a cause you wholeheartedly believe in. It is so important not to take the initial nay sayers to heart especially when you are travelling alone. On day two I got an anonymous email from a reader of a site that I had posted a "donations wanted" ad.That person chose to douse my good intentions in barrage of unfounded accusations. My plan still very much in its infancy, faltered as I wondered whether or not I should proceed. It was at that crossroads I stopped to gather my thoughts. That person's assumptions were based on her/his experience of society not mine. Thankfully, my possibly naive opinion has us humans marked down as "at the core: good". As you have read I ignored the signpost that pointed to the town named Complacency.

I had the absolute pleasure of volunteering not only with people from all over Japan, but people from all over the world. I'm Irish Kate from Okinawa and the Maruko story below unfolded while working together with British Karl from Hokkaido, American Susan from Shiga and American Ron from, well, America. The volunteers are coming in on a rotation basis as everyone puts in the time they can under the JEARS.org umbrella. Some were there for 10 days, others 3 and mighty mighty Susan and Isabella from the start.There is still a lot of work to be done and a lot of support to be given. I'm not going to sit back and check this off my list yet. Watch this space!

Some of the Rikuzentakata volunteer group with donated road trip snacks. (Ron P's photo)

Notification of change of address

2011-04-06T00:28:00.000+09:00

Ryu-chan

This little white haired boy looks the image of the dog that advertises cellphones on Japanese TV. He had as much personality but was not of stocky model type build;-) You know the way that goes!

He was the very first "meeter and greeter" at the Junior high school evacuation center for me and he gladly showed me around his cardboard box. (pictured on top). His caretaker was a densely clad young man in his mid thirties. I met him at 6.30am before people were 'supposed' to be up and when the temperatures were still attempting to freeze the words leaving the mouths of speakers by clouding them in wisps of vapour. He was just checking that Ryu had made it through the overnight low temperatures and was feeding him his meagre breakfast. He was the very first owner on the pet scene (by a long shot) that day. The volunteers approached enthusiastically looking for some good to do but Ryu's guardian refused help on all levels, even to change out his dog's cardboard box for a proper kennel. Hmmmmm, head scratching and doushiyoh doushiyoh? (What to do? what to do?) Our naive expectations of everyone who (clearly) needed help (by our standards), actually wanting help was a bubble bursting experience. Putting my basic communicative Japanese to the test I talked to the guardian about Ryu's uncanny likeness to the cell phone dog. Yes, he admitted, Ryu got that a lot. but he didn't let it go to his ego:-) Ahhhhh good, a dog with a sound head on his shoulders. Gradually I came to the conclusion that Ryu actually shared his quirky personality with his person.
In most coastal towns where the tsunami hit there were warning sirens that went off, alerting citizens to the imminent danger. This man had heard them too. He told me he grabbed Ryu put him in the car and then went to get his parents. As politely as possible I asked were his parents ok. Once I received an affirmative answer I nudged him on the elbow and said "So you got Ryu first, are your parents still talking to you? " He almost bust a gut laughing, then sheepishly said they hadn't realised yet and made the gesture of "shhhhhhh" It was our secret. Swear you won't tell him I told you?:-)

Later in the day I saw Ryu had moved house to a newer more densely padded soft sided carrier case. I'm glad the owner accepted help. That is what we were there for and will continue to be as long as there are animals in need.What we as enthusiastic volunteers have to take from this experience is not "Yes, yes yes, we were right all along" but rather a lesson in communication. Build bonds, become another PERSON to the recipient not just a "swoop- in-giver". Even though he refused help outright at the start, eventually he accepted a bag of food and a new kennel for Ryu-chan. We are thrilled at the outcome, we only hope we tread softly enough over his pride that he is too.

Bad news from Paypal & a dog that made me laugh

2011-04-05T08:03:00.000+09:00

So it seems that Paypal have labelled me a "Scam". The full fourlegged bellies in Niigata and Iwate can attest that I am not. If you were thinking of donating please do so at this link http://jears.org/ they are the group I am volunteering with.I will work out the issues that paypal have with my account but for the moment either donate above or hold onto the green.Thank you to all those who have donated thus far. Fortunately I had a lull in my donations and it seems the account was frozen after I had emptied it for the Costco trip.

Speaking of full bellies in northern Japan, how about this for a picture? The group got word of two dogs inside the exclusion zone that needed to be picked up. While nearing the area, the van driver spotted an old dog meandering in the street ahead. He was dizzy with hunger and as weak as they come. She had only brought travel crates for the two she knew she was going to pick up and the rest of the space was taken up by supplies.Obviously she wasn't going to "walk on by" so the old fella got loaded into the van where he literally thought he had died and gone to heaven. Having most likely not had a morsel to eat in the last two weeks and his gait verifying his compromised state, suddenly he was surrounded by a gift from the Gods a truck load of food. He lost control, not just a bit, but with every last sinew of muscle in his skinny body he launched himself at the supplies. Very little escaped his rapture! A complete and utter mess was created, soft food pouches were pierced and leaked everywhere several bags of dog food were ripped open and kibble littered the floor.I couldn't help chuckling to myself when organising the clean up, I mean can you imagine? talk about winning the lottery:-)


This was all intact before the "Inspections officer" got to it:-)

Fortunately very little went to waste, in total about half a bag of dog food. We used the opened bags and pouches with the animals already at the shelter and where feasible we taped up bags and sent them out again.

Tears and their lessons

2011-04-04T13:16:00.000+09:00

Thank you to those powers that be that found me in front of a computer to write this. The phone's battery was not coping well with my long-winded stories.Not to mention that one finger typing does get a little brain frazzling:-)

On a euphoric high from our successful trip to the city pound for Maruko, I turned into the grounds of the evacuation center to rendez vous with a lady who was giving us three cats to mind until she got a place of her own.I saw a lady roughly shaking another. The older of the two was shorter and looking up to the lady who was bawling her eyes out, all the while encouraging her to be strong. Crash! I landed back down into reality.I didn't know what this young woman's story was but it was enough to make her weep in public. I put my head down and tried to pass their sadness unnoticed so as to not disturb them. I diverted my eyes and they landed on a car covered in dog stickers.

We are trying to help here on several levels, at the evacuation centers, at the pounds and individual to individual. If while out we heard dogs barking we would stop and see if the owner had enough food for the animal. If we saw indications that people were pet owners (like pet stickers on cars for example) we would also ask if they needed anything. We visited an old folks home that had been turned into an evacuation center and while setting up a lady had walked by with her dog. We asked her with bags of food in our arms if she had enough food. Her instant well of tears told us no.She had been feeding her dog scraps for the last two weeks and hadn't been able to get any dog food at all.We loaded her up with as much as she could carry all the while tears streaming down her face.

At the same center we were getting ready to leave and a young girl who had been standing off to the side watching us unload our supplies of dog and cat food plucked up the courage to approach us. She fiddled with her hair nervously and asked if we had any rabbit food. I knew we didn't at that moment but that I would check when we got back to the main center we were based out of. She looked deflated and resigned to the idea. Everyone thinks of dogs and cats at these times because they are the most popular companion animals.I felt that we had let her down by our focus on the obvious. When we returned and were reloading the vans from our main vehicle a volunteer found a bag of rabbit food. It was brought back up that same afternoon. While I wasn't there to see it, all accounts were of a very grateful teary eyed teen.

I didn't know what to do with my own tears. They were always there, just out of everyone's view. No one really needed an emotional volunteer who had the luxury of walking away from it all at the end of the day to be a catalyst for more visits into their own grief. Not because I felt the need to be a "strong person" but because it kind of seemed likemy tears were selfish given what these people had been through. They had more rights to tears than I ever had here.I watched events unfold before me where my breath got caught so tightly between my mouth and lungs that the rim of the tear resevoir overflowed just a bit.Only once could I not get those floodgates closed properly.

We ran to the truck to get a few bags of dog food for the sticker covered car people. They had just started the engines and were preparing to leave. I got there and saw it was the older of the 2 ladies I had noticed on my way in.I asked if she needed dog food, she said she had been sorted out and was fine but that the 3 cat lady was waiting for us. We crossed the car park and there was the middle aged lady who had been getting a right shaking from the person we had just offered dog food to. She was calm, straightfaced and totally composed. She introduced us to her three adopted cats. Mi-chan 7 months old, Shu-chan 4 years old and Fu-chan 4 years old and paralysed since birth. They had been living in the back of her tiny box car for almost three weeks. They were amazingly friendly with all the volunteers and were deep in conversation with each other while their owner was telling us about their needs and health conditions.

Fu, Mi (tilted head) and Shu

These three were being temporarily being handed over to the Animal Friends shelter in Niigata. Their owner had no home to call her own anymore. She would sit in her car in the parking lot of the evacuation center and hang out with her cats for a few hours each day making sure they got the maximum doses of loving, cuddles and food she could fit in.They were also her little corner of sanity, her escape from the physical and bureaucratic mayhem that was being lived through outside the 2 doors of her car. Handing them over, even for a short while, seemed unfathomable. I admired her strength, she didn't know that I had seen her before she was introduced to us. I caught a glimpse into what she was feeling yet here she was being calm cool and collected. Time came to say goodbye and she sobbed softly as she told each kitty to be good and that she would be coming for them as soon as she could. Again I found myself hiding my face in the presence of this woman. If she saw my tears what would happen to her heavily dented floodgates? Too late, she looked up to say "Yoroshiku onegai shimasu" (Please take care (of them)) and saw my rivers. She smiled through her tears and said thank you. We hugged silently.

A volunteer takes Mi and Fu to the van for the journey "home"

As it turned out, our departure was delayed by the late return of one of our other vehicles. I met the lady again about an hour later. Both of us composed and talking as if nothing happened. She asked about our volunteering, the group and the volunteers themselves. She told us a bit about her story and my awe of what these people are going through just sky rocketed.When it truly came the time to say farewell she confided that her belief that she was doing the right thing was bolstered when she saw me cry. To her it said we actually truly cared for the animals we were taking in. She and Maruko's rescuer had got to talking and they ushered a young girl back into the center. She came out with boxes of juice and rusks for our journey back. We refused them. How could we take something from people who had nothing else? They insisted, we insisted, they insisted again. 'We have nothing, true, but if we have something to give, let us' this is Japanese tradition. We picked our jaws off the ground for what this lesson in humanity taught us. They don't want to just be recipients they need to feel that they are a part of their own journey to self sufficiency. While handouts do make these early days run a little bit easier, ultimately they see that sitting and waiting for those handouts does not make them proactive in the whole recovery process.

A former Fukushima resident

2011-04-03T23:39:00.000+09:00

Maruko's journey (Part 2)

2011-04-03T11:39:00.000+09:00

We had been told she was a large dog, but by the time we got there she had put on about 40lbs, grown a foot taller and been renamed Cujo because of the rumour mills and hearsay surrounding the case. The "Aggressive" label tends to bizarrely increase the animal's dimensions. Add to that the tendency that Japanese "large" whether it is T-shirt size or dog size tends to be quite a bit smaller than the western large size. We were convinced she was going to be far bigger than our largest crate. So out the back with us, and there in the dog catcher's truck was Maruko. A skinny scruffy slip of dog, who was beside herself with fear. She would sound off if anybody came within 5 feet of her cage. Junior was standing smugly off to the side arms folded on a belly he shouldn't have had for his age. This was not an unacheivable task it was just going to take some time. More time than usual and more time than city workers had to spare given the current situation the citizens found themselves in. It took 40 minutes to build up Maruko's trust in us so we could put on a slipleash and slowly let her out of the cage.She made a beeline for the grass and made two lengthy deposits. A bit of a short trot around the periphery and then to try and get her into the crate in our car. We decked it out special. It was laden with enticing treats and pink oversized fleece blanket. I mean what lady doesn't like a bit of pampering? The back of the jeep was too high for her to manage but the treats were calling her name. We couldn't yet hoosh her up as she seemed tender in her belly and hip area. We built a "stairway" out of dog food boxes and she ably clambered up them to claim her prize.

On our 8 hour journey to the shelter we stopped twice to let her out to stretch her legs and make organic contributions to the surrounding countryside. Now I may get a little too graphic for sensitive souls here so I apologise in advance. She must have pooped about 5lbs in the space of 9 hours. She hadn't been walked at all in the pound and some dogs just will not, however desperate, poop where they sleep.No wonder she was tender she had been in the pound for 5 days, that is a lot of build up. Each time we took her out she was more relaxed and less edgy.

We arrived at the shelter in Niigata and they had a room prepared for her she was in great spirits and was fine with being approached by strangers, unlike a few short hours ago. We walked her around her new surroundings and then led her to her private room. The couple who were helping the vet have promised to come for her when they get all their own ducks in a row. We visited her the next day when we were loading trucks to go out again. She greeted us with a big toothy grin and a tail wagging so hard it became blurry!

One happy happy lady:-)

One human + One fourleggeder = Two Heroes (Part 1)

2011-04-02T23:06:00.000+09:00

Today our group of volunteers had several tasks to attend to. We split up to get things accomplished more efficiently. Since people have a tendency to understand my broken Japanese just at the right time I was sent down to city hall with three other volunteers to meet a vet and a couple who had taken on the case of a remarkable soul, Maruko. We were ushered into a second floor city hall office. The door was opened and raised voices hit our ears. First off, let me preface this with Japanese people rarely, rarely RARELY argue or complain "loudly" in public. This situation looked like it was rapidly heading in the wrong direction. The three foreign faced volunteers walked in and the vet politely excused himself from the heated discussion, turned to introduce himself in perfectly enunciated English, greeted us individually with a deep bow and explained very calmly what was happening.

Maruko, a 14 year old medium sized terrier mix, had been trapped in the rubble of a house for 11 days with no food or water. She was miraculously pulled out alive, bruised, bewildered and in a bad mood. She was taken to the local pound where she let her displeasure at having had to wait so long to be found known. She mouthed and snapped at the over worked handlers who tried to get close. This meant
she earned the label "agressive". By the time the town hall had located her owners in an evacuation center the city officials were feeding her but not walking her for fear of being really bitten.

Ku chan tied up under the shelter of the school's bike shed.

Her owners, having lost everything in the innundation, couldn't deal with a potentially aggressive dog in such a confined living space as the evacuation center. Dogs are not allowed inside and are chained up in the icy parking lot for owners to drop by when they can. The dogs get a lot of visitors during the day both young and old, owner and stranger. Human and canine destressing themselves with their interaction. A snapping dog is a liability. Maruko's people relinquished her future to city hall, a place where she
had made no friends at all and no one was on her side.

Maruko when we first met her

After this careful explanation Dr.Takahashi reengaged the bureaucrat. The young man, was refusing to let the vet see, examine or assess the dog. Today was Maruko's last day and the scheduled gassing was in the afternoon. The wheels of officialdom had been set in motion and as far as this entry level official was concerned this juggernaut could not be stopped. His logic was not making any sense to the vet or the couple who were willing to take Maruko to their home when they had turned their own situation right way up. He was obstinately not budging, asserting the power of the position he was transferring from in 1 month's time. Dr. Takahashi raised his hand in the air and waved to everyone in the room all the while stating in a much louder voice than before who he was, his profession and that he was being treated very irrationally and unfairly by the redfaced junior official. Like I said, making a public scene here is as uncommon as blue moons, and yet here was an overstretched, sleep deprived individual battling against the bureacratic red tape for one of his long term patients. The fracas was intolerable for the head man in the room and he leapt to his feet to rein in the situation. Junior, Senior and vet huddled and in hushed tones spent 20 minutes hashing out a solution. Maruko could leave and the paperwork would take an hour. Vet and the supporting couple bowed repeatedly at the room at large and thanked the stressed officials effusively. Normality was restored, the city staff accepted their gestures of thanks graciously and the road bump was smoothed out. Now to actually go down and get this "cranky old lady".

destruction, destruction and more destruction

2011-04-01T19:44:00.000+09:00

An entire traditional roof in blocking the road

Where to start? The light of day I suppose. The car park was full when we woke from our cramped sleeping quarters at the back of the Hiace. We had driven in after 1am and had had a brief yet powerful indication of what was to come. Driving through the areas by night meant the scene was only as large as the headlights and their periphery. While it somewhat softened the visual impact, the darkness and silence added a sense of foreboding. The only sounds were our wheels on the dirt tracks as they manouvered around obstacles that had no place being on the road. Yet there they were.

People who heard the evacuation warnings and fled to higher ground with what ever they could fling into the car. In some cases that was pets in some cases that was clothes in most cases it was just themselves and family members present. Seeing the resultant devastation they fled from was nothing like I had ever seen before, ever! One of the group members is an American fire fighter who volunteered for the destitute animals of Katrina and the 2010 earthquake in Chile. He said neither were anything like what he was witnessing on the ground here. Walls of debris piled up either side of the road as high as three storey buildings. Houses just didn't collapse they turned inside out and upside down in the blender the tsunami unleashed. Cars were enmeshed in roofs, boats on top of apartment buildings and whole neighbourhoods just razed and transported further inland. Every so often you would see a teddy bear or a manga or a photograph within the mud and know that there were lives lived here, and now there was rubble.


The car navigation system said go straight

It was so ................ there isn't one word that I could use. It hasn't been created yet and I hope it won't be.I can only use a string of the most awful awful adjectives to describe the scenes.On the other hand the adjectives to describe the survivors are all so positive. It is impossible for any one person who lived in the areas not to have lost someone close. The very poignant feature of the 'Missing person walls' at the shelters was the lack of photos.People just didn't have them anymore.Whole towns literally lost all their worldly possessions in less than 20 minutes. People who worked out of town but lost their houses in town were still finding ways to commute to work from the evacuation centers.I saw a firefighter and his team sifting through debris out near the port and then later on the same man shuffled through the gates of the makeshift accommodation and said "Ta daima" (I'm home)in whispered tones.

The first faux pas

2011-03-30T06:21:00.000+09:00


The worst affected areas are in a region known as Tohoku	.

That's easy, it was thinking I could successfully blog on this phone. Yes people do, but I'm me and technology has a severe allergic reaction when it nears!! So after losing tonight's first blog to the cyber Gods this will be shorter.

Today started 20 hours ago, a taxi driver's last fare to the first Tokyo flight of the day. Chuck and Chie met me and my Okinawan donations and whisked us off to Costco. After making a considerable dent in their dog and cat supplies
section, we headed to Niigata. A prefecture on the other side of the country where we will do our da.y trips to affected zones from.Several prefectures have been left reeling from this triple whammy of disasters.They are collectively known as "Tohoku", the "north east road".

Naha airport

2011-03-28T15:00:00.000+09:00

Today I'm experimenting with blogging from my iphone because this will be my main form of communication when I am up there. Just wish the battery would last a smidgen longer. Anyway, back on task. I hit up the ANA cargo desk for the 75kilos/165lbs of donations I have received. The very kind and helpful staff helped me pack stuff up in the most economical way possible.THANK YOU ladies! They didn't want to be photographed in uniform so they took my photo as we were heading into the building. A very artsy diagonal shot if I may say so myself :-) Two boxes, one suitcase and a weighing scales later we we were ready to start into the paperwork. No dotting the i's or crossing the t's here, it is all in the stroke order. when my Kanji-fied address and my Katakana-ed name were all in the right place we moved on to the financial side of the transaction. Like I said before, any donations received are SOLELY for the animals. To my mind transportation costs of donated goods does not fall into that category. I dug deep and let's just say the first shipment will be waiting for me in Tokyo bright and early tomorrow morning with the first leg of the journey complete.

Thank you to everyone who has made this happen in such a short time frame. I have my last pick up of donations this evening at 8pm on Okinawa.Then I am Tokyo bound bright and early tomorrow morning where I have a rendez-vous with a truck driver who has a lot of empty space he is hoping I fill.Oh go on then, smirk just a little;-) you know you want to!

Things are coming together!

2011-03-28T01:26:00.000+09:00

This is a roller coaster ride for sure! Since deciding last week that I could not just sit and watch the destruction on TV anymore, there have been emotional peaks and valleys. The peaks keep getting higher and here is where you would expect me to say the valleys are getting lower... but they are not. I am overwhelmed by how truly selfless people have been when it comes to giving. In a few short days I met my first "ideal one month goal" with donations coming in from all over the world.

With local donations I hit the pet product shelves and while I tried my best to clear them, I hit a zone of confusion: Quantity versus Quality. Initially thoughts of feeding the 5,000 crossed my mind, sanity came to the fore and my brain reasoned any poor four-legged soul who acquiesces to our good intentions will be in dire need of decent nutrition. That should all be capitalized really. DECENT NUTRITION.
One of my own dogs was thrilled to pieces when I opened my car doors after this "Shopping for Tohoku" mission and I suddenly became a far off blurry voice, as his focus was honed in on all things important.

This picture represents the tip of the iceberg of what is needed on the ground up there. I am calling for donations of both the monetary and product kind. I am bringing all local (Okinawan) donations with me and all cash donations will go to a Japanese based card system. Which will ensure trouble-free purchasing power at a large Tokyo box store. Fasten your seat belts because the next bit gets exciting:-)

Today, a contact pulled through, I received wonderful news that I will be picked up in Tokyo on Tuesday (29/03) by a volunteer with a two tonne flatbed truck. -interlude: apart from the "Tokyo" bit does that not sound like fodder for a country music song?.....(pause for re-reading of prior sentence ;-)) - Anyway, this piece of truly great news means I have a whole lot of room in my paypal account for a whole lot of "greenies" that work in the pet products sections of major retailers. I'm 200lbs of donations up right now, I have a good bit to go, please help me fill this truck!

THANK YOU