Heart Tokushima is a no-kill animal shelter run by Susan Mercer and Hitoshi Tojo outside of Tokushima City, Japan. It is hard to believe that a volunteer-run animal shelter in rural Shikoku could take care of 250+ animals, sometimes more, and both receive them and send them all over Japan. Some animal adoptions have also been arranged with people who moved to other countries after living in Japan. They have found homes for more than 1500 animals according to Mercer.

How did I get involved in all this? Susan Mercer and I had a chat one day, and I had this crazy idea that I could help more by creating artwork  that could be used for publicity or fundraising purposes. I  thought that any PR would be  worth more than my donating enough money to buy a few bags of cat food or kitty litter and hopefully the sale of the artwork would also bring more in donations than what I could afford to give by myself. As a result, I became an artist in residence at Heart for a few days. More details are in Part 1 of this series of posts.

When I first entered one of the catteries, I did not immediately understand why one group of cats was separate from the larger group. Mercer later explained that these particular cats in the smaller room had feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). All of the animals receive vaccines and are neutered or spayed; all are tested for diseases or other health conditions. That is a lot of animals to provide health care for! These cats will probably live long lives but have to be isolated because they can still be carriers or transmitters of FIV to other cats, not humans. They surprisingly can even share the same water bowls, food bowls, and litter boxes as cats without the virus, but Heart Tokushima separates them to be on the safe side.

This little guy simply wanted to play and be cuddled. He did not realize that there were other kittens elsewhere that he was not allowed to play with. Don’t worry! The older cats treated him kindly and even played with him sometimes.

Don’t you wonder if that little guy is related to this one? Same colouring…

These guys had the sunny corner with the extra-soft blankets. Probably not good when it was raining but fantastic on warm days.

Somebody had even provided a cat hammock! I had always wondered if cats would like something that unstable or not. I guess they do.

There were so many black cats! This cuddly, little teenager was roomies with an older, roly-poly cat that was also black. Have you ever tried photographing a black cat? It is not easy.

Are these two siblings? Maybe. They were always together, shyly watching me from above. They seemed interested in my presence but were very cautious.

They might not have a permanent home but the other cats do provide family. Even the volunteers are part of their family. It might not be as good as having a forever home with constant hugs and snacks, but Heart Tokushima does provide them with a lovely room where they can watch the great outdoors.

To be continued…