Meet Jiji

October 4, 2021 

At the end of September, Dorothy, our post lady, approached us and asked if we would be interested in fostering a cat. She had rescued a young cat about a month earlier. When she rescued it, it was skin and bones, and barely had the will to live. She had to force-feed it at first before it started to eat on its own again. Over the month of August Dorothy had nursed it back to health, but since she already had two cats of her own, two more that she looked after in her second house that had been left by a resident who had died, and Tigger, at the post office, she could not keep a sixth cat. She had been in touch with the Vancouver Island cat rescue and SPCAs, but they were all full. Realizing that if we took the cat in we would probably decide to keep her, we said, "Yes". 

We named her Jiji, after the cat in the movie "Kiki’s Delivery Service". When we first brought her home she was very scared and she hid under everything, but it did not take long for her to come out for some food, and then, once she realized that we were not a threat, she just wanted to be around us.  

She is the most talkative cat that I have ever met, and she has a huge vocabulary as she tells us about what she has been doing and her life so far. She is very attentive, and quickly learned her name and to come when called. She loves to be with us, and wherever we are, she is. 

She follows us around the house and is interested in everything that we are doing. She loves to play with a bouncy ball and will chase it all over the place, and sometimes even bring it back if we throw it for her. She is also quite the jumper and will throw herself with wild abandon up into the air after a toy that we wave around for her. 

Before we said yes to taking her in, we asked our manager at work if it would be okay if she came to work with us, and he said "Yes", and so on our first Tuesday with her, less than a week after we got her, we took her to work. She adapted surprisingly quickly and I think it was good for her to be around other people. Each day she became braver, and it was not long before she was out and about around the living quarters, even at break time when everyone was in around the table. It was great to see how quickly she adapted. We were curious to see how she would be a week later when we went home, to Ron’s house, but she was instantly right-at-home. 

The transition between places did not seem to bother her at all. 

Needless to say we are keeping her, and we are both very happy to have a four-legged friend around the house. 

Since Ocean Falls definitely does not need any kittens, we had to make sure that she stayed inside until we could get her spayed. Living in a remote community makes this operation much more challenging and we had to line several things up to make it happen. We booked with the vet in Port Hardy and found that they were so busy and understaffed that it was going to be five weeks before she could get spayed. We then had to book her flights to and from Port Hardy, and her transportation to and from the vet and the airport. In the end it worked out that she flew out with the Mowi crew on a Tuesday crew change, one of our staff, who lives in Port Hardy, took her to the vet. Jiji then remained with the vet, had her operation, and we paid boarding costs for her until Friday. On Friday, a company call North Island Transportation picked her up from the vet and took her to the airport, and she then flew home on the scheduled Friday plane. The poor girl, I am sure it was a very traumatic and confusing experience, but she sure was happy to be home with us! All she wanted was to tell us about her time and get love; we were also very happy to have her home.