Cindy Lou Mew - Inspirational Kitten

Cindy Lou Mew, screen capture from Livestream

Sable is a feral cat who grew up in the forest. Fortunately for her, she is part of a colony of feral cats under the care of TinyKittens. These cats are regularly fed, spayed and neutered and returned to their colony as part of a TNR (trap-neuter-return) policy, and those who require medical care are trapped and taken to the vet for treatment and later returned to the colony.

I have written earlier about the groundbreaking project Shelly Roche, of the TinyKittens webcam on Livestream, initiated for the pregnant ferals. She has been trapping them while pregnant, having the kittens born in a safe environment at TinyKittens HQ, providing medical care when required, and socializing the kittens so they do not grow up feral and can be adopted into good homes. The mothers are spayed and returned to the colony.

When Shelly saw that Sable was pregnant, she trapped her and brought her home. On Thursday she gave birth to four kittens. I watched the birth live on the webcam and was happy to see that the kittens would be easy to distinguish: classic ginger, tabby, tortie, mackerel ginger.

It soon became apparent that the second-born kitten, the tabby named Cindy Lou Mew, was not nursing on her own, and Shelly took her out for bottle feeding. Cindy Lou's back feet were bent, and Shelly gently stretched them back to their natural position. But this was not the only problem. She made a clicking sound, and her breathing was irregular. She would take a few breaths and then stop for a few seconds, like sleep apnea, but not only during sleep.

The vet, Dr. Ferguson of Mountain View Veterinary Hospital, performed an x-ray using the mouse setting (newborn kittens are as small as a mouse), and established that Cindy Lou seemed to have all her organs and didn't have any liquid in her lungs, but it wasn't clear what was causing her problems.

For three days and nights Shelly and expert vet tech (= vet nurse) Gwen bottle-fed Cindy Lou every two hours. She fed and gained a little weight, and even purred a bit. But as time passed and there was no real improvement, it became evident that she would not develop normally. In order to prevent future suffering, last night Shelly and Dr. Ferguson took the painful decision to euthanise her.

Cindy Lou would have died of starvation with great suffering within hours of her birth had she been born in the wild. In her short life she received loving care, was kept warm and fed, and spent some time with her mother and siblings in between the bottle feedings. She had a better experience in her brief time on earth than would have happened in nature.

During her three and a half days of life she was watched on the Livestream kitten cam by over two thousand viewers, who all came to care deeply about her. No matter how we tell ourselves not to get too attached, that is exactly what we do. Over the days, some viewers remained hopeful while others warned that it was more realistic to accept the possibility that her life would be short. Sadly, the realists were proven right.

The experience of watching Cindy Lou's life raises some questions. What is the value of a cat's life? Why should we humans invest so much effort and emotion in trying to save a cat? How can we decide what is best for a cat?

Shelly and her group of volunteers and her viewers believe that every cat's life is worth living. The human race is collectively responsible for the evolution of the domestic cat from wild cat species, and while feral cats do live in the wild, they are not necessarily ideally adapted to this way of life. Some of the feral cats Shelly has brought home for medical treatment ended up undergoing rapid and very impressive socialization, and have been adopted as pets. Feral cats are closer to our domesticated pets than to any wild species, and it is just circumstances that have led to them being born in the wild. This is why the term "community cats" has been introduced to describe the colonies of feral cats living in and near our human communities. They deserve just as much love and care as any indoor pet.

Decisions about euthanasia are always painful. The guidelines, in my opinion, are quite clear. Cats should be kept alive if they can have a happy, relatively healthy and painless life. If they are suffering, and the suffering is temporary, it is worth trying to save them in the hope of future happiness. If they are suffering and this is expected to be permanent, the suffering should be ended, no matter how hard it is for us humans to say goodbye. Cindy Lou was not expected to have a happy and healthy life, and it was likely that her condition would deteriorate into suffering.

One of the main lessons we can take away from Cindy Lou's life and death is that spaying and neutering cats, both pets and ferals, is essential in order to prevent unwanted kittens being born and suffering. They estimate that only one out of four kittens born in the wild survives to the age of six months. I can support this figure from my observations of feral cats where I live. I have often seen whole litters disappear. Kittens born in the wild can die of starvation, congenital conditions, disease, attacks by predators (including other cats), and traffic accidents. As part of our collective responsibility to cats as a species, it behooves us to prevent such suffering, to support local TNR projects, of course to spay and neuter our own pets, and to try to improve the public's perception of feral or community cats.


Watch Sable and her three remaining kittens on TinyKittens Livestream.
Learn about the feral cats.
Support TinyKittens.
[Alternatively, support a local no-kill shelter in your local area].

ITA 2016 Conference

This week, the 2016 ITA Conference was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Jerusalem. Due to personal circumstances, this year I was only able to attend one day of the conference, so this report will be shorter than in previous years.

I arrived on Tuesday morning in time for the lectures in the plenary session. First there were greetings from Andre Lindemann, President of the German Federal Association of Interpreters and Translators. He spoke about the role associations can play in promoting the profession, and about the changing world of translating and interpreting within the European Union.

Next, we heard from Stefan Gentz, discussing various changes in the translation industry. He presented several views of the future of the profession, some gloomy but others hopeful, and pointed out that the demand for translations is out there, and we just have to find ways to provide the services people require.

Then, Andrew Morris told the story of his Standing Out translators' forum on Facebook. When he became a translator, he found the interactions on translators' sites and lists tended to feature a lot of complaining and also hostility between translators, and he set out to create a space for positive, constructive, and supportive discussion. My experience in the ITA over the past 17 years has mainly been positive, and when there are differences of opinion or people feel the need to vent, other members usually know how to redirect the discussion to more positive tracks.

The panel of these three speakers then took questions from the audience, including some about alternative ways of pricing our work, finding new work, and adapting to changes.

After a short break, I attended the Academic track, which is the most relevant to my own work. The first lecture was by Racheli Lavi, describing various rhetorical devices that translators should be aware of. We looked at some examples and how translators attempted to preserve them in the target language. One of the main messages of this lecture was that conveying the sense of the text is often more important than translating word for word. Obviously, this is one of the first things new translators have to grasp, but it was good to see how flexible a translation can be when employing a similar rhetorical device.

Temima Fruchter spoke next, presenting the field of discourse analysis as a method for translators to become more aware of the real meaning and subtext of the texts they encounter. By exploring the different aspects of the vocabulary, grammar, and overall text structure, the reader can gain insight into the author's intention. This can help translators formulate an equivalent meaning in the target language. This was the first time I had seen discourse analysis applied as a professional methodology for translators. I have previously only encountered it as part of qualitative studies I have translated and edited, and the idea of integrating it into my work was appealing.

After lunch, the Academic Track resumed with Stephen Rifkind presenting some false friends in translating legal material from French to English. While my French, unfortunately, never progressed beyond the high school level, I find the subject of false friends very interesting from a linguistic point of view. I was able to understand, in some cases, why the French word had a very different meaning from similar English words, sometimes thanks to my (partial) knowledge of Latin. The lecture brought home the great importance of having a specialization and expert knowledge of the field you translate and its specific vocabulary.

Inga Michaeli spoke about the difficulties involved in translating political and religious material. Apart from the vocabulary having different connotations in different languages and cultures, there is also the problem of whether a translator believes a certain text should even be translated. We all have lines we refuse to cross, but in some cases it can be argued that it is worth knowing what other people are saying in their texts even when we strongly disagree with them. As in any profession, the morality can be confusing. Even a version of the Hippocratic Oath, "Do no harm", is difficult to apply in some cases. The lecture also demonstrated that there can be ideological decisions behind many choices translators have to make in all sorts of texts, not just the overtly political ones.

Jeffrey Green spoke about creativity in translation. First he presented examples of creativity from the fields of music and visual art, and then he showed how the translator is required to find solutions to reflect the creativity of the original text in the target language. He gave an example of a story by Agnon he had translated into English.

Because I was only there for one short day instead of two full days, this felt like just a taste of the conference. There were other lectures that interested me in the other tracks or on Wednesday, and I hope we get the opportunity to hear some of them as part of the ITA's monthly lecture events. Also, I didn't have the chance to talk to as many of my friends and colleagues as I would have liked. In general, the conference lived up to the high standards of previous years, and I'm glad I managed to attend, even if only partially.

New Year hobby plans

At this time of year, people often make resolutions. These are decisions they are supposed to commit to in the coming year. In my case, I make decisions about what to change in my life when necessary, regardless of the date. So I'm not making any resolutions, but this seems like a good time to think about my plans in various areas of life.

Recently I have felt the need to introduce more creative, non-verbal hobbies into my life. I spend my days with words. My work as a translator and editor involves using language, and my creative writing (including this blog) uses a similar type of mental energy. Reading has always been my favourite pastime.

But I have come to realize that sometimes I want to do something that addresses a more visual part of my brain. I wanted something to do with my hands in the evenings, while listening to podcasts or music, something other than playing with my phone, something that would result in a real decorative item that would show how I have been using my time.

In the past few months I have followed a popular trend (unusual for me, I know!) and I'm enjoying colouring books. I bought a few books and now have enough to last me several months or years. I also bought a good set of 72 coloured pencils, which provides more variety than the standard 24 pencil sets.

I am also planning to start working on various cross-stitch projects. I haven't done cross-stitch since my teenage years. I was very impressed by the cross-stitch designs I saw at a folklore museum in Crete a few years ago, and by the cross-stitch a few of my friends are doing. My grandmother gave me a cross-stitch kit over a year ago, and I haven't started it yet. I want to do some easier projects before I start that project, so I have bought the necessary supplies, and also found a book of cat-related designs that has been on my bookcase for years.

I also want to continue collecting sea glass, and I still have to decide what to do with the pieces I have found.

 I hope this year will be full of creative satisfaction!

Medi-Vet lecture evening

Last night I went to a lecture evening organized by our vets, Medi-Vet Pet Hospital. It took place in the Ramat Begin Community Centre, and about 40-50 people attended.

The first lecture was by award-winning wildlife photographer Roie Galitz. He has devoted much of his professional life to photographing animals at risk of extinction. As he showed us some of his amazing photos and videos, he told us a bit about the background stories to some of them.

He also explained what is required to take good nature photos. Of course, good equipment helps, but he focused on the personal skills a photographer needs, with patience mentioned repeatedly as the most important quality. It seems to me that patience has become undervalued in our fast-paced, short attention span society. It used to be considered a virtue, and now if someone says "you're so patient", it is often with surprise and incredulity rather than admiration. I would really appreciate it if more people could develop their patience.

Photographers need not just patience, but the willingness to spend long hours waiting, still and silent, for the brief moment when they can take the perfect picture. Often this waiting involves extreme physical discomfort and sometimes even danger.

Another thing that can help create a good photograph is looking around to see if you are missing something. Sometimes there is a different angle or a less typical way of presenting the same scene. This is also something that can be applied to other aspects of life.

We are all amateur photographers nowadays, to it is interesting to think about what can turn our photos from mere documentation into art.

Here are some of his photographs, taken from his public Facebook page.

The second lecture was by our vet, Dr. Yadin Yeshurun, who is the owner and founder of Medi-Vet. He talked about his trip along the Israel National Trail. This is a series of nature trails extending the length of Israel, over 1,000 kilometers. It is intended for walking, but some sections are also suitable for vehicles and bicycles. Yadin chose to ride his horse along some of the sections in the south, in the Eilat mountains and the Negev desert.

I don't know how many people have travelled this trail on horseback, but Yadin told us about some places where he had to backtrack, and others where he followed camel tracks. I don't have any of his photographs to show here, but I really enjoyed seeing the landscapes of the south again. This reminded me that I haven't visited the south (apart from Beersheba) for many years. I love the subtle beauty of the desert and the sandstone formations.

Also, I have never experienced travelling alone, as Yadin did. I have probably never been more than a few hundred meters from another human being, though I enjoy what solitude I can find in my daily life. It seems to me a very different sort of experience, one I have read about often, but will probably never seek out. On the other hand, he had his horse with him, and though he didn't focus on this aspect, it must be a special feeling having the trust of an animal and spending time alone together in the wild.

Apart from the lectures, the audience also received gifts, intended for their cats or dogs. My cat bag contained two samples of Hills Science Plan dry food, a toy mouse, and a leaflet about fleas. The importer of Hills pet food sponsored the event.

There were also t-shirts available for sale, with the words "we are all equal!", and pictures of cats and dogs representing various social groups: a brown cat = people of colour; a rainbow dog = LGBT; a cat in a kaffiyah = Arabs; a dog with a kippah = religious Jews. I like the positive message that people with compassion for animals are also more likely to support equality for all humans.

I really enjoyed this event, and hope these lecture evenings become more frequent.

A year without Pandora

Today marks a year since we lost our cat Pandora. Her illness and rapid deterioration was one of the hardest and most traumatic experiences I've had. I'm trying to look back at the past year to understand how I dealt with the loss.

Pandora's decline was rapid, and it was just three and a half weeks from when we first noticed something was wrong to when we realized nothing was helping and we had to let her go. Throughout that time I was determined to do whatever I could to help her. Despite my pain at seeing her suffering, I tried to be strong and pragmatic for her sake. I wanted to remain hopeful, but none of the treatments were helping, and eventually we decided there was no point in extending her suffering since she wasn't improving. I feel completely certain this was the right and compassionate decision.

On the day that we said goodbye to her, I felt such pain and loss that I could hardly stop crying. When we came back home with an empty carrier, the first thing I did was to remove the items that would most remind me of Pandora: her food bowl, her tunnel, her collection of boxes. I knew it would be a difficult adjustment.

I tried to pull myself together that same day to write her memorial post and do justice to her memory. Looking at her photos and remembering her life helped me see her as a complete individual, with her different moods and behaviours, and various moments and experiences from her 13 years of life.

Over the next few days, I seem to have started employing defence mechanisms to protect myself from the pain of loss. It seemed that every time I started remembering her and feeling the pain, I somehow turned my thoughts away from her, afraid that I would be overwhelmed by crying and loss and unable to function. This meant that after the first few days I was no longer crying much, and the pain was somehow suppressed or submerged.

One thing that helped was my determination to devote myself to our other cat Eleni, who was then 15 and is now 16. She has also had health problems, and since she was not close to Pandora, losing her and becoming an only cat has actually been good for her. I've always been physically closer to Eleni, and she is a complete lap cat and snuggler, so she gave me a lot of comfort.

After about four months, my subconscious gave me a little reminder. I dreamt that I was telling someone about Eleni, and suddenly thought "I haven't seen Pandora for a while. Where is she? Is she safe?". Then I woke up, realizing that Pandora was dead. I think that was about the time when I came to terms with having only the one cat.

As time went on, the stabs of pain whenever I remembered something associated with Pandora lessened into acceptance of her loss. It used to bring tears to my eyes whenever one of us said "Pandora used to do that", or when I remembered her sitting on my desk, keeping me company while I worked.

For a while I was worried that I wasn't mourning "properly" and that I'd suppressed the grief and wasn't "dealing with it". I thought this might be unhealthy for me. But now that a year has passed, I think that I just mourned in a different way, avoiding the pain because I'm so sensitive, and letting time and my subconscious do the healing. I think different people grieve in different ways, and perhaps even the same person mourns differently with each bereavement. So I've stopped judging myself for turning away from my pain. It wouldn't have helped me (let alone Pandora) to be in tears for weeks on end after her death.

I still remember and miss her, but now she has joined the ranks of my past cats and her loss is no longer an open wound.

Being highly sensitive in an evil world

Everyone reacts differently to tragedies. I have been trying to understand and to explain to myself my reactions. The way I experience the world is a result of my innate inclinations and my accumulated life experience. What I want to share here is about me, and where I differ from other people and their reactions, I am not intending to criticise or condemn their responses.

In my journey to understand why I am the way I am, I have realized that I am both an extreme introvert and what is labeled a "highly sensitive" person. The combination of these attributes means that I am easily emotionally overwhelmed and exhausted by external events. I have a deep need for a feeling of stability and safety. When I hear about something negative, I feel physically weak and often start crying.

I have lived through many wars, waves of terrorist attacks, tragic accidents, natural disasters, and some personal bereavements, though so far I've had fewer bereavements than many people have experienced by my age. Each of these has left its mark on my psyche. You might think that repeated exposure ought to give me "thick skin", but I think it might be the opposite. The cumulative effect of all this might have made me feel that tragedy is normal and I can never expect to have a life without anxiety and sorrow.

On a rational level, I want to know about what happens in the world and think it is important to be informed. However, on an emotional level this leaves me drained and vulnerable. One reason why we don't have a television is to avoid watching hours of "breaking news" whenever something happens. I do read the newspaper and look at the news online, probably more than is healthy for me, but I don't click on photos or videos with a "graphic content" warning or seek out eye witness accounts.

I also want to point out that my empathy tends to be universal, and I consciously try not to ask whether an event is close to me or far away, whether any of "my" group might be among the victims, or what impact this will have on my future. Any suffering triggers my tears. While it is understandable that people care most about people and events close to them, since we have evolved that way, I think it is time to overcome this "us and them" thinking and extend our circle of empathy.

The terrorist attacks in Paris led about 90% of my Facebook friends to change their profile photos to the French flag. I have not done so. I don't feel the need to declare my sympathy for the victims or my opposition to violence. Anyone who knows me should know my character and opinions. I don't change my profile photo for positive events, either, such as marriage equality. I am who I am all the time and don't feel the need to show an external symbol related to one event. If you have made such a change, I am sure you did this for good reasons of your own. However, if this particular event has touched and moved so many, I have to wonder why other similar attacks in other parts of the world have not. Or perhaps now we will see people constantly changing their profile photos to show which of the latest world events has earned their sympathy!

Whenever there is a major event that leads me to tears, I try to be strong and continue with my life as usual. I have to concentrate on my work, and I want to find solace in the positive aspects of life that continues around me. This is why I spend time watching kittens online. Some may say this is escapism, but for me it is a defence mechanism. I need a large dose of positivity to counteract the evil around us. So when I go online and see constant reminders of tragedy, however well-intentioned, this can be painful for me.

I'm not an avoider and don't think everything negative should come with a "trigger warning". I engage fully with the world, with all the good and the evil. It can just be very painful sometimes, and when my reactions differ so much from other people's I feel even more isolated and vulnerable.

I would like to hope that things will get better and there will be fewer global or local tragedies, but I'm really not optimistic. Evil seems to be prevailing and war is upon us whether we call it that or not. I just hope that people become more aware of the different ways exposure to such evil can affect different people.

Israel's Minister of Agriculture proposes deporting feral cats as an alternative to spaying and neutering

Sometimes a news story seems too ridiculous to be true. Today's newspaper reported that Israel's Minister of Agriculture, Uri Ariel, has stated that spaying and neutering feral cats is "opposed to the Halakhah [Jewish religious law]", and therefore he has proposed either a mass deportation of feral cats, either all the males or all the females, to another country that would accept them, or else finding an alternative to spaying and neutering or killing them, such as "preventing the males' ability to smell the females' heat through sprays, powders, creams, etc.".

This incredible story has so far appeared only in the printed newspaper and not online, so I have scanned it. I hope clicking on the photo will enlarge it enough to make it readable.

[Edit: The story now appears online].

The newspaper, somewhat predictably, chose a punny headline: "Meow, Transpurrr". Transfer is a loaded term here used to describe the proposed relocation of populations as part of a peace settlement, and often used to suggest that the entire non-Jewish population of Israel be "transferred" to Arab countries.

In Israel in recent years over 100,000 feral cats have been spayed and neutered and returned to their colonies by the Ministry of Agriculture and local authorities. It was recently reported that Agriculture Minister Ariel had decided to stop funding this project, and an online petition called upon him not to stop funding it. The petition is currently close to its target of 10,000 signatures. Today's report reveals the motivation for this decision and his proposed alternatives.

To address the ridiculous claim first: the Halakhah might oppose neutering on principle, considering it cruel. However, ancient religious laws are not based on scientific studies or observation. It is likely that Mr. Ariel, as a religious Jew, probably considers reproduction to be the foremost duty of humans and animals. It seems to me that religions in general tend to over-sexualize their worldview, considering the male sex drive to be so strong that you can't blame them for their actions, and considering it every female's duty to reproduce.

Extending this idea to cats, perhaps Mr. Ariel believes that male cats denied the opportunity to mate would suffer, and that female cats would be sad never to have kittens. The reality is that sex is just an instinct for animals and not an essential part of their lives. Male cats have to fight to be able to mate with a female, and are often injured by rival males or by the female herself. Female cats certainly don't enjoy the sex act and raising kittens is a severe drain on their resources and health.

In fact, long-term studies from around the world show that feral cats who are spayed and neutered are much healthier and happier. TNR (trap-neuter-return) is considered the most humane and effective way to reduce the population of feral cats. The vast majority of kitten born in the wild die young, through disease, injury, and being eaten by predators. I consider it much more humane to increase the quality of life of those feral cats who are already alive than to blindly support the "right to life", allowing free breeding and ignoring the suffering of the majority of the kittens born as a result. Quality over quantity.

Regarding the suggested alternatives: Moving feral cats elsewhere does not reduce the population, as cats move in from other areas. It would be virtually impossible to gather up all the males or all the females in the country. Some would inevitably evade capture and continue reproducing. Also, sending the problems of feral cat over-population to another country just to avoid having to spay and neuter is inconsiderate of the other country's needs. This reminds me of the way the developed world dumps its toxic waste in developing countries.

The other method, trying to prevent the male cats from realizing that the females are in heat, is just as impossible, and I've never heard of such a method being used in a feral population. If you agree that cats should be prevented from breeding freely, you have to accept the proven method of doing this instead of trying to invent another method. It also seems to me that the religious principle behind forbidding neutering would also apply to other methods that prevent mating, so this proposal contradicts the religious premise itself.

It has been reported that Minister Ariel has so far been considered sympathetic to animal welfare, and we can only hope that the professionals in his ministry and in animal welfare organizations can educate him about TNR and the realities of feral cat reproduction and health, so that he can overcome his religious objections and listen to the voice of science and compassion. Let TNR continue in Israel, and please don't let this country become a laughing stock!