Ochiko

amycats says: This little girl literally dropped in to our lives a couple of weeks ago! We are a household of two humans and six cats (see GracieMae), and when I awoke one morning, and was proceeding to my back door to let a couple of my guys out for their daily romp in our garden, I was surprised to see all of them gathered by a window by our back door, all in a very excited, agitated state. I heard some unfamiliar crying from the outside...so I quickly opened the door to see if we had a new visitor or...? To my surprise I saw a blurry figure falling out of a very tall tree! This little creature somehow had either crawled through a very narrow opening in our fence or more likely, had been picked up by some neighborhood teens and tossed over the fence into our backyard. She had then climbed up a very tall tree, probably out of fright, but then did not know how to get down! She fortunately made a soft landing in a very leafy flower bed, where I picked her up and brought her into my house. We immediately got attached to her...and she to us...and she made herself quite at home. At first the "older six" were not too happy about the "intruder", but within a week she was ruling the household. At first we thought we might call her "Kikaraochiko" -- a name almost as long as she was, which means "The little one who fell from the tree" (it's Japanese)... but then we evolved into calling her "Ochiko," simply "The little one who fell down".

Soon after her arrival I started sharing her photos with some of our cat-loving friends, and one friend showed up with her granddaughter at our door a couple of weeks later, saying, "We just have to have her! We recently lost one of our dear ones and we want to give her a new home where we can spoil her completely! Reluctantly I handed her over to a new "mommy" and I am hearing that she is now happily "ruling the roost" in her new country home and has made friends with the only other cat in that household to the absolute delight of my friend and her granddaughters who spoil her endlessly. I think she has acquired a new name, however...I'll report that later when I get an update with more pictures!