Sasha's Baby Girl Akira [5]

Jonathan says: We found Sasha abandoned on the old U.S. army base in Fort Clayton (Panama) when she was a small kitten. She was very ill for her first three months but against the odds managed to recover. She actually lives with us on the 12th floor of a large block of flats in the center of Panama, so we were very surprised when we found she was pregnant one day. It turned out that while we were on holiday in the U.K. she went to live with a friend of my wife, and a ginger tomcat skipped through an open window much to the surprise of Sasha. We had no idea this had happened and the friend did not even mention anything until we noticed her voracious appetite and her ever expanding belly. Sasha turned out to be a fantastic mum, although was terrified during the birth and my wife had to hold her paw throughout. Sasha kept meowing if my wife started falling asleep, as the kittens were all born at intervals quite late in the evening.

Sasha had four kittens and Akira was the only calico and the only female in the litter. She was also the most mischievous, adept at climbing, and could easily take on any of her brothers in play-fighting. She was the first in the litter to find a new home and went to live with a young single woman in the Casco Viejo, the old historic colonial part of Panama City.