Our only mission in Kotor, Montenegro was to sterilize as many homeless cats as we could afford. That decision was made in 2018 when we saw a neighbor stomp Kelly Koh’s healthy kitten to death. We saved her very last kitten, and Danijela, a souvenir shop owner, found a home for Little Kelvin (now Mako). We managed to catch Kelly Koh and spay her. To know that she won’t be pregnant again gives us peace beyond our imagination.

A promise to return

These wonderful people of Kotor, and the overpopulation of homeless cats compelled us to make that promise in late 2018 that we will return to Kotor. Shortly afterwards, we rushed back to California because Kenric’s Grandpa was very ill. He passed away, and we stayed with Kenric’s Grandma for five months. I organized a fundraiser to raise money for cat food and medicine to which some of you donated. We thank you again.

Since then, Danijela has reestablished her business at a different location, and a tourist from Seattle, April King, and her friends have started Kotor Kitties. It’s a non-profit that does Trap-Neuter-Release/Return (TNR). Kenric and I donate whenever we can to pay for sterilizations and for traps.

We finally made our way to Kotor on November 2nd, 2019. Between then and February 19th, 2020 when we flew back to California to visit Kenric’s mother who was ill, we spent 70 days in Kotor. We befriended many more people on our own, through Danijela, and Kotor Kitties.

Some people spoiled our days

However, we also made some “not friends”. From the female neighbor who screamed at us for being “not human” and “criminal” and called the cops because we were sterilizing the cats, to the waiter who chased us away from a restaurant because we feed cats, to the evil kitten-killer neighbor who turned two other neighbors against us, there were people who spoiled our days.

Most people made our days meaningful

Like the rest of the world, the scene in Kotor is very different these past weeks. Borders, airports, shops, restaurants, schools, etc. are closed. Gone are the cruise ships and tourists, and their cat food, their leftovers and whatever they toss to the friendly begging cats, but the feeders continue to feed with even more urgency, and April (who is in Montenegro now) and others continue to trap, and partnering vets continue to spay/neuter and treat.

Spring is here

It’s the third day of spring. New on the scene are many young kittens. Kittens that are cute and cuddly if they are in a warm home and cared for, but absolutely pitiful when they are born to homeless mothers, or yanked from their mother and thrown away like garbage. Danijela just brought home three from a dumpster today. I’m sure it’s a common scene around the world.

92 cats

During our time there, excluding days when the vet was closed, the many rainy days, days we didn’t have any traps, and the days we were sick, we were left with 33 trapping days. On those 33 days, we found, fetched, caught or trapped 92 cats. Three sick ones died without undergoing a surgery. Of the 89 sterilized (49 females and 40 males), 70 were caught or trapped by us, and 19 were handed to us by local feeders. Kenric and I paid for the operation of 54 of them including all 48 of “our” Old Town Cats. (EDIT: In April, 2020, we decided to pay for the sterilization of the other 35 cats too because we noticed donations to Kotor Kitties had dramatically gone down probably due to the economic uncertainty brought on by COVID-19.)