Photo/Illutration A cat later named Mari is rescued in Kyoto’s Sakyo Ward on Jan. 9. This picture was provided by Yui Onishi of the animal welfare group Pawer.

KYOTO--Mari has used up at least one of her nine lives.

Then unnamed, ownerless and emaciated, the black female cat was found around noon on Jan. 5 sitting on the dashboard of a locked minicar parked in front of a house in Kyoto’s Sakyo Ward.

Trash was scattered inside the vehicle, which showed signs of long disuse. No one was seen in the home.

Fabian Raudzus, a 33-year-old German, came across the pitiful scene on his way to work at Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application.

He consulted police and the Kyoto Animal Protecting Center about the trapped feline. But officials gave him the runaround, saying there was no legal foundation to deal with such issues.

So for nearly a week, Raudzus checked up on the cat four times a day.

Her bones became increasingly visible in her thinning body. She licked dew drops off the windows for survival.

“If this happened in Germany, firefighters would rescue the cat,” Raudzus said.

The minicar owner never showed up.

On Jan. 9, a frustrated Rauzus, through acquaintances, contacted Sayuri Nezu, 59, who lives in Kyoto’s Kamigyo Ward and leads a volunteer group that spays and neuters stray cats.

Nezu called the 110 emergency line. She asked a police officer who came to the site to find the owner of the minicar.

“Otherwise, I will ask road services to unlock the door,” she told the officer.

A few hours later, police were able to contact relatives of the vehicle’s owner, and a relative rushed to the site with the car key.

The relatives and neighbors said the car owner was an elderly man who usually fed the stray cat outside his house. But he had been hospitalized since Dec. 5.

After the vehicle door was finally opened, the cat retreated to a corner, but Nezu caught her in a laundry net. Her temperature was low, and she was showing signs of severe dehydration and malnourishment.

She is believed to have been trapped for more than a month.

It remains a mystery how the cat became confined in the car.

She seemed to relax after she was taken to Nezu’s house. 

Her health condition recovered, and within two weeks, her weight had doubled from 1.7 kilograms to 3.4 kg.

Nezu named her Mari after the name of the street where she was found. She plans to welcome Mari as a family member.

Raudzus said Mari is extremely lucky to have survived. He said that he normally cycles to work, but on Jan. 5, he decided to walk, enabling him to see the trapped feline.

He also said if the cat had been trapped in the summer, she could have died in the heat.

Raudzus visited Nezu’s home for the first time on Jan. 26. As he stroked the recovered Mari, the German said, “I am very happy.”

Nezu noted that in Japan’s graying society, more pets are put in danger after their elderly owners become physically unable to care for the animals.

“I don’t want the same thing to happen again, but pet troubles related to the aging society could continue,” she said. “I want police and the government to think about how to deal with such matters.”