The 2-year-old Zengina came to ARK in April with two other cats. All of them were rather timid, having lacked socialization, and weren’t too interested in mixing with humans.

Zengina has warmed considerably, thanks in large part to her foster mom, who has worked on forming a bond with her. Zengina’s somewhat unusual name actually has its origin in what was her favorite hiding place. That was behind the washing machine, a fully automatic washing machine. “Fully automatic” in Japanese is “zenjidō.”

Though Zengina is not at all like a machine, she did apparently find comfort behind one. She is healthy, with particular problems, strikingly beautiful and not at all aggressive. She’s just timid. The progress Zengina has shown assures us that, with the right environment and lots of gentleness, she can blossom into quite an affectionate cat.