A CAT in Japan’s Toyama city has been honored by local police for helping lead to the rescue of an elderly man who had fallen into an irrigation channel.

On June 16, a 77-year-old woman taking a walk at 7:30 p.m. found female cat Koko, who belongs to a neighbor, staring into the canal and acting strangely. When she followed the cat’s gaze, she found a man lying on his back in a 60-centimeter-wide, 40-centimeter-deep canal. The water was about 15 centimeters deep.

Calling out for help from her 48-year-old daughter who lives nearby, she immediately went to the man’s rescue, and was shortly joined by Koko’s owner, 45-year-old Tomoko Nitta, and her 20-year-old and 18-year-old sons. The five people managed to lift the man out of the canal. He was found to have sustained only scrapes.

Toyama Minami Police Station honored the five neighbors with certificates of commendation Saturday, while Koko got some cat food.

Holding Koko in her arms, Nitta said: “I want to tell her well-done, as [her discovery of the man] led to his rescue.”

(SD-Agencies)

Satoshi Nakada, chief of the police station, said the “bonds among local residents, including the cat, saved a man’s life.”

But Koko, described by Nitta as being “shy of strangers,” appeared not to welcome the police chief’s attempt to stroke her head, which she turned away from him.