Monthly Archives: January 2018

Walk Through the Web Wednesday 1/31

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siamese cat on a leash walking through a garden

Hello There My Friends,
Alberto here taking my weekly meander through the pathways and byways of the Internet highway. I hope you enjoy this weeks finds.
Purrrs & Head Bonks,

Siamese cat with blue eyes

PurrAGain

Rock Photographer Holds Auction to Benefit Kitten Krazy Cat Shelter – Cleveland Scene

I normally steer clear of purrlitical things (unless my brother Oliver is running for Purresident) .  This purrlitical statement is for an excellent cause and I think every human should have one of these shirts. The world would be much better off we felines could get it to purr!  A local Cleveland rock photographer supports the Kitten Crazy Cat Shelter every year by auctioning off his amazing rock star concert photos and a nifty special logo t-shirt. You don’t have to live in Cleveland to bid on the amazing photos or buy one of the t-shirts. (I’m sending the Female Human over to get one!)

BlaxkCatBuster

Black Cats Shunned For Purrfect Selfies -BBC.com

A recent BBC article states that black cats are being shunned by potential owners because they don’t “show well” in selfies. I think this is ridiculous! We celebrated National Black Cat Awareness last month and sang the praises of beautiful black felines. (Note the photo of our handsome former Tribe member Buster).

The Moggery in Bristol is offering free neutering for black cats and other shelters offer this as well to help raise adoptions for black felines.

The RSPCA says it sees more black and black and white cats come into it’s care than any other color of felines. We recently did an interview with Whisky, The Tuxedo Cat who told us about this problem as well. The RSPCA said on average it takes at least 10 days longer to rehome a black cat or black and white compared to a ginger one. Now this needs to stop humans! If you’ve never had a black or black and white cat in your home, you are definitely missing out. Just ask our Male and Female humans, and our Tribe member Oliver!

 

KittenBowl

Kitten Bowl V -Sunday, Feb. 4, 2081 – Hallmark Channel

Get ready folks, it’s time for one of my favorite feline events…The Kitten Bowl! You don’t have to wait until Sunday to enjoy all the pregame festivities.  Check out all the players (or catletes) and watch video from last year’s Kitten Bowl. The best part of his event is that all these kittens from various shelters find furever homes after purrticipating.

 

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Monster Hunter Cat Game is Confusing Cats in The Real World – Nerdlist

Dear Humans, we felines love technology but when you freak us out with it, well that’s quite another story. Capcom’s recently released a game called Monster Hunter: World that features some feline-like sidekicks called Palicos, who communicate via meows. Japanese gamers are capturing some very amusing pictures and videos of their cats getting freaked out by the sounds coming from their screens. Humans, you’ve had your laugh, now stop it!

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Bureaucats: The felines with official positions – BBC.com

Oh how I love stories about felines with jobs (I’ve featured many stories of professional pussy cats in my Wednesday wanderings). This article wraps many of the more famous bureocats into a nice package, Post Office Cats, Police Cats, military cats and more. Don’t miss these stories,. Did you know that by WWII almost every British ship had a cat or that In 1868 three cats were formally employed as mousers at the Money Order Office in London?  And don’t forget the star cats, a beautiful white cat named Arthur was the furry face of Spillers cat food for nearly 10 years from 1966, scooping Kattomeat from the tin into his mouth. He was such a star the brand was later renamed Arthur’s in his honor.

Friendly Fill Ins # 90

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Hello My Friends,
Oliver here. I’m doing Fill Ins this week. I hope you enjoy my answers. If you want to join the blog hop you can hop on over to McGuffy’s Reader  or co-hosts, our friends at 15andmeowing. If you prefer, you can add your fill ins in the comments for this post as well.
Purrs & Head Bonks,
black and white cat Oliver

The Fill Ins:

1. The flu shot ______________________.

2. I think everyone should take ____________________ daily.

3. I (almost) always                     , because                        .

4. I (almost) never                         because                                 

 

My Fill In Answers:

Oliver from the Tribe of Five with Dr. Ponsness at Pend Oreille Veterinary Service

1.The flu shot doesn’t sound like something I would want but when I go the the place of the white coats I’m never afraid. That’s because they are “fear free” which means they do everything, even designing the building to help their visitors feel comfortable, safe and not on edge. Alberto and I opined about this place in our post, Oliver and Alberto Get Fearless. 

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2.I think everyone should take a chill pill daily.  This is me, chillin’ along the wide window sill behind the sofa. I think if humans chilled a little more there would be less nasty comments on social media, fewer family arguments and less road rage. Take a chill pill folks, it will do you good!

black and white cat sleeping under a red blanket
3. I (almost) always enjoy sleeping under the down blanket on the sofa in the winter, because it’s warm and cozy but a bit of a bummer when a human doesn’t see me and sits on top of me!

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4. I (almost) never sleep alone because it’s much more pleasant (and warm) to have a human or another feline to cuddle with.

Thankful for …Cuddle Buddies

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3 cats sleeping on a sofa

Hello All,
Oliver here. The Tribe of Five have so much to be thankful for that I decided I’d jump on over to Brian’s Home and his Thankful Thursday Blog Hop.

I am thankful for cuddles. Our Tribe is made up of adopted kitties. The oldest, Alpha Tucker (he’s the one in the middle), his sister Jasmine, Lily and my brother Alberto and myself. You’ll never see a photo of all five of us snuggled together but I love this photo because it shows how well this diverse group of felines get along. Alberto and I are the newest Tribe members and we’re accepted and loved by all the other felines.

Cuddles are great and love, acceptance and adoption are even better!

Purrs & Head Bonks,

black and white cat Oliver

Walk Through The Web Wednesday 1/24

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Hello All,
Alberto here strolling down the internet highway to bring you the best in feline happenings. I hope  you enjoy this week’s compilation.
Purrs & Head Bonks,
Siamese cat with blue eyes

Betty Boo, the Feline Hair Salon Employee – Yahoo Lifestyle

tabby cat in Melbourne hair salon

Those of you who follow my Wednesday wanderings know how much I love stories about cats with jobs. I prefer to find felines with unusual professions and Betty Boo fits the bill. If you happen to visit the BABAR Hair Studio in Melbourne, Australia you can meet their purrfect employee, Betty Boo. Her photo is featured on their website and they make sure you know Betty is part of their customer service team. Their website says, “At BABAR Hair we love what we do. We create professional salon results, in a relaxed, easy atmosphere: where good old fashioned hospitality with a glass of wine or beer, a coffee and biscotti, a cuddle from our salon cat and choosing your own vinyl (if you’re not digging our cool tunes already!) are all part of the experience…”

Not everyone finds a visit to the hair salon as a relaxing experience and Betty caters to the more nervous clients. Betty will sit on your lap or even sleep on you while you’re having a shampoo. And if that wasn’t enough, Betty is an opining feline on her own blog, aptly named “Betty’s Blog”.  Betty is definitely my kind of kitty!

Cats Can Be Right Or Left Pawed – SmithsonianMag.com

Siamese Cat Alberto from Feline Opines

Have you ever bothered to watch which paw your cat uses when they knock things off of counters or tap you oh-so-gently to wake you up? You may want to look next time because according to researchers at the Animal Behavior Centre at Queen’s University in Belfast, after analyzing data collected on 44 cats, 20 females and 24 males of all variety of felines, the researchers concluded that cats, unlike humans who are overwhelmingly right-handed, did not have an overall preference for a certain paw. Individual cats did display what they called “handedness” and certain paws were selected for taking the first step down a flight of stairs, snagging a treat or stepping into the litter box.  There are a lot more interesting tidbits in the article. You can see me above, exhibiting that I am ambi-pawderous when it comes to doing my blog posts.

Cats Get Their Own Violin Concert in this Animated Short – Nerdist

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Combine a famous violinist (Augustin Hadelich) and animation and you get a great little movie about music loving cats. Fantasia dei Gatti is an animated short film that features the violinist giving a concert to felines. What happens next? Well you’ll just have to watch the video to find out!

 Cat Brings Her Human a Gift Every Morning – MetroUK
LeafCat

Baloo the cat had a shaky start with her human. Adopted by Ben and his now ex-girlfriend, they returned Baloo when they felt they weren’t ready to have a cat in their life. They quickly realized they made a mistake and hurried to get Baloo back. Baloo, a cat to realize how lucky she is, is closely bonded to Ben. She began to bring him presents, birds, mice, etc and drop them on his chest in the morning. After Ben impressed upon her that half dead creatures were not gifts he greatly appreciated, she began bringing him leaves. When Ben showed his appreciation for the leaf gifts, the morning gifts became a regular routine. Now Baloo can show her love and gratitude and Ben doesn’t have to fear his morning gifts.

Felines Bringing People Together in Turkey – The Guardian 

Turkey

Selem is a resident of historic Istanbul. He puts up with the tourists that push their way through the crowds and demand a photo op with him. Selim enjoys hanging out in his shop, a leather store called Moria. Selem is a cat. Selem and the other cats in historic Istanbul much prefer their independent, cushy street life but when winter comes they are forced to endure the care of humans. Winter cat houses appear all over to accommodate these pampered pussy cats.

Turkey is a nation struggling with national identity, divisions about religion, secularism and ethnicity but there is one thing that does unite the Turks and that is their love of cats. Someone once said that the only thing an Islamist, a secularist and a socialist could agree on was the punishment of anyone who harmed a cat. I never realized that we felines were such unifying creatures. I think I should start a group, Felines for World Peace and make the Turkish cats the leaders.

Friendly Fill Ins # 89

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Hello Folks Alberto Here,
Friday is becoming one of our favorite days with The Tribe of Five and there is always some quibbling about who gets to opine. I’m the lucky winner this week. I hope you enjoy my responses and, as always, I encourage my fellow bloggers to join the blog hop with our friends, 15andmeowing or McGuffy’s Reader.

And of course, you’re always welcome to do the fill ins in the comments on our blog.

‘Hope you enjoy my mewsical mewsings this week.
Purrs & Head Bonks,
Alberto
Siamese cat with blue eyes

Here are the fill ins:

1. I have never been able to _____________________.

2. I wish I could still ___________________.

3.  ____ is my ideal winter night.
4.                      and                      .

 

Here are my answers:

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1. I have never been able to understand why the male human insists on changing his guitar strings upstairs and not in his music room. What’s a cat to do when those tantalizing strings bounce back and forth in front of me? This is a form of feline torture.

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2. I wish I could still sneak into the the male human’s music room but he has figured out a way to lock the doors so I can’t get in. And alas, all my sad expressions do not convince him to let me in.

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3.  Strumming a few tunes with my human is my ideal winter night.
4.Oliver and I are quite the mewsicians!

 

 

 

 

Walk Through The Web Wednesday 1/17

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‘Hello Friends,
Alberto with my regular Wednesday walk through the web searching for all things feline. I hope you like my weekly finds.
Purrs & Head Bonks,
Siamese cat with blue eyes

Dress Up Your Pet Day, A Truly Bad Idea – Mashable

angry Tabby cat in a sombrero

Those of you who follow our blog know that The Tribe of Five have very strong feelings about dressing up cats, case in point, my post about The Great Halloween Indignity and the humans attempt to stuff me into a dinosaur costume.  Believe it or not, there is a holiday called Dress Up Your Pet Day and if you humans out there have any intention of celebrating it by stuffing your feline into a ridiculous ensemble, I urge you to read this article and resist the urge to dress us up!

The Best Hobby Is Something That Has Absolutely  Nothing To Do With Your Job – THE CUT

cathobby

This writer has a revolutionary idea. Her hobby is cats. She helps to rescue cats, is involved iwth Trap Neuter Release (TNR) and even helps her friends with their cat care. She says she spends at least 10 hours a week on “cat related” stuff.  Pretty cool idea, even if you don’t have felines living with you, they can be your hobby and you can do something nice for them!

Vet Clinic Looking To Hire Cat Cuddler

cat cuddler job in Dublin, Ireland

And, if you want to make cats more than your hobby but your actual  job, don’t hesitate, get in touch with Just Cats Veterinary Clinic in Dublin, Ireland and apply for the job of cat cuddler (it’s a full time position).  I’ve read that if you understand the different types of purring, you’ll have an edge over the competition. This cat cuddling thing sounds like a dream job to me!

Nikola Tesla’s Cat and Other Feline Fascinations – How Stuff Works

Nikola Teslas black cat

Well, evidently there was a human named Nikola Tesla who invented some very cool things but this feline is less interested in the things he invented than the fact that his cat ionspired one of his most important contributions to the scientific world.  And then there was Simon, a stray feline found in Hong Kong in 1948, who is the only cat to have been awarded Britain’s prestigious Dickin Medal.  And then there’s the city in Belgium that trained 37 cats to deliver the mail to rural villagers. We felines are amazing animals, you don’t have to take my word for it, read the article!

What Makes A Cat’s Tail Puff Up When It’s Scared? – Mental Floss

brown cat with fuzzy tail ready to fight with dog

Around our house we have a pheomenon we refur to as “fuzzy tail”. Sometimes humans who visit us don’t understand why this happens to us or what caused it. This article explains the puffy tail issue quite well.  The short version is that when we get a fuzzy tail we are trying to make ourselves look as big as possible in order to intimidate whatever might be threatening us. Did you know there are other animals that experience something similar to our fuzzy tail phenomenon? Read the article and find out more.

Friendly Fill Ins, Week 88

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Jasmine Here,
Welcome friends. I’m excited that I get to do the Friday Fill Ins this week. It’s been snowy and cold at our house. Thank goodness the humans provide wheat grass for us to nibble on and to add a bit of color in this white world.

As always, if you are a blogger, we encourage you to go to McGuffy’s Reader and join the Fill Ins blog hop or, feel free to do the fill ins in the comments of this blog. Have a purrrfect Friday (I love the weekends as the humans don’t have to go to that place they call “work” and they spend lots of time with us.)

Purrs & Head Bonks,
Jasmine (The Tribe of Five Diva)

Siamese cat with tiara

begging squirrel

 

 

1. I would like to ask the big fat squirrel who mooches off of us at the upstairs bird feeder why he has such an attitude if the bird seed is all gone? (Take a look at this photo, what an attitude!)

 

 

 

 

2 My favorite fast food restaurant is any place that serves pizza. All of the Tribe of Five love a nice lick of pizza sauce. 

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3. If I could go to any concert of someone still performing, it would be wherever David Teie is playing his Music for Cats  The female human bought us some of his music and we loved it. You can read about us opining about it on our website . When we go to the place with white coats, they have nice cat music too. Music is good for kitties. 

 

4. My Winter pastime is usually sitting at the window and checking out the creatures who come by looking for food because what happens outside our windows is like cable TV.  

Friendly Fill Ins Week 87

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Hello Friends,
Tucker here. I’m taking the lead on this week’s fill ins. As always you are welcome to join the blog hop at McGuffy’s Reader, or, if you feel so inclined, post  your fill ins in the comments.
Purrs & Head Bonks,
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Fill Ins:

1. My guiding word for 2018 is _____________________.

2. A house is not a home without ________________________.
3. I look forward to                         this year.
4.  I really need to                  , because                     .

My Answers:

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1.My guiding word for 2018 is treats. One can never get enough or beg enough. For 2018 I vow to be more persistent in my treat begging behavior. 

 

2. A house is not a home without felines sprawled on all the living room furniture.File Apr 17, 3 50 37 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3. I look forward to more napping this year.

 

 

 

 

4.  I really need to lose weight, because I’ve already gone up one box size.
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