Hello Friends,

It’s good to be back with you. I must say it was quite a hardship to be without our purrsonal assistant for a week. Granted, The Tribe remained safe and comfy at home and we have a pawsome cat sitter but still, there was work to be done and until we felines can figure out how to dictate to our blog and have it type itself we are forced to depend on The Female Human. Sigh.

Her trip was not without success though. In her wanderings, she met a cat who works in an art gallery and I as I am purrticularly fond of “working cat” stories, I will be doing a special report on Blue soon.

I hope you enjoy this week’s offerings,
Purrs & Head Bonks,
Alberto

‘Cat Pawsitive’ training helps make cats more adoptable – Q13Fox

As my readers know, all of the Tribe of Five are rescues so we are very keen on any idea that helps felines get out of the shelter and into fur-ever homes. A shelter in Seattle is implementing Jackson Galaxy’s Cat Pawsitive  program to help their kitties find their own special humans.  The premise is that a mentally stimulated, active cat is a much more happy cat and happy gets get adopted sooner!

The training uses positive, reward based clicker training. When the felines master the “tricks” they are taught, they become more confident and more ready to meet humans who come to visit them. Some over achieving felines have been known to give the human visitors a “high five”.  Be sure and visit the story about this pawsome program and watch the video. 

At this time, the shelters who use this program are selected by the foundation but you can email them (jgp@greatergood.org) to see if your shelter can participate. I give this program a two paws up!

 

Reiki for Cats is “thing” – BravoTV.com

Okay, first I had to ask the female human, “What the heck is reiki and is it edible?” She wasn’t sure so I sent her to the reiki.org website and this is how they describe it, “Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by “laying on hands” and is based on the idea that an unseen “life force energy” flows through us and is what causes us to be alive.”

Evidently “Cat Reiki” is a popular solution for “emotionally imbalanced kitties”. Now I would hesitate to point the paw at any of the Tribe who might be in need of this technique but Jasmine comes to mind. You can read Jasmine’s story (it’s in 3 parts and actually is called “Amelia’s Story”) and then draw your own conclusions if our Jasmine could do with a good dose of reiki.  But I digress.

The lady in this article., Misa Ono is a cat expert and specializes in Reiki for felines. Her company is called Balanced Cats .  

The goal of her company is to improve cat well-being so that “cats and their ownerrs share happy lives together for a long time.” In additional to the Reiki techniques,  there are also treatments for behavioral coaching with a focus on the cat’s environment and Flower Essence to help re-balance the cat’s state of mind.

Reiki helps cats emotionally and also helps with recovery from surgery or illness. Sessions take 5-10 minutes (which is really as long as any feline wants to be still).

This reiki thing sounds kinda’ nice. Have any of you felines out there ever tried it? I’d love to hear your stories.

Do Big Cats Get Hairballs? – National Geographic

The Female Human and the Tribe had a discussion about big cats when she returned from her trip. She went to the Wildlife World- Zoo, Aquarium and Safari Park on her trip. Of course, her favorite part of the place was where the big cats were and she said looking at the sleeping felines reminded her of our house. She told me there are many similarities between domestic felines and our wild cousins. She then wondered, if the big guys are so similar, do they have similar issues, like hair balls.

Some animal behaviorists say all cat species, wild or domestic, have hairballs. Others say wild cats do not get hairballs (really humans, what is it, yes or no?)

Some believe big cats don’t get hairballs because they eat only meat while domestic cats cough up hair balls because of their diet. I think, since all cats have the same kinds of tongues (with little bristles) the tongues will catch hair and they’ll swallow it. Hair isn’t something you can digest so sure enough, the hair will resurface (if you catch my drift).

I think, for those folks who don’t believe big cats have hairballs, it’s just because it’s a lot harder to see them in the tall African grass. Leave a hairball on the floor or the rug and trust me, the humans can spot it right away!

Dogs and Big Cats Part of Mayan LIfe – LiveScience.com

I’m an educated cat and I know all about how the Egyptians worshiped cats as gods (seems like you modern humans could take a page from their book) but I never heard that the Mayan people kept cats too. Evidently new archeological findings prove that cats (and dogs too but this is a cat blog so canines only get a mention in passing). played “larger” rolls in early Maya society.

The scientists found that the cats (probably big cats and not the fuzzy domestic variety) were kept in homes from their youth. I think those archaeologists are pretty smart, they discovered evidence that a jaguar or puma had a maize (corn) diet from a young age, suggesting that the cat was eating either maize or animals that ate maize. There is also some ancient Maya art from the time period that shows kings holding jaguars or jaguar kittens.

This just goes to show once again, felines have a long and noble history. Meow!

Japan’s Famous Cats in Hats – The Japan Times

Okay, I’m not sure how I feel about this one but the cats seem to be chill about it.  And, I’m hoping The Humans will read this and stop griping about the cat hair around the house. Ryo Yamazaki has fashioned more than 100 hats out of the hair of their three Scottish Fold felines. Ryo and his wife work as a cat hat team. He takes the photos and uploads them and she does the design and creation of the hats. They’ve even published a book with photos of their “cats in the hats”.  Their cats wear top hats, acorn caps, berets, sushi hats and another designed to look like Princess Leaia’s side buns.

If you want to see more of these delightful creations, you can check out their Instagram account  @rojiman, which currently has more than 89,000 followers. Meowza! If I knew all it took to get so many followers was to don a hat The Tribe of Five would have gotten The Humans busy on this project long ago.