Hello Furiends,
This is what the Feline Opines office looks like at the moment. Evidently two blog posts on the same day was much to much for some of the staff. (I won’t even show you a photo of our Purrsonal Assistant who has definitely “checked out” for the day)
I will roust everyone after their naps and we’ll have our Web Wednesday post ready tomorrow.
This year, millions of people around the world saw messages on social media advocating for pet adoption on Remember Me Thursday®. We were proud to be a part of this and thanks to all of you who purrticipated, it was another success!
People from around the world..India, Nambibia, Croatia, Guatemala and more shared their love for rescue pets. Celebrities (two-legged and four legged) joined in and more than 300 animal advocates registered for the first ever virtual candle lighting ceremony.
Here are some of the favorite moments from the #RememberMeThursday team:
We purrticipated in the Lola the Cat #RememberMeThursdayBlog Hop and you can visit it here.
Watch the #RememberMeThursday highlight video
Watch the #RememberMeThursday Virtual Candle Lighting Ceremony.
A big paws up for all our furiends who support and promote adoption and we are especially thankful for our amazing shelter Panhandle Animal Shelter and the ground breaking work they’ve done in our community and around the country!
Before we tell you the story about our experience with Scruffy Paws Hip and Joint Vitalize, we must turn this portion of our blog post over to our legal department.for a brief disclaimer.
This is a sponsored post by Scruffy Paws. As a happy customer of Scruffy Paws, we were contacted to write a sponsored post from our (and the Female Human’s) experiences with the product. All reviews and opinions expressed in this post are based on our purrsonal views and experience with the product.
Some of you may remember our Angel Jasmine’s review of the Scruffy Paws Kidney Vitalize Chews. The Female Human can’t ever sing the praises of this product enough. The chews, along with Sub Q fluids and a kidney diet kept Jasmine’s last few years much healthier. When Jasmine was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism the end came soon, not from her kidneys but from her heart. Losing two Tribe members in the last six months, Jasmine and her brother Tucker, at the age of 17 sent the Human on a quest to find out how to take care of us early enough in our lives to keep us healthier and happier longer. Scruffy Paws is a company that allows her to do this.
Our recent wellness exams brought the reality of the poundage my brother Oliver and I possess (18.3 for me, 19.8 for Oliver) home. Concerned that size as well as age can be factors in our ability to be mobile and agile, she went to the Scruffy Paws website and saw Scruffy Paws Hip n’ Joint Vitalize. I don’t know about my other feline furiends but I want to be able to easily hop on the kitchen counter.on top of the kitchen cabinet and all the tall shelves in our house for as long as possible!
While I am less than pleased that my brother feels the need to share my weight with the world, I will say that I lost a half a pound since my last wellness visit. But still, I think our Human has a point when she decided to care for my health early and not wait until I’m a creaky little old man cat! I too enjoy jumping on counters, especially when food activities are taking place.
I am very happy that Scruffy Paws Hip n’ Joint Vitalize is the purrfect product for us. What does it do and how does it work?. Well, it keeps our joints flexible and pain free because of the natural ingredients it contains, such as glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, hyaluronic acid and taurine. Now that’s all well and good but anyone who knows felines knows that we are not the easiest creatures to convince when it comes to taking supplements. If I don’t like something (like a purrticular breakfast offering for instance) I will give my Human a look as though she just murdered my family, I’ll stare at the food bowl with derision and scratch my paw next to the offending dish to show my distain. The final act of this Kabuki theater is me, tail held high, walking away. I don’t have the opportunity to do this though as Hip n’ Joint Vitalize comes in a bottle with a handy dropper. The Human has figured out it’s easier to give us each our dose from the dropper and we don’t mind the taste at all.
You can also add it into wet food if you are not a particularly persnickety feline when it comes to what’s being served by the staff.
I like the idea that The Human is taking preventative measures to keep us healthy, it’s never too early to start and at five years of age, Alberto and I are young enough for these preventative measures to put us on the road for a long and healthy life.
Just because we are still fairly yung, doesn’t mean that we can’t have hip and joint problems and, as we have a tendency to hide when we don’t feel well you humans may miss the signs of hip and joint problems. It’s not just us “pleasingly plump” cats who may develop hip and joint problems, even the skinny ones like Lily can develop these issue, but I’ll let Lily tell you her own story.
I’m a pretty petite little thing, weighing in at only 8.27 pounds but I am a few years older than Oliver and Alberto (8 years). My lightness has always helped me sail up on counter tops, dining tables, the backs of chairs, actually anywhere I want to go. Lately though, I’ve found I’m not so nimble as I used to be. It takes me longer to size up the jump and there are those few times when I stop in mid-try because I just don’t think I’m going to be able to make it.
The Scruffy Paws Hip n’ Joint Vitalize is just the ticket for me. The Human has seen the most dramatic change in me since I started talking the supplement. Lately, I’ve hardly ever have to abort a flying leap up onto the counter, bookcase or anywhere else. And feeling better has made me more confident so when those two hooligan brothers decide to chase me, I just turn around and give them a whacky paw rather than running away and hiding.
I’m happy that our Human is looking for how she can help us live long, happy, healthy lives. She’s even had DNA done which helps inform her of potential health problems we may encounter in the future.
I am passionate about providing my fur kids the best quality of life and the longest lives I can. Caring for Tucker and Jasmine taught me so much, particularly in the last few years of their lives. We don’t have to play “catch up” or wait for our elderly felines to exhibit some of the diseases that age brings. We can be their health advocates and care for them with an eye to prevention as with the products from Scruffy Paws Nutrition. I still ask myself how much more time could I have had with Jasmine had I found the kidney treats sooner. If I had known about hyperthyroidism could I have dealt with that in a preventative manner? There are no answers to those questions but there is something I can do do and that is to invest in preventative care before the diseases and conditions manifest themselves.
We can’t keep our fur kids with us forever but I believe we can keep them with us for a long time and I want to make that time as happy and healthy for them as possible.
Hello there furiends,
We are getting ready for fall in our neck of the woods and the colors are just beginning to change. Now that it’s cooler some of us are rethinking our stance on snuggling. As some of you know, Angel Tucker was Lily’s cuddle buddy and you’d never see him without her snuggled in next to him. Although, I have to say, Angel Tucker was an equal opportunity snuggler and he never chased anyone away as evidenced in these photos.
I am a manly man cat and don’t like to be caught showing my softer side so imagine my chagrin when The Female Human came home and discovered Lily and I in this compromising position.
So now you know I’m a bit of a pushover and I am taking grief from my brofur, Oliver.
Well, enough about me, it’s time to look at the best of feline news on the web and don’t forget to stop by tomorrow for our Remember Me Thursday celebration and light a candle for shelter pets.
The Female Human and I aren’t SciFi fans. To be honest, we’d rather curl up on the sofa and watch a good British mystery but when a feline is cast as a major star in a SciFi program, I’ve got to give him a shout out.
Season 3 of Star Trek Discovery will be introducing a handsome 18 pound Maine Coon whose Star Trek name is Grudge and real name is Leeu. . Grudge/Leeu already has busy Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Evidently the human actors are impressed with Leeu’s stamina and acting talents.
For my SciFi, feline loving furiends, there was a feline owned by Data called Spot and Neelix who was owned by Reginald Barclay of “Star Trek Voyager”. And if you really want to do a deep dive into other Trekkie felines, there are quite a few listed in the article.
My regular readers know how much I love stories about working cats. This article from Texarkana, Arkansas sings the praises of felinse who are employed.
There’s Caspar who works at Hightech Signs whose main job is as customer greeter. He positions himself by the door ready to meow at everyone who comes in. If the customer doesn’t respond to Caspar’s meows, he will meow again until the human gets the message.
Caspar showed up years ago when he was a kitten, no one there was in a position to take a cat home with them. Caspar took care of that dilemma right away and when they arrived at work the next day they found him settled in and quite comfortable.
Caspar has been an integral part of the business ever since and even sports a tag with the words “Greeter”.
Then there’s Tuxie and Buttah who work at Three Chicks Feed, Seed and Cafe, Tuxie has been there for four years, since he was a kitten trapped at the bottom of a barrel in the back of the store, starved and skinny. Buttah, a female orange tabby, was dropped off at the store.
Tuxie’s coworkers describe him as relaxed and fun, while Buttah is the cool queen of the Café.
Persnickety Too has a customer relations cat who serves also as merchandise inspector.
“Bean came to us in 2016,” said Carrie Atkinson, owner of this floral shop.
They fell in love with Bean, but couldn’t take her home, because their dogs unfortunately killed cats they caught outside, Atkinson said. “It was decided to take Bean to the shop and she settled in nicely. She asks to be let in the cooler and go in and investigate the merchandise, When she’s done, she will let us know she’s ready to be let out.”
“She has a special relationship with Debra, our mail lady,” Atkinson said. “No matter what time of day it is, Bean will stop whatever she is doing to give her attention.”
So folks, if you are going to be visiting Texarkana be sure and visit these shop cats and if you have a shop, why not give a cat a job?
Purina Cat Chow is taking cat therapy to the next level and has donated $30,000.00 to Pet Partners to fund training and registration of therapy cat teams.
According to a recent survey conducted by Purina Cat Chow, 85 percent of cat owners agree that they have had therapeutic benefits from their cats and that becoming a cat owner has improved their quality of life (86 percent). While three-fourths of cat owners agree that society does not understand the benefits of having a cat, nearly all (94 percent) agree that many people can benefit from spending time with cats.
“While most people tend to associate therapy animals with dogs, cats also provide a variety of mental and physiological benefits,” said Dr. Annie Valuska, Ph.D., senior pet behavior expert at Purina Cat Chow. “Cat owners often have lower stress levels than non-pet owners, which can improve blood pressure and cardiovascular health over time. Cats can also boost our mental health, decreasing feelings of loneliness and increasing a sense of purpose.”
Cats of all kinds can become great therapy animals. Take Tommy the blind cat for example. Even after losing his sight, the eight-year-old tabby passed his therapy pet evaluation with excellence. Now, as a registered therapy cat with Pet Partners, he loves helping people of all ages with his handler, Christy Santoro.
As people spend more time at home with their cats, Purina Cat Chow and Pet Partners encourage cat owners to learn how to become a therapy animal team with your cat. Thanks in part to Purina Cat Chow’s donation, Pet Partners is offering online training courses and discounted registration of therapy cat teams. Cats and cat owners can give back without even having to leave their homes. Together, Cat Chow and Pet Partners are working to enhance the well-being of local communities with the help of cats.
To learn more about registering you and your cat to become a therapy animal team visit this link.
Meet the cat ladies of Rome and see their feline sanctuary
In the proximity of the 1,900-year-old site of the Pantheon and the world-famous Trevi fountain, you may see a Tabby lounging in the sun on a piece of marble or a Siamese stretched out against an ancient column. The Largo di Torre Argentina is located in the center of Rome and is home to about 200 cats.
“I adore cats,” says Silvia Viviani, the 80-year-old who founded the volunteer-led shelter in 1994, which spays, neuters, and feeds strays.. “I find them fascinating, lovable and, loving, supremely elegant, the most beautiful animals in the world,” she adds. “Nay, they are my personal evidence of the existence of God.”
Italy’s ban on killing homeless cats has created quite a feral population and stray cats in Rome have always found places that will provide them shelter.
Viviani’s full time operation feeds vaccinates and encourages adoption of the strays under her care. All of her strays were given the status of Roman Biocultural Heritage by the Municipality of Rome in 2001, meaning that if five or more cats live together in a “natural urban habitat” they can’t be moved away.
Rome has quite a population of gattare, which in the local dialect means “cat ladies” who are known to push shopping carts laden with snacks for the local felines. The title of cat lady is considered an aristocratic title and these cat ladies come from every walk of life.
Every day, volunteers feed, clean, and nurture the many abandoned cats found in and around Torre Argentina. According to the sanctuary, it has identified and sterilized more than 50,000 cats across the city since 2010.
It is this feline’s purrayer that the city of Rome as well as it’s citizens will continue to care for these feral cats .
While we’re on the subject of world travel, I would be remiss if I didn’t direct your attention to My Cat Yogawara, an inn that offers trial sleepovers with their resident felines.
Traditional Japanese inns, called Ryokans are famous for their signature designs and furnishings as well as communal baths and excellent service. The My Cat Yogawara is a Ryokan with a feline bonus. The owner wanted to match those seeking to try out cat companionship.
The inn’s rates are very reasonable and there is a range of room options some housing up to five people so that the whole family can experience what it’s like to live with a cat.
If you are interested in the feline program you must first spend time in the neighboring cat cafe. The staff will determine how comfortable you are with the felines and which ones you bond with best. The guests are referred to as “foster parents” must agree to the rules for being a good roommate and caregiver to a feline. The feline guests arrive at 5:30pm and stay until 9:00am. Guests are asked not to leave the cat unattended and encouraged to bond with their feline guest.
If the guests enjoy their sleepovers, they can move on to the next phase, filling out an adoption application followed up by an interview. This last stage is so staff can determine if the guest and the cat are a good match. Once adopted, cats are then called “graduates” and are celebrated at their departure.
I say paws up for this new approach to cat adoption.
Today, September 24, 2020, the entire world will share the importance of pet adoption, and shine a light on all orphan pets waiting in shelters and rescues. In 2017, people using #RememberMeThursday reached nearly 330 million people on social media.
On #RememberMeThursday, love your rescue and help others #SeeTheLight. It’s up to you to spread the word! We are so proud of our local animal shelter and their innovative efforts to keep animals out of shelters and in furever homes! Panhandle Animal Shelter is the former home of all of The Tribe.
By MANDY EVANS Contributing Writer
| September 23, 2020 1:00 AM
Over the past decade, Panhandle Animal Shelter has been on a mission to transform animal sheltering in our region. PAS has gone from serving just 1,200 animals per year to serving over 8,400 in 2019. We had big plans for 2020 and were on track to expand our programs to serve even more animals and the people who love them.
Then, enter a pandemic that closed businesses, stalled supply chains, and threatened the safety of our community. Even the best laid plans quickly became rewrites.
To shelter animals, find new adoptive homes, and care for animals in the community, PAS interacts with the public, collaborates with local and national organizations, requires staff and volunteers, and relies on specialized equipment and supplies. There isn’t much of this model that the pandemic hasn’t challenged. Maintaining staff when a suspected exposure occurs is a challenge. Finding medical supplies is a challenge. Facilitating adoptions, intake, and clinics are a challenge. Adhering to consistent hours of operation is a challenge. Finding ways to safely engage volunteers is a challenge. Meeting with donors is a challenge. For a while, even finding a place to buy cleaning supplies was a major hurdle.
Our greatest challenge has been being able to continue spay and neuter surgeries at the level we feel is necessary for our community. Many medical supplies are limited due to the crossover use with human medicine and during the pandemic, human medicine has taken priority. Following veterinary medicine guidelines and guidance from shelter medicine professionals we have limited our spay and neuter surgeries. Additionally, veterinary medicine is a highly specialized skill, and when a team member is unavailable due to COVID-19 exposure or testing, we can’t perform surgeries or other necessary medical procedures to protect our animal population. These supplies and staffing shortages significantly limit our ability to meet our goals for the year.
Just like the community, we want things to go back to normal. Our team is tired and stressed and we miss seeing our community, working with our volunteers, and visiting at Yappy Hour. But be assured, our priorities have not changed. We are still as dedicated to supporting our community as ever before. We ask that you be patient with our staff and volunteers, hours of operation, and modifications to how our programs are operated. We are doing the best we can and we need your support.
During the past few months, we’ve been receiving questions like, “Where donations are going now that there are fewer animals in the shelter?”, “What does the future holds for PAS?”, and the most common question of all, “Where are all the cats?” We hope this article helps answer some of these questions – but if you’re curious about something related to the work PAS does, we invite you to email us at info@pasidaho.org.
With fewer animals in the shelter, where are my donations going?
There’s no better way to answer this question than to share more about our programs and the efforts underway to, by design, keep animals out of the shelter.
PAS operates robust owner support programs that exist to help keep animals out of the shelter. These supportive services are offered through a multitude of programs like our Pets for Life program which supports pet owners by going door-to-door in specific neighborhoods providing services to people and their pets for free. Services may include pet food, advice, spay and neuter, medical, dental, or general pet supplies. Another key to keeping people and pets together has been the PAS helpline, which now serves over 1,800 people each year, and provides services to people to help prevent the need for a pet to be surrendered to the shelter. Services may include medical care, spay and neuter, training, free pet supplies, or connecting callers with PAS’s pet food bank which provides seven tons of dog and cat food to the community each year on a no-questions-asked basis.
Increasing in demand is our Temporary Loving Care program, which provides free temporary pet boarding for people in transition. The program, provided on a case-by-case basis, originated to assist pets while their owners sought mental health care from Bonner General Health, but the economic impacts of the pandemic have increased the need for this program to provide pet boarding for people who are homeless or struggling to find pet-friendly housing. By providing short-term boarding, PAS helps prevent unnecessary surrender.
One of our most popular owner support programs is Home to Home, a rehoming program developed at PAS in 2016, provides support to families who need to surrender their pet with the option to rehome on their own with help from the shelter.
As you may have guessed, these programs come with a cost. Despite having fewer animals in the shelter, donations are still needed to support this work. We’re investing into these programs because it’s part of our mission to support both ends of the human animal bond and we believe sheltering an animal should be the last option. Before PAS takes in an animal, have we offered other solutions like advice for an unruly dog? What about supporting a person and their pet by offering free pet food? Does the pet have a medical issue we can help with? Could the issue be as simple as a pet owner needing help with vaccines so they can keep their pet in their apartment? If these simple questions – a hierarchy of needs for the pet owner – haven’t been asked, then there’s options on the table that could help keep a pet with its family. Your donations help make it possible for people to keep their pets during their time of need, help shelter animals who have no place else to go, and make it possible for PAS to support people and animals across our region.
Where are all the cats?
PAS is a no-kill shelter, and is proud to be a part of a national movement to prevent the euthanasia of healthy cats. For shelters to be no-kill and prevent overcrowding, multiple strategies are needed.
For owned cats, PAS assists owners as much as possible so they can keep their cat and avoid surrendering it to the shelter. This may include providing medical care, supplies, or food. If it’s not possible for a person to keep their cat, PAS will take the cat into the shelter, space permitting. PAS is a no-kill shelter, but the number of cats who need to be sheltered can be so high that the shelter must maintain an intake waitlist. By PAS monitoring the number of cats allowed in the building, cats in the shelter stay healthy. Too many cats crowded together creates stress and stress leads to illness. Illness means cats need to stay in the facility longer to get treated and recover. By practicing managed intake techniques, PAS has decreased the length of stay for cats by 62 days and the number of cats in the building at any given time from 105 cats to 53. This change increased the number of cats assisted each year in the building from 600 to 1,400.
For community cats, also known as unowned cats, PAS operates a “Trap, Neuter, Return” program through partnering with the community to trap cats, bring them to the shelter for spay or neuter, and return them to the location they were found. Due to limited staffing and supplies capacity, this program has been placed on pause during the pandemic, which is also why there are not a lot of kittens in the shelter.
This year, PAS implemented a new methodology provided by University of Florida, University of Wisconsin Shelter Medicine program, and UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program. This program challenges what people believe is a stray cat. When a healthy, friendly, neutered cat is brought to the shelter as a stray, PAS asks the finder to go place it back where it was found. This is because 39% of cats are indoor/outdoor and when lost they are normally found three to four houses down from their home. When an owned cat is brought to our shelter it has a less than 2% chance of being reclaimed by its owner, a rate in line with national average for cats, despite PAS’s best efforts to reunite the cat with its owner. This means the cat has a much higher likelihood of finding its home without intervention. Although kind-hearted, well-meaning people bring the cat to the shelter out of concern, it’s important to highlight that they might be taking someone’s cat from right in front of their home. If a cat is brought to PAS that is in need of medical care, has a low body mass or circumstances that demonstrate the need for intervention, the cat is admitted into the PAS for care and may be adopted or returned to where it was found after it recovers. If you still have questions about managing cat populations, we’ve updated our website, pasidaho.org with more information.
What does the future hold for PAS?
Like many nonprofits, PAS has experienced setbacks due to the pandemic. Thankfully, because of our community centered and progressive owner support programs, we quickly adapted to accommodate the unique challenges of the pandemic. We relied more heavily on Home to Home, our online rehoming program, to help prevent animals entering the shelter. We made our foodbank available for curbside pick-up. We shifted our outreach approach for our Pets for Life program to phone calls instead of door-to-door visits. When many shelters around the country closed, PAS was proud to have maintained its services and as a result helped save lives of animals in need and helped to prevent owners from being forced to surrender their pets due to economic hardship.
While we can’t predict the future, we can anticipate the needs of our community and we can plan for how we’ll respond.
Internally, we are investing in hiring optimistic problem solvers who view the community as their number one partner and we’re continuing to implement prevention-focused, evidence-based, and best practice programs that help people keep their pets. Even during the height of the pandemic, PAS is proud to have hired its first full-time veterinarian who was trained in shelter medicine and management practices from the University of Wisconsin Shelter Medicine Program.
We’ve experienced higher than usual medical needs through our helpline and we expect this to continue. We are also expecting an increased demand by owners who need to surrender their pets due to housing instability, and planning for higher demand for owner support services in case of recession. This means PAS will be providing more boarding, more medical care, more pet food, and more support to pet owners so they can keep their pets and avoid surrendering them to the shelter whenever possible.
PAS will also continue investing time in growing the Home To Home program, a PAS-founded rehoming tool that helps prevent animals from ever entering the shelter. The program is now in 39 shelters around the nation. We have plans to expand the services offered through this program to support local pet owners with rehoming and to include tools to support fostering and increased access for under resourced shelters around the country.
It’s impossible to know what the future holds, but we’re committed to our mission, and we’re proud to serve our region. We continue to receive support from national animal welfare organizations like the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Best Friends Animal Society and Maddie’s Fund. We’re also honored to receive donations from local businesses and supporters who generously support people and animals with their giving and we’re thankful for the community support we continue to receive in the form of donations to our thrift store and donations of pet food and supplies to the shelter.
If you still have questions about PAS, or any of its programs and services, just ask. Staff are proud to talk about the shelter and what they are working on. Email us at info@pasidaho.org
Light a candle for a beloved pet you rescued from a shelter
Visit the candle gallery
Meet the sponsors and spokespeople
Every member of The Tribe, past and present were adopted.
Head on over to Comedy Plus and join the blog hop!
Oliver & Alberto want to know how you’re celebrating.
Hello there furiends,
I hope you are doing well. Because of the fires and the terrible smoke, walks in the cat stroller have been momentarily stopped and the windows in our house remain firmly closed. We had a nasty wind storm last week and then some fires in our neck of the woods. Many of our furiends were evacuated but we are happy to say, they have all returned to their homes now. This is a photo of one f the fires near us.
We are also having horrible air quality because of the fires in all the surrounding states. This photo might give you an idea of what it looks like – same view a few days apart.
Still, we are in much better shape than many of our Northwest and coastal furiends and we are purraying that you all remain safe. Since we can’t sit on the upstairs deck or take a stroller ride, we aren’t doing much of anything. I’m hanging out by the shower and demanding to be let in and Oliver is practicing relaxing, I think he’s got it down well, what do you think?
Stay safe dear furiends and I hope you enjoy this week’s feline news.
Did you know that Grumpy Cat’s name was Tardar Sauce and that this little undersized kitten with abnormal features became an international sensation when her human began posting pictures of her on social media? That little feline became so famous that her human was able to quit her waitressing job when the cat began raking in millions from modeling and purrsonal appearances. Sadly, Grumpy Cat crossed the Rainbow Bridge last year at the age of seven..
Lil Bub had an extreme form of feline dwarfism, that left her limbs and jaw much smaller than the rest of her body and this created that cute “tongue out of the mouth” look she was famous for. Her human, after finding that she would suffer from osteoporosis, began working with scientists to sequence her genome and help other kitties with the same condition. Lil Bub did much to help other feilknes and was mourned when she crossed the Rainbow Bridge last year after suffering a severe bone infection.
Ollie’s purrsonal favorite feline celebrity is Shironeko, one of the most mellow cats in the world. Shironeko has been delighting fans on social media since 2006 by balancing flowers, fruits, frogs, and other items on his head. Shironeko crossed the Rainbow Bridge this year at the age of seventeen and it is our Oliver’s goal to become just as famous for being lazy….errr…chill and relaxed.
Be sure and check out the article to learn about other famous felines such as Spartacus the Serval, Sir Stuffington and Smudge the Cat.
Spartacus, the 18 kilogram (over 39 ½ pounds) African serval managed to escape from his house and spent a number of days in the wilds of New Hampshire.
He was “trapped” near his home and returned to his family in good health. Evidently the family dog spooked Spartacus and he did a runner.
Spartacus was adopted from a zoo four years ago, has all his papers in order and lives in the lap of luxury as an indoor kitty. We are very happy Spartacus is home!
Canadian cats in Vancouver rejoice. The moth outbreak happening there is a boon for felines. Chasing these winged insects is bringing Canadian kitties all kinds of exercise and fun. So while our furiends up north are housebound due to the smokey conditions, a few good moth chases a day will chase away the blues and boredom as well. A note, veterinarians said that the moths the cats are chasing are not toxic or poisonous but the powder the moths carry on their wings may irritate their eyes or mouths.
Turkey’s capital city Istanbul is known for its massive population of cats. These felines are so involved in the human activities that they can even make a surprise appearance at athletic events.
A recent video shared by the Turkish Athletics Federation shows a cat darting across the finish line at the Balkan U20 Men’s Athletics Championship on September 13. The athletes dodged the ferocious feline near the finish line. There was a winner of the race but it wasn’t the cat!
Kiki, the adorable American Shorthair cat lives peacefully with her three Shiba Inu siblings; Saki, Ibuki, and Hazuki.Kiki acts like she’s one of the canine gang and the photos of these furry family members are taking Instagram by storm,. Check out the photos for yourself and you’ll see what a great team Kiki is with the Shiba Inus in her family.
Hello Furiends,
Well, we finally got through the “eternal computer upgrade” and have our Purrsonal Assistant on the job again, albeit it a day late. Sigh.
It’s been an interesting week in our neck of the woods and we, like many of our readers, are surrounded by fires. We’ve been putting our paws together and purraying for everyone in the west and hope there will be some rain soon. It was very windy in our neck of the woods and that didn’t help at all.
Some days I just want to hide under the cushions.
Oliver, on the other hand is happily celebrating one of his favorite holidays.
And now, on to the best feiline news on the internet this week!
The Japanese veterinarian, Yuki Hattori is known as “the Cat Savior” in Japan. His ability to decode feline behavior is amazing and he is so busy he saw 16,000 feline patients last year. People from all over Japan (and other countries) travel to his office for a consultation.
His blockbuster book, “What Cats Want” has now been translated into English so that more folks can avail themselves of his incredible insight into cat behavior.
Hattori has written 14 books about raising and treating house cats. And he believes that every tail swish, whisker twitch, ear flick and meow has meaning and is the cat’s attempt to communicate.
His book offers a chart of nine basic facial expressions (ranging from relaxed to aggressive) and 12 tail positions, each of which represents a mood (straight up for greetings, puffed to express anger, lowered for caution) to help humans “read” their felines). He also includes diagrams for room layouts that benefit felines of different ages.
Hattori followed in his father’s footsteps into veterinary practice. His fascination with and knowledge of cats began with a rescue feline named Unya who lived with him for 15 years.
Hattori says this about cats, “You respond to a cat’s needs, not the other way around.”
You can visit his veterinary clinic, the Tokyo Feline Medical Center on Facebook .
Dear humans, I have a newsflash for you. A recent study has shown that the purrsonality of your feline is greatly influenced by you! We felines bond with our humans like children bond with their parents.
Finka et al. (2019) focused on the well-studied Big Five Personality traits of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The owner’s personality traits were shown to affect the feline’s personality. For instance, an owner’s neuroticism may result in “chaotic and unstable home environments” that likely will affect the feline in the house. (Dear Female Human, take note!)
3331 cat owners (92% female) participated in Finka et al.’s study. Participants were required to have owned their cat for at least 6 months and answered questions and took personality tests.
Results revealed interesting links between the cat owner’s personality and the cat’s personality, lifestyle, and well-being. For instance, openness in the human resulted in the cats being friendlier and less aloof. Extroverts had friendlier, less aggressive cats and their cats were more likely to be normal weight felines.
The study also revealed interesting things regarding indoor versus outdoor cats.
The study is very comprehensive and interesting but the most important thing this feline got from the article is that the emotions of our humans definitely have an effect on us.
This is a cautionary tale that illustrates you can’t always judge a cat just because…he’s a cat. Take Mika for instance. Mika’s best friends are what other felines might consider to be dinner. Watch the video and you will see that Mika responds to his buddies in an unexpected way.
Nasrin Hami never expected to lose her cat to her husband but that’s exactly what happened. Jarvis, the Scottish Fold has decided that Nasrin’s husband is his human…his only human. To prove this, Jarvis will give Nasrin some serious stink eye if she gets too close. How could anyone be mad at that cute feline, even if he is a husband stealer. So humans, you may think your cat belongs to you but at the end of the day, the cat decides!
If you are one of my regular readers, you already know that Japan loves cats. I’ve reported on Japanese cat fashion designers, architects who design condos for cats and their humans, cat cafes, cat islands and much more. The interesting thing about the relationship between cats and the Japanese people is that there is much love but also much fear as there is folklore about monstrous, supernatural cats as well.
Zack Davisson, the author of Kaibyō: The Supernatural Cats of Japan has been researching cat lore for decades.
Davisson says the fact that cats exist in Japan is a mystery because no one knows how they got there although many speculate that felines traveled down the Silk Road from Egypt to China and Korea. The first documented record of a feline was written on March 11, 889 CE by the 17-year old Emperor Uda who began his diary entry by writing, “
“On the 6th Day of the 2nd Month of the First Year of the Kampo era. Taking a moment of my free time, I wish to express my joy of the cat. It arrived by boat as a gift to the late Emperor, received from the hands of Minamoto no Kuwashi.
The color of the fur is peerless. None could find the words to describe it, although one said it was reminiscent of the deepest ink. It has an air about it, similar to Kanno. Its length is 5 sun, and its height is 6 sun. I affixed a bow about its neck, but it did not remain for long.
He continues to wax eloquent about the feline and his description of his interaction with his cat could have been penned by a human today.
In the 12th century new writings appeared about a supernatural Japanese cat that was reported to be man-eating and two-tailed. It was called nekomato and lived in the woods. . According to local newspapers of the time, several hunters died in the jaws of the nekomata. Massive and powerful, they were more like two-tailed tigers than the pampered pets of Emperor Uda. In fact, the nekomata may have actually been a tiger.
But there was another supernatural feline that popped up in the 1600’s called bakeneko which was a shape changing feline.
Rumor had it that when these cats left their homes at night, they donned kimonos, pulled out sake and shamisen, and basically held wild parties before slinking back home at dawn. What naughty kitties!
These stories created a plethora of artistic representations of these shape changing kitties. And through time, more supernatural cats were “discovered”, even cat human hybrids.
The author says that Japan’s cat lore has been catnip for him which is how his book, Kaibyō: The Supernatural Cats of Japan was born. Even though that book was published in 2017, Davisson says that there is probably another Japanese cat folklore book on the horizon.
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