Hello Furiends,
It’s been a looooong week in our neck of the woods. We are quite done with winter and are looking forward to donning our harnesses and taking a stroll through the garden.

We all took a vote and decided we needed some new cat furniture. The Human said she would order one thing and we’d have to share because lots of cat furniture wasn’t in the budget.

When The Human explained that the budget thingy had to do with getting money, Oliver got busy looking for some extra cash.

Lily is exhausted by this discussion of money (or lack thereof).

While we work to find a way around this “budget thingy” I invite you to enjoy this week’s feline news features and hope you are not being held captive to any stupid budget!

PetSafe® Introduces Cat Corridor™ Interior Cat Door

Sometimes a kitty just wants a  little privacy in the house. This interior cat door is pretty cool. The  PetSafe® Cat Corridor™ Interior Cat Door is durable and easy to install, and gives us our own private access to any room in the house. It’s also great for keeping our litter boxes, food dishes, etc away from view and, if you have a barkie in your house, it will keep them from getting into your food. And, if you have a bully cat or resource blockier in the house that’s heavier than 20 pounds, it will keep them out too!

The Cat Corridor has a cutting template to so you humans can cut just the right size and you can also paint it if your doors are not white.

If you’re not a CHONKY cat (20 pounds or over) have your humans head to the  Pet Safe website or Amazon to get one for you.

Kitty CATure Fashion Show

New York fashion week offers something for everyone, even fashionable felines.  The event is called the Kitty CATure Fashion show and is a gala event sponsored by The Internal Cat Association. They did have a few runway barkies as well hosted by the American Kennel Club but, since this is a feline news feature we’ll skip the canine models but as this was the first year in the show’s history that barkies were allowed I thought I should mention it.

This year featured designs by pet fashion designers such as Ada Nieves of Ada Nieves for Pets. The event began with a Bengal named Poet, the feline in residence at the home of the fashion show emcee. Poet surveyed the goings on from a chair next to the stage and spent most of his time napping.

The first feline to strut down the catwalk was Vengeance, a 12-week-old Sphinx in an argyle sweater. To be clear, the cats didn’t strut, it was their humans who carried them down the catwalk. Not every feline was enamored of their new modeling career. Some attached themselves to their humans like kitty Velcro while others just rolled over and made themselves limp. One racy Oriental Shorthair attempted a strip tease as he slid out of his evening ensemble.  

There was quite an age range represented,, everything from kitten newbies to older, more seasoned feline models.

Whether your feline enjoys clothing will depend a lot on how early you introduce them to modeling. And then again, some of us just hate clothes and hats no matter how early you try to introduce us to them.

The feline designers say that if your felines object to clothing, you could always try a collar with lots of bling (unless you’re a manly cat like me!)

St. Petersburg cat cafe launches online video service featuring Hermitage felines

I’ve reported before about the cats in St. Petersburg Russia and they’re making news again. The Cat Café, Cats Republic, where they reside is encouraging them all to “work from home” since the café is still closed. They’ve created a great way for felines and humans to interact despite the shut down.

The cats do what they normally do, run around, play on a wheel, take a nap and sing the song of their people while humans watch their antics over a live feed. The cats are then “paid” for their performances as the café overhead still is due, even though it’s closed.

All the cats have had their CVs published on the café website that describes their skills and special talents. One cat named Maru can solve math problems (our Human could definitely use his help!) There are many talented cats there, just waiting for a furever home.

The café says that each cat has a veterinary passports and a dowry. Paws up to the humans who figured out a way to earn the money they need for rent, kibble and litter while working to get these Russian felines adopted.

Cats in Comics

The premiere feline lover’s publication, Catster, wrote an article that will thrill those of you who combine your love of felines with a love of comics. Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, published Angel Catbird, a graphic novel about a superhero that’s part cat and part bird (meowza, that sounds strange to me, wouldn’t that character always be in conflict with itself?). She says it’s inspired partly by her childhood when she would draw “flying cats with wings”.

Since the publication of Angel Catbird, numerous graphic novels have appeared such as Legend: Defend The Grounds about a pack of dogs and a clowder of competing cats in a futuristic, bleak environment.

Captain Ginger is about felines who travel the universe on a spaceship. Madame Cat is a graphic novel with a different twist where the adopted cat believes she is the human and the humans are the cats. And then there’s A Cat Story that asks the question, what do cats really want? (I have to say I am happy to see more writers giving felines voices).

So there you go, all you comic book lovers have a whole new list of comics to enjoy.

Scots Tesco lists ‘in-store cat’ facilities as resident feline sends Twitter into meltdown

For my furiends in the U.S., Tesco is a type of grocery store in the U.K. and there is a Tesco in Dunfermline, Fife in Scotland that lists “in store cat facilities’” for it’s resident feline.

The ten-year old cat Spartacus has split his living time the last few years between his home and the Tesco store. He’s referred to as “The Tesco Cat”  and even has his own Facebook page.

A fan of Spartacus, Angus Duncan, tweeted, “My local @tesco is better than yours”, that tweet received 11,000 likes!

Spartacus’ fame is spreading with fans driving to Dunfermline just to pet him and take photos.

Evidently, Spartacus is not an aberration as many people tweeted about cats in their local grocery stores. One wrote: “The co-op in Stornoway has a cat called Mittens, and we are not worthy.”

Spartacus made the news two years ago when he added a few pounds too many after eating the many treats offered to him by shoppers. He seems to particularly enjoy Pringles.

His owner, who lives around the corner from the shop, noted: “He goes there at about 6am every day and returns home at around 10pm.

I’d say Spartacus has set up quite a gig for himself and I wonder what Pringles taste like. The Human will not allow junk food in our house so sigh, I will probably never know.