Hello Furiends,
The snow is melting in our neck of the woods and we are excited about that! Even The Human is excited and she celebrated the coming of spring by ordering Oliver and I new harnesses. (Lily turns into the Tasmanian Devil if The Human has unmitigated gall to attempt to put a harness on her. We’ve outgrown our old harnesses who have been given to felines of furiends who are a bit slimmer than we are.

The Human is very meticulous and cheap…er…thrifty so she spends hours researching things before she buys them. When she ordered the harnesses (and measured us) she ended up buying the Kitty Holster Cat Harness. She got both of them in the red bandana fabric and we even got red leashes to go with them. She had to order the XL and here are some photos of the harness on larger cats. We’ll post our own once we get them and we go for a stroll.

We will report back when we have tested the harnesses.

Oliver had been going through a bit of an existential crisis this week and The Human has been trying to help him through it.

Oliver
“Human, I’m feeling a little down, will you hold my paw?”
The Human
“Of course Oliver, what’s wrong buddy?”

Oliver is feeling much better and no, he didn’t get an extra treat.

I hope you enjoy this week’s stories.

Fire Department rescues man who tries to rescue cat stuck in tree

MOL! A human rescue from a tree but, we have to give credit to this 17-year old who tried to do a good deed and rescue a cat he saw stuck high up in a tree. The only problem is, the teenager ended up needing saving himself.

He made it up 35 feet but was then stuck himself. The teen named Owen told the firefighters that he was trying to do a good deed and save the cat.  

The firefighters used a rope system to get Owen down and he was pronounced fine after medics checked him out. The cat watched the rescue but made no indication he wanted to come down. The cat’s human ended up having to hire a private company to retrieve him from the tree.

Overzealous Feral Cat Trapper

First, allow me to say that the humans who do TNR are heroes to me but this is a cautionary tale for those who might be a bit overzealous. When 10-year old Maggie disappeared from her home in Berlin, PA , her human was sure a fox got her. Now fast forward to last week then the same human was informed that Maggie was listed for adoption on a Philadelphia rescue adoption page.

Her humans called right away to claim her and were told she’d been taken to Petsmart the day before for an adoption event. Maggie’s people got there just in time to claim her.

By now you’re probably scratching your head and saying, “So what’s the big deal?” The big deal is that a number of felines in Maggie’s neighborhood have gone missing as well (even Maggie’s next door neighbor!) And when recovered, all of the cats were in Philadelphia, three hours and forty one minutes away.

Is there a catnapper about? Nope, simply a woman who was trapping on her private property and calling the Community Cats Coalition to pick the cats up. The shelter director was horrified and worked to get all the cats back to their families with the help of the local police.

Cats that weren’t microchipped could not be identified as having homes.  The cat families were not upset with the shelter but did have some words for the woman trapping cats that wandered on her property. Sheesh lady, communicate with your neighbors why don’t you?   

There has never been a feral cat problem in the neighborhood which added to the cat owner’s ire and the fact that she lured the cats into the cages with food. One of the cat parents said, “She was putting the food out—of course they were coming on her property.”

When people take feral cats out of the community that have not been spayed and neutered is a good thing. The shelter only had good intentions .

How do you prevent a situation like this? Having your feline wear a collar helps but the only safe collars are break away collars so you can’t count on cat having their collar on. The better way is to have us microchipped and keep the contact information up to date. And, many of the families of these felines are now keeping the cats indoors.  Others are looking for special cat fencing to keep the cats in their yards.

In the future, Community Cats Coalition will not remove cats without contacting the local police department.

I’d say Maggie and her furiends had a close call!

It’s been confirmed, cats can sleep anywhere.

We know that you humans who live with felines have observed us sleeping in wacky places and this article proves it. There’s even a puss in boot!

Grooming Fractious Felines

Now some of my furiends may be fancier than our Tribe and go to a cat groomer. Our grooming sessions consist of The Human brushing us and then clipping our front claws (we never hold still long enough for her to get the back ones. And don’t even ask about Lily because The Human has learned that even attempting to lip her front claws would require medical services to stand by (the vet does her claws and so far no one at the clinic has needed any surgical intervention).

This professional groomer has some tips (and classes and videos if you humans are really into this). And, if they are into this they can get the groomers FREE PDF DOWNLOAD with 5 of her top tips for do it yourselfers.

Danielle German, professional cat groomer explains, “What’s funny is that for many years now it seems that most aggressive cats I am handed turn out to be fairly mellow once I start handling them. This played out over and over again during the former National Cat Groomers School program that my amazing staff and myself operated for 6 years. Each time a student had a fractious feline in their charge that started to get really out of hand, things would change dramatically once myself or an instructor stepped in to take over and demonstrate how things should be done. It truly was an amazing transformation that clearly showed me the incredible value in firm, confident control based on knowledge. This was not “winging it”, folks. This stuff is real. It makes a difference.”

She tells the story of Daisy, a 1 year old domestic shorthair rescue kitty that had never been groomed before. Until the day she groomed her in a mobile grooming van during the On the Road with Jodi and Danelle video shoot in NJ

some years back. Daisy was a perfect candidate for the lesson I gave on getting off on the right foot when you work with a cat born with street smarts, wrapped in fear of all things unknown. Do not be that person that ruins things for cats like Daisy because you don’t know quite what you are doing. Learn the stuff. Get the training. Then….go out and conquer. If you want to see this in action, you can watch Daisy in in On the Road with Jodi and Danelle. Hmmmm, maybe there is hope for Lily yet!

Cats in media have bloopers too

It’s not just human TV stars who have blooper reels. Many felines from the media have portions of tape they’d rather not have anyone see!