Hello Furiends,
Fall is here and we love the cozy weather, especially when The Human comes home and turns on the fireplace for us for a little while.

The Human bought us a drinking fountain. Lily and I are cutting it a wide swath but it’s early days yet and frankly, I don’t see the need to drink from that thing when I have The Human trained to turn on the bathroom faucet for me. Oliver is an early adaptor and he was the first to check it out and and he drinks out of it. Lily and I are in “wait and see” mode.

Speaking of The Human, she had some work to do at home and I love helping her. Here’s a little slide show about my position as her purrsonal assistant.

The Human asked Lily if she’d model her new collar (made from kimono fabric) since we talked about it last week. Lily took the meowdeling session quite seriously.

And then there’s the magical day that The Human caught Ollie and I snuggling Lily (we rarely allow any photos of these events).

And finally, one of the rarest photos of all, all three of us in one shot!

Well, that’s it for the happenings in our neck of the woods. And now the news.

Michigan man’s cats are tallest and have longest tail in the world, Guinness World Records says

Oliver wanted to use this news item to campaign to end his D-I-E-T but after purrusing the story I had to give him the sad news that “biggest” as described in this article is not girth, but length and height.

Two cats who live in Detroit have received the Guinness World Records declaration as the tallest and longest feline tail

Will Powers who owns the cats has a history of having big felines. Two of his previous cats hold the all-time records for tallest cat and cat with the longest tail before both perished in a fire. 

Now, Fenrir Antares Powers which is a Savannah breed, and Altair Cygnus Powers which is a Maine Coon breed, have taken over the record of the largest living cats in terms of height and tail length.

“Call him the Big Chungus or the Chonk, he just grew and grew like Clifford the Big Red Dog,” Powers said in an interview with Guinness World Records, talking about Fenrir. 

Fenrir is 18.83 inches tall. He comes from a long line of massive house cats and is the current record holder for tallest living cat. Powers says he is very loving, very outgoing, and he’s often used as a therapy animal at Powers pet rescue.

He also has a voracious appetite and is known for grabbing food off the counter – something only a cat with his size could pull off. He can even open doors when he wants to walk through the home. 

The other cat, Altair is also called ‘The Floofus” due to his long and very fluffy tail which measures at 16.07 inches. His personality is a bit different from the other five cats that live with Powers. He loves cuddles and being held.

Maine Coon cats reach their maximum growth at age 5, Altair is not 5 yet so who knows how long his tail will end up being.  

We have asked The Human to get out the tape measure and see how tall we are and how long our tails are. We’ll report back next week.

Tiny kitten in Sarasota, Florida, is a Hurricane Ian survivor as shelter misses worst of storm

There are many stories of wonderful humans caring for and saving kitties during and after Hurricane Ian. We especially liked this story. A small staff  at an animal shelter in Sarasota, Florida, managed to take care of over 100 cats and a four-day-old kitten even in the midst of the horrible storm,.

At Cat Depot in Sarasota, staff members hunkered down inside the shelter overnight as wind banged at their windows amid the hurricane. Some water did make its way inside the building. One of the workers said, “[It was] dripping off … and then collecting it into the litter box at the bottom,”

The people there mopped and cleaned all night.  The center has a steel roof which is great for surviving a hurricane but lousy for peace and quiet and the cats were bombarded with much noise. The cats had places to hide and the staff put up sound adsorbing material to counter the noise.

Insulation on the roof partly came off, some items inside like dishes and laundry facilities were lost and the hot water and power in the building went out. Needless to say the staff got little-to-no sleep the night Ian hit.

Cat Depot also opened its building to the public if anyone wanted to drop off their animals as they braced for the storm. They are hoping to reopen on Saturday

The nonprofit relies on community donations and volunteers, and the cleanup process takes all hands on deck. The staff is grateful they missed the worst of Ian — and that all the animals are safe. Paws Up to these wonderful humans!!

Whiskers & Wine has been promoted as the first full-service cat lounge, bar and restaurant in America

As soon as we found this article, The Human said, “sign me up”. The owner of Whiskers and Wine, Nicole Smith said her vision was to build a place for the community to gather, while having food and drinks, surrounded by adoptable cats. With specialty cocktails like Jaz’s Pearfect Meowtini, Nick’s Whiskey Meower and the Peach Pussycat, the space is dedicated to felines down to the decor and the rooftop lounge where cats can catch some sun.

The cats come from Saving One Life, an animal rescue group dedicated to giving shelter and medical care to stray, abandoned and surrendered felines until they find permanent adoptive homes.

Just to make sure that people don’t get tipsy and decide to take a cat home rightaway there’s an adoption application to make sure that the kitties go to furever homes.

All the food and drinks are prepared behind glass, and there is a separate area where guests can watch the cats, but almost everyone enjoys the up-close company of cats.

The Human says this is her purrfect idea of a date, too bad it’s too far to get to San Diego from Northern Idaho!

It only costs $30 to reserve your cat therapy session and you can spend 90 minutes hanging out with the cats while enjoying food and drinks. Meowza, what a fun time! If any of our furiends live in San Diego and visit Whiskers & Wine, meow at us and let us know what  you thought.

Big dog obsessed with cats gets his own feline

Archie the Samoyed is so obsessed with cats that he insists on greeting every feline he sees. Even when he’s at doggy daycare surrounded by other dogs, he begs to go outside to watch the cats for hours on end, which they call his “Cat TV.” His humans finally caved and got Archie his very own kitten. .It took  B the kitten a little time to get used to Archie, but now they go on walks together and cuddle as well. To keep up with Archie & B, follow along on TikTok https://thedo.do/archieandbTT

“Headless” cats win photo award

The Comedy Pet Photo Awards has announced the winners of the 2022 competition with top honors going to Kenichi Morinaga with his photo of two cats sitting on a fence that makes them appear as if they are headlessly conjoined.

The photo, titled Boom! Boom! depicts a cartoon-like connection of two cats, beat out about 2,000 other entries to take the top prize, some of which were shown in the list of finalists published in July. The photographer is from Japan and says he enjoys visiting the small islands around his country and taking photos of the street cats he finds there.

This photo was also picked as the winner of the Best Cat photo category, took home the £2,000 cash prize, plus a £5,000 donation from Animal Friends Pet Insurance that goes to an animal welfare or conservation charity of his choice.

He says that after much deliberation, he decided to make his donation to The Cat Welfare Group, an organization based on the U.K’s South Coast that helps rescue and re-home stray and abandoned cats.

The Comedy Pet Photo Awards says that judging this year was the closest it has ever seen, with just 10 points separating the top six places and seven different countries were represented in the Category Winners, which are listed below.