We’re BAAAAAACK! As we’ve noted before, we’ve been having some staff issues and we do apologize. Our Purrsonal Assistant has been a bit of a trial but we believe we finally have her under control. Dealing with this woman has been like herding cats!
First it was family moving to her town, Christmas and a family wedding. Then it was a horrible flu (the coughing really disturbed our sleep for two weeks!) and then it was finishing her first book in her cozy mystery series. We sat her down and told her she had FOF, fear of finishing, and she needed to get the last chapter done! Since this is a series that has both Al and I in it, we have a vested interest (Lily may be written in later).
So there you have it. As we seek to overcome this last time drain on our Purrsonal Assistant’s time we are looking forward to offering you, our beloved furiends more content and on a regular basis. Oliver did have some advice for her (he’s such a caring guy)
And we all felt a certain kind of way about our purrsonel issues.
So there you go, paws crossed that the issues with our PA are resolved!
Oh my whiskers, I’m a sucker for stories about kitties reunited with their families. The Maui Humane Society in Hawaii reunited a cat with her owners after she was lost during the wildfires last year. A post on the shelter’s Facebook page announced that the cat, named Mahina, was found after surviving 100 days in the burn zone.
Mahina’s humans were relocated after the fire.They filed a missing pet report about Mahina right away. Eventually they moved to Montana and they lost hope of ever finding their feline again.
Mahina was found by the Maui Humane Society’s Fire Task Force in February. After checking for a microchip (the family had updated the information when they moved). The family was thrilled to hear Mahina had been found.
It was no small feat getting her to Montana from Hawaii. Thanks to the efforts of the Maui Humane Society who covered the cost of Mahina’s health certificate and travel to her family via Hawaiian and Alaska airlines, with a transporter helping to get her from Seattle to Montana.
Mahina is now home and doing very well. She is an inside kitty (she’s not fond of the Montana snow) and very happy to be inside.
It was four years after their cat had disappeared and the Smyth family had given up hope when they got the call, “We have your Blueberry”.
Blueberry disappeared in November of 2019 from his home in Bangor, County Down, on Northern Ireland’s coast and turned up in County Galway in western Ireland.
He was noticed outside the SuperValu supermarket, looking ill. A man took him to the local veterinary practice to have him looked over. The vet diagnosed him with the cat flu and knew the cat had been owned by someone because he was very affectionate at the clinic.
Blueberry had a microchip but there was no information on him. The vets then tried Europetnet, which covers 26 European countries, and found a match in the UK. They discovered his name was Blueberry, that he was 10 years old, and that he had started his odyssey four years earlier and more than 150 miles away.
Blueberry’s family couldn’t wait to bring him home and he is happily enjoying being with his people again.
Humans, allow me to say again that keeping your feline ‘s microchip info current is critical. Neither Blueberry or the cat in the previous story would be back in their homes if their humans hadn’t kept the microchip information current.
Meowza, here’s a creative, feline friendly idea! Patrons at this library can clear their damaged or lost library fines by visiting the library with an image of a cat. They ‘re calling the program “March Meowness.”
“Even if you don’t have a cat in your life, you can still draw one,” said library Executive Director Jason Homer. The library created the program in an effort to bring people back to the library system’s seven locations, regardless of whether they have fees under their account.
The library has done fee-forgiveness programs in the past, but Homer said the staff wanted to try a new, more creative approach.
In addition to fee forgiveness, the library’s March calendar is littered with other cat-themed programming. There’s a cat eye makeup tutorial (for humans, not cats), a lecture from a certified cat behaviorist, an event to de-stress with cats from the Worcester Animal Rescue League and more.
“We librarians love our cats,” Homer said. “We’re really leaning in on the fact that, all in all, librarians are cat people, so we thought, let’s lean in on the joke, let’s be part of the joke, and let’s have fun together.”
Who knew libraries were such lovers of cats? Patrons at the Peoria Public Library North Branch held a pop up cat café and the response was great, the lines to get in wrapped all around the building.
The pop-up cat café was sponsored by the Peoria Humane Society to bring awareness to all the cats up for adoption at PCAPS.
“They do a lot of story times, and they have an active group of people that come out here all the time. So it was just an easy way for us to bring some cats, get some attention and focus on reading and literacy and just really focus on finding homes for homeless cats.”
Kudos to this forward thinking, feline friendly library!
We hope your humans are showing you love and that you have offered extra head bonks and purrs to your staff…errrr…humans. Oliver and Lily and I decide to create our own valentines for you and this week our theme is love and Valentine’s Day celebrations.
Cara and Matt Hamdan were in the middle of exchanging vows when a loud purring was heard by the entire wedding party and it seemed to be coming from a bush.
The bride was focused on the vows her husband had written when people at the wedding began laughing. When she turned around the source of the laughter was seen, a loud purring Tabby.
The groom chose to finish his vows before he reacted to the interruption.
After the wedding the groom’s mother kept in touch with the venue to find out if the cat was still there and how it was doing. The venue employees as well as the bride and groom were cat lovers and so a plan was created to catch the cat. It took two weeks but they were finally successful. The cat was taken to the local shelter were the newlyweds arrived to adopt it.
The new feline now lives with another cat named Gatsby. The kitty is loving and affectionate and enjoying her new life with her feline sibling and her humans.
The Humboldt & District SPCA in Saskatchewan, Canada animal shelter’s latest fund raiser for spaying and neutering cats is a special event for Valentine’s Day.
For every $50 donation the non-profit will name a cat after the ex-partner of the person’s choosing will spay or neuter the cat.
Although this is a bit of a cynical take on Valentine’s day, it appealed to a lot of folks as the shelter’s Facebook post announcing the event received 600 likes in the first 24 hours.
Evidently this spay/neuter Valentine’s day program is being offered in numerous shelters in the U.S. and Canada and they seem to be successful indicating that not everyone has warm and fuzzy feelings about Valentine’s Day.
And if you are not sentimental about Valentine’s Day but not excited about the spay/neuter fundraiser, another shelter is running a program called “You deserve better!” The Animal Charity of Ohio. wrote on their social media page, “Treat yourself this Valentine’s Day by having us write your ex’s name on a litter box and we’ll let our rescue cats do what they do best!”
It’s easy to fall in love with a feline but this feline has captured the hearts of an entire town.
Susie the cat moved from Upwey to Dorchester, Englad with her humans Linda and Michael Crow. She settled into her new home quickly and has been spotted by hundreds of people across the town, and has achieved such fame that she’s featured in postcards promoting Dorchester.
Evidently everyone in Dorchester is Susie’s valentine.
What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with this photo of two cats in a heart-shaped snuggle?
These 2-month old siblings are named Psilo and Meskie live their best life with their human in Bengaluru, India and they spend the day playing together and then groom each other every night before they go to sleep.
Hello Furiends, Yes, it’s true, the deadline for our feature last week came and went and our Purrsonal Assistant completely dropped the ball. I am pleased to tell you that after an intense staff meeting and a stern warning (and some extra treats), The Human has changed her ways and promised to meet our stringent editorial standards. This also includes handling our comments on the wonderful blogs many of our furiends run. We advised her that there would be no future slacking (yes, she was quite ill but this should not effect the level of service at Feline Opines.
We have been blessed (or cursed depending on your point of view regarding snow) this winter and although we’ve had a lot pf purrcipitation here in the Inland Northwest, it’s been mostly rain. We indoor kitties have no opinion either way but The Human was thankful she was spared snow shoveling when she was sick. Since the subject of snow came up this week Oliver, Lily and I decided to imagine ourselves in a snow setting and each of us had graphic made to reflect our preferences. We then decided this week’s web wanderings would be about cats and snow.
Oliver said he fancied himself in the snowy woods on a snowmobile. Yeah right, Oliver can’t even stay in the room when The Human rolls out the vacuum monster.
Lily purrfers the gentler, more old fashioned snow activities and thinks sailing down a mildly sloping hill on a hand carved sled would be her winter activity.
As for me, I’m not so excited to get out in the cold but I’d be happy for a rest in a tepid spa (I do love water) with a catnip cocktail and a nice view of the snow outside.
And now on to our wintery web news finds. I hope you enjoy.
Blueberry, a 5-year-old cat, was brought to the Caldwell Mill Animal Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama after her owners began noticing she wasn’t feeling well. The cat remained at the clinic over the weekend and on Tuesday morning the cat took a turn for the worse. Two of the clinic’s technicians came in, braving the ice and snow to take X-rays that showed the cat had ingested something and was in need of immediate surgery.
Dr. Nicole Martin knew she had to get to the clinic to help Blueberry. The temperatures were frigid and the roads were so icy drivers were warned to stay off the streets. Martin decided that since she lived the closest and she needed to get to Blueberry so she set off and walked the three miles to the clinic.
The operation was successful and the object that Blueberry had ingested was removed. Blueberry is recovering fully thanks to the dedication of Dr. Martin and the technicians at Caldwell Mill Animal Clinic.
As a side note, we were a bit surprised about snow in Alabama so we sent our researcher to find out. She located a site called Does It Snow.com, checked Alabama and found out this isn’t unusual. Who knew?
Rescuing a kitten in a snow storm was probably not on Sara Dykstra or Karen Hendrickson’s list of 2024 goals. They had been receiving reports of a kitten living in the rocks along Bradford Beach. Volunteers from the Urban Cat Coalition in Milwaukee spent over a week trying to trap the kitten. They estimated it was three or four months old and they knew she was in rough condition.
After snowstorms battered the area for a week an Arctic blast plunging temperatures to below zero was predicted. The kitten survived the storm but rescuers were worried she’d freeze. They knew they needed to trap her and get her inside.
This is why Sara Dykstra, of Milwaukee, and Karen Hendrickson, of St. Francis, found themselves at Bradford Beach early one morning.
“We had such a limited time frame to get her before this -25 wind chill temperatures were coming in that night,” Dykstra said. “If we didn’t get her, we didn’t think she would survive.”
It was difficult for them to think that this little kitten had survived the conditions at the lake but survive she did. They were able to locate the kitten in the rocks but she refused to come out. When she did venture out a bit to check out the trail of food they’d place leading to the trap.
“We could see her and she would meow to us, but we just couldn’t reach in and grab her,” Hendrickson said. “She was too far down and too scared to come out.”
After two hours in the cold, neither woman wanted to give up. They didn’t want to leave the kitten to a certain doom. They tried another tactic, removed a shoe lace from one of their boots and hoped the kitten would be enticed to play with it. One played with the shoelace that fascinated the kitten and the other one fed her ham. She got close enough and they were able to swoop her up.
Once in the cage Ruby was taken to the home of one of the rescuers so she could be warmed up. She was then taken to the veterinarian for a checkup. She was declared healthy with only a flea problem. Her weight was good and so was her fur and there were no eye or respiratory infections.
Ruby spent a few weeks with Henrickson. She is slowly being socialized and the hope is to pair her with another single kitten and to have the two adopted together at the Urban Cat Coalition.
What a wonderful story of survival and kindness and determination of these wonderful women.
Oliver has a special message about this past week.
In light of the suffering The Human has endured this week and the Tribe’s efforts to sooth her with purr therapy, I thought it would be a good week to talk about how we’re good for human health (even emotional health) and sometimes even saving your life! We hope you enjoy and that your humans stay healthy!
In the clip, rescue cat Calvin swiftly responds to his owner’s discomfort, positioning himself beside her head, purring and gently nuzzling her face. Alongside the video are hashtags including #headacheremedy and #healingcats.
While there is no definitive scientific evidence that cat purrs have healing properties, some studies and hypotheses suggest potential benefits. For example, a 2001 paper found how the frequency of cat purring is similar to vibrational and electrical frequencies used in treatment for fractures, pain, muscle strain, joint flexibility, and wounds.
Research has proven that pets improve your health. Here are a few.
Fight Allergies
People used to think that if a family had a pet the children were more likely to become allergic to the pet. Now a growing number of studies are suggesting that kids raised with furred animals, like felines, will have less risk of allergies and asthma.
New studies indicate that infants with furried animals in the home were less likely to show evidence of pet allergies– 19% vs. 33%. They also were less likely to have eczema, a common allergy skin condition that causes red patches and itching. In addition, they had higher levels of some immune system chemicals — a sign of stronger immune system activation.
Aging
“Studies have shown that Alzheimer’s patients have fewer anxious outbursts if there is an animal in the home,” says Lynette Hart, PhD, associate professor at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
“Their caregivers also feel less burdened when there is a pet, particularly if it is a cat, which generally requires less care than a dog,” says Hart.
Walking a dog or just caring for a pet — for elderly people who are able — can provide exercise and companionship. One insurance company, Midland Life Insurance Company of Columbus, Ohio, asks clients over age 75 if they have a pet as part of their medical screening — which often helps tip the scales in their favor.
Healthy Mind and Soul
Pet owners with AIDS are far less likely to suffer from depression than those without pets. “The benefit is especially pronounced when people are strongly attached to their pets,” says researcher Judith Siegel, PhD.
In one study, stockbrokers with high blood pressure who adopted a cat or dog had lower blood pressure readings in stressful situations than did people without pets.
People in stress mode get into a “state of dis-ease,” in which harmful chemicals like cortisol and norepinephrine can negatively affect the immune system, says Blair Justice, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health and author of Who Gets Sick: How Beliefs, Moods, and Thoughts Affect Your Health.
Studies show a link between these chemicals and plaque buildup in arteries, the red flag for heart disease, says Justice.
Like any enjoyable activity, interacting with your cat can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine — nerve transmitters that are known to have pleasurable and calming properties, he tells WebMD.
Good for the Heart
Heart attack patients who have pets survive longer than those without, according to several studies. Male pet owners have less sign of heart disease — lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels — than non-owners, researchers say.
So there you go humans, we felines are good for your health!
We’re not just good for your health, we can save your life too.
The Fresno Fire Department said a woman’s life likely was saved after her pet cat woke her up during a fire inside her home.
Fresno Fire said a woman, who lives alone in a mobile unit in the area of Blackstone and Herndon avenues, fell asleep after cooking Tuesday.
She, however, left a stove top burner on and it somehow caused a big enough fire that part of her mobile home ended up damaged, Fresno Fire said.
With no smoke detectors found inside the unit, Fresno Fire believes the woman might not have known about the fire until it was too late had her cat not come to her rescue and nudged her awake.
“If it hadn’t been for the cat, there’s a strong possibility she might not have made it out,” Fresno Fire public information officer Joshua Sellers said.
Sellers said the woman suffered only minor smoke inhalation.
Though part of the mobile home was charred, much of the residence was saved thanks in part to a fire engine showing up within a minute of reports of a fire.
Sellers said the fire engine just so happened to be driving by for training when the call came in for help.
Sometimes our humans suffer from something that isn’t illness but grief. We felines care when our humans suffer from grief and we can help with that too.
Jason Lindo sat alone in the Lombard Funeral Home in Sacramento, reading psalms while performing shmira, the Jewish ritual for the 90-year-old Jewish mother of a close friend. His beloved dog crossed the Rainbow Bridge that morning making his grief all the more heavy. He heard a sound, looked down and saw Lana, a 5-year old brown tabby with black stripes. Lana lives at the nondenominational funeral home, one of two primary partners with the Jewish cemetery Home of Peace in Sacramento.
Lana and Oreo and Zuko, two felines who comfort those mourning at Home of Peace Jewish cemetery in Sacramento also offer love and purrs to those whose hearts are broken.
Despite his cat allergy, Lindo suffered through the sniffles and itchiness and said, “But I thought: You know what? This is worth me putting up with, because I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s something really special,” Lindo said. “And I’m not going to interrupt that.”
Lana has comforted many who mourn and folks often leave with cat hair all over their mourning attire.
Lana works healing therapy for those who mourn. There is a place for cats to comfort those who mourn and we should never underestimate the healing power of felines.
Hello Furiends, I hope the new year is treating you well in your neck of the woods. I know some of you are having a purrticularly brutal winter and hope you are all staying warm and cozy. It’s snowy in our neck of the woods but not too bad and that’s how The Human likes it.
Since I had the opportunity to opine last week Oliver has insisted on a turn so, before we go into our news items, Oliver will provide his two cents. Also, this week we have a theme which is felines who live life as long haul truckers. We found some great stories and hope you enjoy them too. And now, heeeeeereeees Oliver!
Hello there furiends. I felt compelled to say a few words about traveling cats due to the theme of this week’s feature. Now I’ve never traveled in a semi-truck but I have made a number of trips in the car. As a matter of fact, I am the only member of our tribe who travels in the car mostly without the dreaded cat carrier (because I’m a very well behaved kitty). Why I even took a trip to Starbucks to make my film “Bring Me My Catpuccino!”
Oliver takes a little jaunt in the car to Starbucks
I quite enjoy the occasional car trip and even did an hour trip to the kitty spa with The Human in October. Still, I wonder what it would be like to live in a big truck. I wouldn’t mind watching the scenery go by but I’m not so sure the level of service I experience here would be available to me. For instance, do trucks have big enough beds for a human and a 21 1/2 pound feline to sleep comfortably? And what about the breakfast schedule and daily snack schedule? Is there room for me to play with my favorite toys at midnight and enough space for me to run full speed down a hallway at 2:00am?
I may not want to live a truckers life but I salute all those truckers who travel with their felines.
I’m not so sure this life on the road would be for me and, as much as I hate to admit it, I would miss my brofur Alberto and Lily (aka Princess Stabby Toes). Sigh, I guess the traveling life isn’t for me after all but I do think you will enjoy these stories about felines who love the vagabond life.
Taking a feline on the road with you alleviates lonliness for truckers and this is why Chad McIntyre traveled with his feline buddy, Tyler.
Then, two months ago in November, while changing Tyler’s litter box and getting ready for the next trip, Tyler escaped from the truck at the Flying J Truck Stop in Fernley, Nevada.
Chad had a deliver to make and had to leave. He returned after two and a half hours to search for Tyler. He had to leave for California the next day and Chad returned the next night to search again.
Chad’s wife, Brandy, posted all over social media and found Facebook groups and Trucker groups to share the information about Tyler. And, miracle of miracle, five days later she found out that Tyler was at an animal shelter 670 miles from where he went missing. Tyler was in a shelter in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Rock Springs Animal Control supervisor Lydia Gomez said Tyler was found by a concerned citizen at a Flying J in Rock Springs. They scanned Tyler for a microchip and found his humans.
“We were able to check him in and he was microchipped, so we were able to locate an owner,” Gomez said. Then Gomez worked with independent transport coordinator Joan Nickum to help get Tyler back to his home in Decatur, Illinois.
Nickum coordinates transports by finding people to drive shorter legs of long road trips to transport animals from shelters to rescues, rescues to owners, and shelters to adopters. She drove four hours to help reunite Tyler with his family.
Tyler was reunited with his family on New Year’s Eve. The theory is that Tyler hitched a ride with another trucker to the Wyoming truck stop.
Tyler has been temporarily suspended from traveling but we’re sure he’ll be on the road again soon. And people, please, please microchip your felines and make sure your registration information is up to date!
Maverick and Peanut travel America in a semi-truck, and when not traveling they’re visiting family or just relaxing at home with their furry siblings. They have an Instagram account and this video on YouTube.
Lonely Truck Driver Adopts Abandoned Cat And Now He’s His Official Co Pilot
Paul Robertson works as a truck driver. For many years he was accompanied on his trips by his cat Howie. When Howie crossed The Rainbow Bridge, Paul missed his friend on long trips. Paul went to a shelter and adopted another cat to be his road trip buddy. It looks like Paul’s new co-pilot is taking to life on the road.
This might be one of the groups that Tucker’s human posted information when he disappeared from the truck stop. This is a public Facebook group that offers great photos of truck traveling felines.
If these stories have made you wonder if your feline would make a good companion on road trips, here is an article from ezfreight factoring with some tips. Happy traveling!
Life on the road gets lonely, that’s a proven fact. If you’re a trucker looking to potentially bring a furry friend along on your drives, consider getting a cat! Trucking with cats can be simple and rewarding if it’s done right, but if you are planning on bringing your kitty along, it would be a very wise choice to invest in some cat insurance in case anything unsuspected happens to your travelling companion while out on the road.
Benefits of Trucking with a Cat
Cats are low maintenance. They eat once or twice a day, are comfortable in contained spaces and don’t require being let out every few hours like a dog.
They offer companionship. Once a cat warms up to you, they’re extremely loving. They crave human attention and enjoy nesting themselves close to you, wherever you are. Bringing a feline friend on the road is a great way to prevent being homesick.
They’re obedient. Cats can be trained to walk on a leash, sit on your shoulder or perform tricks if you have treats and patience.
They’re protective. If something sounds weird or looks off, your cat will let you know. They might not be as intimidating as a dog, but they will still alert you to dangers.
How to take your cat trucking
Before you just stick your cat in your truck and take off, you need to do some preparation.
Cat-Proof Your Truck
You’re going to need to make some slight additions to your truck if you’re planning to bring your cat along.
First things first, make sure you have bowls for food and water. Some drivers like to attach Velcro to the bottoms of the bowls so they’ll stay in a certain place then the truck is moving. Try and purchase bowls that are deep so water doesn’t splash out while you’re on the road.
If you want to take your cat trucking, you’re going to need to get a litter box. Contrary to popular belief, litter boxes don’t always smell. If they’re tended to correctly, your truck nor your clothes will smell like cat excrement. Use scoopable litter, clean it once a day and deep clean it once a month. For added smell protection, sprinkle in a box of baking soda.
Trucking with cats is no different than living with cats. That being said, make sure there are a few comfy spots in the truck where your feline friend can hang out while you’re driving. Put a blanket in the sunshine, have a few toys lying about and bring some treats along. Making your truck feel like home is a big step toward getting your cat to consider it one.
If your cat has claws, consider purchasing a scratch pad. They’re relatively inexpensive and will go a long way in keeping your trucker cat happy and your semi rip-free.
Train Your Cat
Most felines aren’t going to hop into a semi and happily drive off with you on the first try. It takes a little bit of work to get your cat assimilated to the movement of the truck and life on the road.
Start putting your pet cat in your truck while it’s off. Place their favorite toys and blankets inside the cab and let them play and explore. Reward them with treats if they’re being good.
Once you’ve done that a few times and your cat appears more comfortable, turn your truck on. The noise itself might be startling at first but reward them with treats and affection until they become used to the noise. This is a good time to also place a litter box in the truck. Place your cat inside and give them treats, so they know it’s an OK place for them to go.
The next step is taking your truck out for a short and slow drive. This is your feline’s first attempt at being a trucking cat! It takes some animals longer than others to adjust to the movement and feel of the semi, so be patient. Your cat should eventually warm up to being in the space and associate being in the cab with hanging out with you and getting treats.
Hit The Road!
If your truck and cat are both ready, it’s time to hit the road! Make sure to have your trucker cat’s papers with you, you never know when you might have to stop at the vet. Also bring extra cleaning supplies! Your cat sheds, the litter box granules escape, etc. You’ll thank yourself later.
If you need money to fuel up while traveling with your feline from point A to point B, consider truck factoring. Truck factoring lets you sell your active invoices for a cash advance, allowing you to transport your goods where they need to go without pulling money out of your own pocket. Have questions? Give us a call. Our factoring experts are ready to answer any question you might have.
Hello Furiends, I hope you had a purrfectly wonderful New Year’s celebration. The holidays at our house have been a bit whacky. The Human’s family arrived in full force. They celebrated Christmas and New Year’s together and will soon be celebrating a wedding. Good grief, The Human lives a fairly sedate social life and suddenly she’s turned into a social butterfly!
While she was galivanting around Lily, Oliver and I held a Feline Opines staff meeting and decided that we needed to get our points of view out in this blog so we have created some spots for all three of us to share our views of the world with all of you, Here is our first stab at this new endeavor, we hope you like it. (We are not abandoning our #WalkThroughTheWebWednesday feature)
Well furiends, we made it through this holiday season-barely. While The Human was dancing around to family social engagements we were left to fend for ourselves. Because of this dereliction of duty, we made sure to demand extra treats on a regular basis (evidently this technique had consequences as my collar is now a little tighter.)
In The Human’s defense, she did order us some nice things from Chewy and there were lots of skritches when she finally got home from her soirees. Still, when she was here, she was completely absorbed in finishing her book. She was maniacal in her maniacal quest to get the job done and despite our skepticism she actually did it!
When we innocently requested a kitty tale for the new year, she decided to tell us a Christmas story about Jólakötturinn, (Yule Cat) an Icelandic Christmas story. If my brief recap gives you the desire to learn more you can go to the Icelandic Folklore website, a research project managed by the University of Iceland. Oh my whiskers was that request a mistake!!
Jóhannes úr Kötlum, an Icelandic poet, wrote about the Yule Cat in his book, Jólin koma (Christmas is Coming), published in 1932.
The poem tells the tale of a huge cat with eyes that glow. This frightening feline roams the country, looking for children that are not wearing the new clothes they got for Christmas. Good grief, this is a bit of an overreaction, don’t you think? I guess if I were a little human in Iceland I’d be sure to wear every piece of clothing I received for Christmas!
As for this feline, I strongly object to a story that makes us the bad guy and scary to kids. Everyone knows kitties are furiends to all children…as long as they don’t pull our tails or treat us cruelly.
This story, along with all the fireworks going off outside at midnight, gave Oliver quite a fright. Lily just stayed buried under the covers until it was all over.
The Human has advised us that we’re in for quite a bit of snow in the next few days. We felines will sit by the fire and enjoy the view from the dining room window.
We all wish you a 2024 full of blessings and treats!
Purrs and Head Bonks, Alberto, Oliver, Lily and The Human
Oliver, Alberto and Lily are reflecting about the events of 2023 and will be posting some of their highlights soon but in the meantime (and because the staff at Feline Opines decided to take a holiday and missed our weekly “Walk Through The Web Wednesday” post, we present this mewsical message from Oliver with a traditional song.
The lyrics were “adjusted” by The Human as per Oliver’s request. He reflects on those furiends we said good-bye to in 2023 and those who are with us, reminding us that we should treat all our furiends with kindness (even the dogs as Oliver notes)
Still no new snow in our neck of the woods but The Human keeps reminding us that she chose to move to the Inland Northwest to avoid draconian amounts of snow like she experienced when she lived in the Rockies. Since we’re inside kitties it doesn’t make any difference to us. As a matter of fact, when it’s not snowy and only rainy, that’s a great time for The Human to take us for a neighborhood tour in the cat stroller but, unfortunately, one of the wheels is broken and The Human is still trying to figure out how to fix it.
Whenever we get a Chewy box it’s a red letter day and this week we had a very good day. Lily was appointed box opening snoopervisor and she took her job seriously.
And once The Human got all the items out of the box, imagine our surprise when we saw a new scratcher! The Human slathered it with catnip and turned us loose. Oliver and I were the first to inspect this new item.
You may have noticed that the new scratcher is a bit, err…small and might not accommodate all our pulchritude but we still gave it our best effort and Oliver decided to prove the old “If it fits I sits” cat quote.
On another note, my brother has been play fighting with me and demolishing the whiskers on the right side of my face. As you can see from the photos, this mars my handsome countenance and makes me feel a little off balance.
That’s it for our neck of the woods for this week. I hope you enjoy this week’s feline news.
What do rice and cats have in common?
I’ve heard of unusual ways that people celebrate their love of us fantastic felines but this one is really cool!
There is a rice farmer in Thailand who creates beautiful pictures of cats in his rice fields.
Rice is one of the largest income producing products in Thailand and now the rice fields are becoming tourist attractions as well.
I don’t know how many of my feline furiends ever play or have played fetch (all three of us did this as kittens but we’re over it now), you might be interested in this.
Academics at the University of Sussex and Northumbria University in Great Britain surveyed almost 1,000 owners of 1,154 cats to find out if – and why – they fetch, which was defined as an animal retrieving an object that’s thrown.
Their study found that nearly 95% of the cat owners reported that their cats fetched itemsinstinctively, and they were not trained to do so.
They found that we felines fetch when we want to play fetch and not when the human decides we should play.
“So it can say a bit about cats being in control of their interactions and being in control of their environments, [or] being in control of us, you might even go so far to say,” says Jemma Forman, a doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex and co-author of the study.
They believe that our motivation to play fetch is different than the doggos too. We like to play with objects that remind us of prey. It’s not a social interaction like it is for our canine furiends.
No matter the motive for cats to play fetch, play is good for us!
Clearly our Human needs to step up her game! A human named Sam, shared details of the extravagant feline birthday party on her TikTok channel, @jet_set_gypsea.
I like the caption on the video that says: “Yes she’s a little spoiled but I think she deserves it! Princess treatment for our little princess girls!”
Sam celebrated both her cat’s birthdays together. Both felines received commissioned art work of each cat, although Sam admitted that this was more of a gift for her thaqn the cats.
Sam shopped at her favorite pet shop for birthday gifts. After the cats were done playing with their new toys, they ate their birthday meal from Dolce and Gabbana pet plates. We sent the Purrsonal Assistant on an internet search to find the plates to get an idea of the cost. Although she couldn’t find the exact plates, it looks like two Dolce and Gabbana plates run from $315.00 and up.
And what did the birthday girls eat from those plates? The starter was scallop and shrimp with a main course of “cheesy rabbit”.
Invitations to the party were sent to all of the feline’s furiends with the note that gifts were obligatory which meant they received lots of presents including many cat shaped items.
This feline thinks Sam just set the bar for feline birthday parties. Step up your game humans!
Some kitties love snow
Some of us are not fond of the white, wet stuff but then others of us enjoy some snowy play time. This cat’s human was even throwing snowballs for the cat to fetch. (And if you want to learn more about cats and fetching read the article above).
You go kitty and I’ll sit by the fire and watch your snowy video.
Happy Wednesday Furiends! The Human has been a bit frazzled, her human niece is getting married soon and there are all kinds of things to do. Translation= she’s been a slacker. Add to that the news that we found for this week has been dominated by numerous international news sites reporting that cats are dangerous killers and the general consensus is that we should be all locked up inside and we just didn’t have the enthusiasm for the feline news we found.
Soooooo, we decided to provide you with some holiday entertainment. We each selected a singer we like and lip-synced to a song. You’ll figure that out when you hear the deep baritone of Ollie’s song….that isn’t NOT his voice.
We hope you enjoy our special singing offering this week.
Hello Furiends, Winter is confused in our neck of the woods. We had some snow and now we’re having rain, rain and more rain. We don’t mind because we’re nice and cozy inside.
And speaking of cozy, we have nice beds in the office and since The Human is working from her home office, we expect treats on a regular schedule. Oliver and I, being a bit on the portly side, have the amount of treats we get restricted. Skinny Lily can eat as many as she wants. This week I’m sharing with you what we have to go to to get a treat!
“Hello Human, I see you’ve come in the kitchen to refresh your coffee. How about a small treat while you’re here?”
“She walked away and didn’t even offer me a tiny treat.”
“Hey there Human, sorry to interrupt but I didn’t want you to forget about treat time.”
“Seriously?! You could ignore this face?!”
“Oh no! This no treat thing doesn’t apply to me does it?”
Here’s hoping your humans will get you a treat while they read this week’s news.
We felines know that the world has been fascinated with us for centuries. We’ve inspired poetry, music, art and other creative endeavors.
Why even our very own Human has written 3 books and various stories in compilation books about us, her fantastic felines.
Bored Panda discovered a fantastic Instagram account called All Vintage Cats (@allvintagecats), created by journalist Paula Leite Moreira. This unique profile showcases vintage photographs of cats from various decades of the 20th century, offering us a wonderful album of felines of the past.
Sure, you read about delivery drivers bonding with canines at the homes where they deliver but they can also have a relationship with the resident feline too.
This relationship in Brandenburg,KY went viral on TikTok, getting over 8 million views.
Evan Snow is an Amazon driver from Clarksville and while on the job, he found a feline friend. Whenever Snow would drop off packages at Isaac Bowen’s family home in Brandenburg, the family cat, Lolly, would greet him on the porch. Snow would sit on the porch to pet and give love to Lolly. Sadly Lolly crossed the Rainbow Bridge at the end of October but she shared some lovely memories with Evan.
Isaac Bowen knew the bond Snow and Lolly had, and found security footage of Snow searching for Lolly after he passed.
Bowen made a video with the footage and clips of Lolly and posted it to TikTok. The video gained over 7 million views within the first two days. Thousands of positive comments from users showed an outpour of love for this pair – many of them wanted to do something special for Snow.
We all just know that when it came to Lolly and people, there was something special with that connection,” Bowen said. “He had an effect on people and people had an effect on him.”
Bowen was able to get in contact with Snow to tell him about the video and support, and gift him the presents TikTok users wanted to send him.
The gifts included fulfilled items from Snow’s Amazon Wishlist, a framed picture of Lolly, and a stuffed bear with a recording of Lolly’s iconic meow.
“It was kind of nice to see that video, see an effect he had on a random delivery driver and then be able to thank that delivery driver for still caring for him after,” Bowen said.
Right about now you’re probably ugly crying like our Human is!
We felines ar e, for the most part, not fani8s of vet visits. You humans all have your own “cures” for feline freak out. The Human likes to spray our carrier and the car seat with Feliway. Full disclosure, she’s not a fan of medication but we also understand that there are times when medication is called for.
Bonqat is the first FDA-approved animal drug containing pregabalin, which is used in human medicine as an anticonvulsant and to treat neural pain.
The drug is administered orally as a single dose of 5 mg/kg (0.1mL/kg) approximately 1.5 hours before traveling or a veterinary visit and can be given for two consecutive days, according to a November 17 announcement by the FDA.Orion Corp., a Finnish drug maker, conducted a field study of client-owned cats with a history of anxiety that included two separate visits over the course of five to 10 days as well as repetitive transportation and physical examinations for each cat.
A little over half of cats given Bonqat had a good to excellent response during both transportation and the veterinary visit compared to about one-third of cats given placebo, according to the FDA. In addition, 83 of 108 (77%) cats given Bonqat showed improvement in levels of fear and anxiety over the course of the two physical examinations, compared with 46 of 101 (46%) cats given placebo.
Adverse reactions related to Bonqat included mild sedation, ataxia, and lethargy.
Bonqat is only available by prescription from a licensed veterinarian because it is a Schedule Class V drug under the Controlled Substances Act with a potential for human abuse. In addition, professional expertise is required to monitor the safe use of the product, including proper dosing and administration.
Appropriate precautions should be taken while handling Bonqat, the FDA warned, including avoiding contact with a person’s skin, eyes, and other mucus membranes. People exposed to pregabalin should seek medical advice and may experience dizziness, sleepiness, blurred vision, weakness, dry mouth, and difficulty with concentration or attention.
SHELTER CAT’S HILARIOUS ADOPTION DESCRIPTION GOES VIRAL: “SHE WILL OWN YOU”
Oh how I love when you humans are creative about working to find forever homes for felines. This story shows great creativity on the part of the humans at this shelter.
“Do you want a cat who doesn’t want you? Do you crave the feeling of being judged in your own home? Do you need someone who will slap you back into reality without notice? If you answered yes to any of these questions, we have the cat for you! Meet Quinn,” the Humane Society of Washington County wrote in a refreshing honest Facebook ad for the kitty.
“She’s our longest-term cat resident, and we get it,” they noted cheekily. “Quinn’s not for everyone.”
Washington County Human Society employees wanted Quinn to find a loving forever home, but they also needed to make sure that potential owners knew exactly what they’d be getting themselves into.
According to the shelter, Quinn “has an uncanny ability to make people feel unwelcome in her presence.”
On the plus side, they joked, this 3-year-old calico cat is very lazy, only wants to play once a month, and is “essentially a more lively houseplant, because all she really needs a human for is food, water, and changing her litter.”
Staff at the Humane Society of Washington County continued their quirky deadpan description of the adoptable cat, warning that she isn’t built for a home with dogs, kids, or cuddles.
They say that, if you decide to adopt Quinn the cat, “She will own you, your house, your belongings, and everything you hold dear.”
The cheeky post boasts over 1,000 views and hundreds of likes since being posted on November 24 as part of a Black Friday adoption sale.
According to an exciting new post, however, it looks like Quinn has finally found a taker!
“She’s not happy about it, but Quinn has been adopted!!” the shelter updated.
Quinn, we wish you good luck in your new home and hope your humans are the patient kind!
Can science find a better way to trim a cat’s nails?
The Human is ecstatic about this as our dear Lily (aka “Princess Stabby Toes”) has a tendancy to go feral if you try to hold her down and forget trying to clip her claws.
University of California, Davis, researchers are working with the Sacramento SPCA to alleviate a near-universal source of stress for cats and those who care for them: nail trimming.
Clipping a cat or kitten’s nails should be a routine practice, not only for the health of the cat and humans, but also to protect curtains, couches and other housewares.
But it can be a nerve-wracking task for all involved, and the noise and discomfort of a shelter can increase anxiety.
Ph.D. student Jennifer Link, who is in the UC Davis Animal Welfare Epi Lab, is working to lessen the trauma through a multistep protocol intended to desensitize the felines to handling and then nail clipping.
In mid-July, Link began visiting the Sacramento shelter each weekday in two-hour shifts to work on socializing rescued and surrendered cats to help ease their reactivity to new people, actions and environments. By the end of September, she had seen more than 70 cats.
“When people hear that I study cats, many ask if I can help them with nail trims,” Link said. “We know that socialization matters throughout life.”
Dan Marple, the animal welfare manager at the Sacramento Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said the research is of paramount interest to staff, volunteers and donors because it can reduce the stress of this necessary grooming need.
“Any new protocols that increase the comfort and safe handling of the cats in our care will also improve their overall well-being and adoptability,” he said.
The cats decide
Link’s research incorporates cooperative care, which lets the animals decide their level of interaction during the training process. The cats go through one of three scenarios with Link: a handling and nail trim training protocol, a handling-only training protocol, or a control with no training and only a nail trim. Each interaction is recorded for later analysis.
The protocol groups involve habituation to get the cats comfortable. On those days, they are removed from their cages and placed in a quiet shelter room where Link is sitting, with a mat laid out before her. If a cat puts their front two paws on the mat, they are given pets and a treat. The cat is meant to learn that Link interacts with them only when they place their paws on the mat. Once this is learned, Link moves forward with the training protocols.
In steps, Link touches the cat’s legs, then the paws and then those paws get a gentle squeeze. If they don’t resist, one nail is trimmed.
The procedure builds on past steps and works up. Once the cat has gone through all the steps, they get a nail trim. If a cat doesn’t interact or rejects any step, Link stops the handling. “I think with the cooperative care, it does seem to almost improve their trust in me,” Link said. “They are more comfortable if we let them decide.”
Improving life in the shelter
The work is funded as part of an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals applied behavior grant awarded to Carly Moody, an assistant professor who runs the Animal Welfare Epi Lab. The goal is to improve the welfare of cats during the routine procedure of handling and nail trims.
Moody said the protocol could be taught to volunteers, in order to change an often-stressful experience into a more positive experience for both the handler and the cat.
“A lot of cats in the shelter want affection,” Moody said. “Hopefully in the future something like this could be incorporated into shelter cat enrichment and management programs.”
It could also help owners at home and decrease the number of visits to clinics and veterinary hospitals, where people often seek help with nail clipping, Marple said.
“A lot of owners don’t have the tools to make nail trimming more positive,” Moody said.
Next, researchers will analyze the video sessions and finalize the protocol. If the protocol is found to be helpful, they may share it with cat managers at other shelters for additional data and input.
Paws crossed that this is a success and that all you humans can try it on your less than cooperative felines.
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