Walk Through The Web Wednesday – 6/21

Hello Furiends,
We’ve been having a cool summer (temperature, not type). The Human is frankly thankful because she chose to live in our neck of the woods precisely because it’s not known for extreme temperatures, although there have been summers with days in the high 90s. For instance, Weather Kitty’s report for today is what The Human considers a purrfect summer day.

As far as other happenings this past week, things have been mostly routine although Oliver has been quite unsettled because of his D-I-E-T. He finds it outrageous that The Human chooses menu options that contain NOTHING he is interested in eating and has decided begging isn’t even worth the effort.

This is an outrage, sprouted grain bread, spinach and an egg!
It wasn’t even worth jumping up here.

In a futile attempt to turn his attention from food to something else, Oliver decided he would “help” The Human put together some table decorations.

Those woody things look nice and crunchy.

When the reduced rations get to him, Oliver chooses a nap to forget about the terrible state of his life.

Lily, the little feline who has never had a weight problem, often encourages Ollie to relax and take some time to smell the roses.

We hope things have been doing well in your neck of the woods and Oliver hopes you get all the snacks, kibble and treats you deserve.

Florida woman leaves inheritance, Tampa estate to 7 Persian cats: Reports

I think a mansion would suit me quite well.

Now this is how you take care of your felines! A Florida woman who died in November decided to leave her estate to her seven Persian cats, along with an inheritance for each one. Nancy Sauer of Tampa, Florida left a stipulation in her will that her seven cats are to remain in her estate with each receiving an inheritance.

This isn’t that unusual, I reported on the inheritance Karl Lagerfeld left to his cat Choupette.  The will left by Sauer indicates that the estate not be sold until the last cat passes away. Despite this stipulation in the will, a a Hillsborough County probate judge recently decided that the cats should be placed in new homes.

A friend of the deceased said that she was worried that the cats would not do well if they were separated.

Sherry Silk, the executive director of the Humane Society of Tampa Bay has stated that the cats should not be alone in a house as large as the one they lived in.  The cats have now been at the Human Society for the last month and Silk said, “I am going to personally make sure that we can keep as many together as we can and that they go to the perfect house.”

 San Antonio Cat Extravaganza

Oh meowza, every city should have an event like this! The event, last weekend, celebrated local feline charities and rescues, there was an International Cat Competition, lots of seminars to learn more about fantastic felines, enjoy the antics of the Rock Cat Rescue’s Acro-Cats and buy a present for your cats at the shopping village.

Feline Water Fascination

Some of you less informed humans may think that cats hate water. This is not the case for all of us! There are cats that like to swim, ride on paddle boards, take to the sea in a boat or, as in my case, stick your head under the faucet (my regular morning routine) and enjoy the wetness.

The perks of adopting a wallflower

Lily was a bit shy when The Human first met her at the shelter.

This is a reminder that just because a kitty doesn’t run up to you to greet you when you’re looking for a new feline furiend at the shelter doesn’t mean this kitty isn’t loveable. Our very own Lily was quite shy (she still is in some circumstances with people she doesn’t know) is known as “Bug” or “The Bug” because she is such a love bug and she loves to curl up against the Human and go to sleep.

It does take time and patience to win over a timid cat but it’s worth it. Amanda Kowalski, vice president of behavior programs at San Diego Humane Society says, “The first time they start to interact with you, like giving you a nose touch or rubbing against you, is so gratifying and worth the wait.”

Sometimes it’s the environment like shelters or foster homes that make a cat shy. When looking at cats in a shelter or rescue, it’s important to remember that “what you see is not necessarily what you’re gonna get,” says Nancy Puro, volunteer and behavior programs manager at Cat Adoption Team, the largest cat shelter in the Pacific Northwest. She explains that the behavior a cat is displaying at a shelter or rescue may not reflect what their personality will be like once they settle into a home.  Again, this was the case with our Lily.

There are many types of shy cats. Some weren’t fully socialized when they were kittens, some act fearful because they’re overwhelmed by their surroundings. Any of you humans who have given a shelter kitty a furever home can attest to the fact that their personalities change quite a bit once they are comfortable and safe in their new home (and that often takes a while to achieve).

This doesn’t mean that a very shy cat will eventually turn into a social, stranger loving feline. Many shy cats, even after they’re out of their shell, will continue to be reserved and often will find a place to be alone to reenergize.

Please don’t disregard bringing a shy cat into your home. The article, linked above, has links to information to help you bring a shy kitty out of their shell. Oliver and I and the Human are glad The Human decided to bring shy Lily to our house.

It’s always good to have a snuggle bug in the house.

HHOLOVE Launched the World’s First Companion Robot for Cats. A robot cat sitter…hmmm

HHOLOVE, a rising digital pet brand under HHO, has launched the world’s first cat smart companion robot—O Sitter on Kickstarter, the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, on June 16 at 9am EST .

The system has integrated functions of AI Smart Life Recording, Interactive Companion, Reliable and Visible Feeding, O Sitter is considered a  groundbreaking differentiated product. The company says that the product is purrfect novice cat owners, frequent travel owners, and those who have to keep track of their cats when they are at work.  

The company says the O Sitter uses AI dynamic computing to automatically record the daily activities of your cats that can then viewed on an app.  

It also has a high-speed silent gimbal camera, combined with a laser and rich expression interaction design that will follow active cats.  There is a 360° horizontal + 110° vertical panoramic view which gives the cat owner a clearer “digital” view with its 4x digital zoom. O Sitter can detect the cat’s movement within 3 meters (about 118 inches), so that you can quickly target where they are.

And if all this tracking wasn’t enough, there’s a built in laser that can be manipulated by the app, either by the human directly or it can be preset.

The build-in laser can be manipulated by cat owners via APP to accompany their cats for remote play. It is also available to select a preset laser motion track.

And what good would a cat sitting robot be if there wasn’t a voice option for the human?  There is real time voice interaction as well, of course.

What else could you want? How about a customized feeding plan? Owners can add their cats’ information on the app and choose a feeding plan.  

What happens if there’s a power failure? The system will switch to battery-powered mode, and after the network is disconnected it will enter offline mode immediately, and the device will dispense food at regular intervals as scheduled.

O Sitter was made available on Kickstarter on June 16 with discounts of up to 50% off.

As wonderful as this all sounds, The Human isn’t sure she wants one more intrusive device in our home. She can’t say anything with Alexa plugged in without seeing ads for the things she’s talked about. She gets so annoyed; she doesn’t leave Alexa plugged in. And don’t get her started on Facebook that even seems to know what she’s thinking about purchasing! My guess is, this will not be part of our household. What about yours?

Walk Through The Web Wednesday – 11/30

siamese cat on a leash walking through a garden

Happy Wednesday Furiends!

Instead of talking about life in our neck of the woods this week, I want to talk about an amazing place we just learned about in a very far away neck of the woods. We received an email from Peter, a volunteer at Velvet Paws Sanctuary, a small regional cat shelter in Hajdúszoboszló which is close to the second largest Hungarian city Debrecen.

Peter wrote that Velvet Paws isn’t a shelter but a refuge in the home of a woman named Ilona. She was active in shelter volunteer work until she moved to Hajdúszoboszló. She found that people there weren’t interested in the fate of stray cats so she decided to create a foundation to help wounded and ill cats from the streets and provide medical assistance, shelter and food and find forever homes for the cats. Peter wrote that there are cats everywhere in the house (at present there are 50) and the cats aren’t allowed in the garden in the winter as it is too cold. All of the cats are all socialized and given free access. An old white cat lives in the bathroom because he needs extra care and feeding. There is only one cage in the house and that is used to keep the new small kittens separate from the older cats in the house.  

Peter does the web and social media work and is the only one who speaks English and who reached out to us. He explained that Hungarian taxpayers can send 1% of their tax to any listed foundation but as they are new, the sanctuary does not qualify yet. Peter also noted that he had registered the non-profit with TechSoup (a Google organization for non-profits) but they haven’t qualified yet for free Google advertising. We sent The Human over to Google to find out more about TechSoup and it doesn’t sound like they are interested in small non-profits like this one.

Everything done for Velvet Paws is done by volunteers and they rely on the kindness of the community to provide cat food and other supplies as well as help with veterinary costs.  They are taking advantage of free social media accounts and use a free Wix website as well and don’t have the funds to hire professionals. I say they’re doing a good job with the volunteers they have but things could always be better.

Their website, Twitter account and YouTube channel tell the stories of cats they’ve rescued. This story about Bársonyka, found when she was three months old, especially touched my heart. Her name means Velvet Kitty and when she was found two of her legs were broken and she had a traumatic diaphragm hernia.  After her fractures were fixed and  her hernia surgery completed, she was fine. She’s now waiting for someone to adopt her. Her surgeries cost the sanctuary $400.00. You can find this story and others on their website. They also have a program where you can virtually “adopt” one of their cats.

I hope you will check out this very deserving sanctuary and, if you are so moved, to help them in whatever way you can. Spreading the word about them is a big help so please share the story of the good people in Hungary who donate their time, treasure and home to help cats in need. And I know many of my furiends are well versed in the cat saving biz so if you have any ideas that could help them, please let them know. If your Hungarian isn’t up to snuff, you can send an email in English to Peter at hungarianvelvetpaws@gmail.com.

and now, on to the news.

The Famous Acro-Cats

I love these amazing felines! They are traveling the country and if you have the chance to see them take it. I would caution you not to expect any of their feats from your felines in residence, even if all the Acro-Cats are formal strays.

The current show is called “Meowy Catmas” and will be in various venues in the New Orleans area until Dec. 18th.

There will also be a special appearance by The Rock-Cats, the only cat band in the world, playing seasonal carol selections such as “A Cat in a Manger,” “Catnip Roasting on an Open Fire” and “God Rest Ye Merry Kittens.”

In addition to being on “Cat People,” the Amazing Acro-Cats have been featured on national TV shows including “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Animal Planet’s “Puppy Bowl,” “CBS News Sunday Morning” and PBS Nova’s “Cat Tales.”

Tickets range in price from $35 to $50. The first week of shows offers a $5 discount when purchased online. For show dates and times, and to purchase tickets, visit www.rockcatsrescue.org.

Tickets are also available at the door. This two-hour performance has limited seating, so advanced ticket purchases are suggested as it is always a sellout.

Volunteer opportunities are available during the show that will earn you a free ticket. Learn more here.

The Acro-Cats tour supports the Rock Cats Rescue, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Rock Cats Rescue is focused on saving cats “one click at a time” through cat welfare, rescue and adoption. Acro-Cats performances promote the importance of bonding and training cats with positive reinforcement, while also finding homes for rescued cats. Rock Cats Rescue has found homes for 310 cats and kittens since 2009.

What are doubloons? Why TikTok has been taken over by an imaginary cat meme ‘currency’

Have you been seeing the word ‘dabloons’, or doubloons, a lot lately, and are confused as to what is going on? Well evidently this feline isn’t the only one confused.

I did some research and will hopefully answer  your questions about the dabloon movement.

When I asked The Human what dabloons were she thought I was talking about doubloons which are gold coins dating back to 16th century Spain and used as currency for hundreds of years. Those aren’t the ones I’m talking about. The ones on TikTok came from a meme (said to have been on Instagram) from 2021 with a cat holding out a paw and the words, “four dabloons”. Each toe was worth one dabloon.

The meme quickly became popular on Tik tok and has evolved into “Dabloons” andnow refers to an imaginary currency. This doesn’t surprise me. Humans have been involved in quite a bit of imaginary currency these days. It is a fictional currency used to trade fictional items and only for fun and not to be taken seriously.

The meme quickly became popular on Tik tok and has evolved into “Dabloons” andnow refers to an imaginary currency. This doesn’t surprise me. Humans have been involved in quite a bit of imaginary currency these days.

It is a fictional currency used to trade fictional items and only for fun and not to be taken seriously.

The meme quickly became popular on Tik tok and has evolved into “Dabloons” and now refers to an imaginary currency. This doesn’t surprise me. Humans have been involved in quite a bit of imaginary currency these days. It is a fictional currency used to trade fictional items and only for fun and not to be taken seriously.

How it works

Humans collect ‘dabloons’ by just counting up how many times they have seen dabloons online. In other words,  if you see dabloons, you get dabloons, and each meme is worth four dabloons.

Humans are going to great effort toe create this dabloon economy in extreme detail. You can get into dabloon debt, dabloon theft, some are tracing dabloon inflation, and there are even claims of a dabloon IRS (the American Inland Revenue Service).

Dabloon shops have popped up, such as @dabloongrocerystore, offering items as innocuous as eggs and flour. You may come across videos featuring cats declaring “hello traveller” as though you are a weary adventurer making your way around the internet. They will then offer you a variety of items with prices in dabloons, which you can choose at your leisure. Hmm, maybe I should check this out for Oliver, he could use a job.

You have to keep track of your own dabloon spending, which some people are doing using excel spreadsheets.

Some people started to give away infinite dabloons, but this has started to play havoc with the economy. The hashtag dabloons has been viewed 520 million times on TikTok.

This feline has concluded that some of you humans have waaaaay too much time on your hands!

Feline Agility, or Why Cats Land Butter-Side Up

How do cats always land on their feet? Far from being some human urban myth, the majority of felines dropped from a height manage to land on all fours; from your domestic feline to the king of the beasts, feline agility is at work.

The falling cat question has been under scrutiny by scientists for many years.. (There’s even a book about the phenomenon.) Back in 1894, Étienne-Jules Marey captured the arc of a cat falling on film, creating a slow-motion series of frames that showed what was happening. As Ars Technica describes, when it was first presented, Marey’s slo-mo cat fall led esteemed physicists to declare that cats were acting “against the known laws of physics.”

Regardless of feline agility defying physics, Marey’s film captured a cat showing the “bend and twist” necessary in mid-flight to bring its legs underneath its body for a safe landing. Each frame showed how the cat flexed its spine and rotated its legs to land “butter-side” up, so to speak.

In a BBC video, the wild cat, native to Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Pakistan and northwestern India, falls gracefully to the ground. Following the slow-motion frames, the narrator describes the sequence of events.

As the feline orientates itself in space to determine which way up it is facing, it starts a two-direction rotation. The forelimbs go clockwise while the rear spins counter to that. The cat holds its front legs close into its body similar to the way ice skaters do to increase speed of spin. This is key as it allows the animal to exert a force against the rest of its body, with the flexible spine allowing the rotations to continue. As the cat rights itself it brings all four feet underneath and arches its back to prepare to absorb the landing. Muscular and flexible limbs held perpendicular to the main body mass absorb the compression and impact forces for a successful landing.

Feet landings have helped cats survive in the wild and they have another advantage that makes them more likely to survive a fall: Their terminal velocity is low. Terminal velocity is the limiting uniform velocity attained by a falling body when the resistance of the air has become equal to the force of gravity. (I had to copy this as science is not this feline’s strong suit!) In other words, it’s the fastest speed a falling body gets to in free flight since resistance to the air limits the acceleration attained. To put it in non-sciency terms, we cats deploy a fluffy parachute by stretching ourselves out, a little like a flying squirrel. (I’m not so sure how I feel about being compared to a rodent but I digress).The scientists say this makes our terminal velocity around 60 miles per hour. You humans hit terminal velocity at 120 mph.

Fascination for feline agility extends to robotics, where building machines that are capable of self-righting, landing correctly or surviving falls offers a lot more versatile. This curiosity also extends to space, where NASA studied how cats fell in order to coach their astronauts on how to move around in zero gravity.

Once again, science proves what amazing creatures we felines are.

Welcome the Internet’s latest viral cat: A sad-looking little guy named Fishtopher

Over the years, we’ve seen unusual feline faces become instant social media sensations. Cats like Lil Bub, Cinderblock, Grumpy Cat, Perdita, and Jorts became overnight stars.. And now it’s time for everyone to hear about Fishtopher, a cat that’s become famous for looking really depressed.

https://www.avclub.com/embed/inset/iframe?id=twitter-1595800103503151109&autosize=1 Fishtopher first came to the internet’s attention with an adoption ad that was highlighted by Molly Clarke and subsequently retweeted almost 22,000 times. Fishtopher was described as a five-year-old domestic shorthair and Bengal mix who “is very sad and depressed.”

Fortunately, only a couple of days after the internet discovered Fishtopher, there were plenty of people interested in adopting him. In a Facebook post from last weekend, New Jersey’s Homeward Bound Pet Adoption Center said that the cat’s “sad, fat face” had led to “hundreds of inquiries” and a line of people waiting outside its building for a chance to take home a rising star.

Among them were Laura Folts and Tanner Callahan, a couple from Baltimore who, NBC News states, took a two-hour drive to wait outside for the shelter to open on the weekend. They ended up being the first in line and adopted Fishtopher.

Now, as was probably inevitable, Fishtopher has an Instagram and a Twitter account. He no longer looks sad and his accounts are used to both document this fact and share links to other cats in need of homes. I would say this was the best result possible from Fishtopher’s fame..