Walk Through The Web Wednesday 10/13

siamese cat on a leash walking through a garden

Hello Furiends,
It is getting chilly in our neck of the woods and we were pleased to see that The Human called in the humans who clean and service our fireplace. This is Oliver’s favorite spot in the chilly winter months. He even made a movie about it. (Note that this movie was filmed when Oliver was younger and slimmer)

Well, the fireplace human arrived and Oliver had to stick his head inside to snoopervise the human’s work. This got him locked in the bedroom until the service was completed.

I, on the other hand, preferred to sit at a distance and ensure that all work was completed correctly.

Lily selected a comfy chair near the fire and waited to test it.

All went well, the fireplace is working wonderfully and we felines are looking for ward to a cozy winter.

Shelter Cat and Guinea Pig Best Friend Get Adopted Together

There are odd couples and then there is this couple. Angel and Halo, a cat and a guinea pig have a bond that is quite unusual They are genuine best furiends and they had to lean on each other for support when their human had to surrender them to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Care and Control,.

The animal control officer who did the intake for these two said she’d many bonded pairs during her 17-year career, but she’s never met a cat who is best friends with a guinea pig. “I think honestly, my first reaction was this is definitely a first,”

Angel and Halo’s unique friendship helped them both during a difficult time.  They shared a large cage where they cuddled together in one corner. The BFF’s reportedly even shared their own special language.

The shelter ‘s mission was to ensure both were adopted together and soon, a mother and son contacted them, eager to welcome Angel and Halo into their family.

The lady’s reward to her son for making honor roll was the adoption of this odd couple. Mother and son promised to keep the shelter updated on the progress of their new furry friends and she said they would create social media accounts for Halo and Angel.

Oh how I love happy endings!

Cat Daddies’ Trailer Explores the Relationship Between Men and Their Feline Friends in New Documentary

Filmmaker Mye Hoang’s documentary tells the story of several male cat owners and their furry feline companions.

“CAT DADDIES” focuses on David Giovanni who was living on the streets of New York, determined to stay together with his beloved cat, Lucky. When he’s finally granted a spot in a transitional housing facility that accepts cats, the COVID-19 pandemic and a devastating medical diagnosis put his future together with Lucky in doubt.

David’s journey is interspersed with portraits of other “cat dads” from all over the country. Some struggle to navigate the unprecedented events of 2020 with their little furry friends.. They include a group of firefighters, a stuntman, a truck driver, a Bay Area tech worker, a schoolteacher whose cat becomes a viral sensation, and an actor/Instagram influencer. These men couldn’t be more different, but they share an unconditional love for their beloved felines and are true cat daddies!.

Meowza, this sounds like a great film and paws up to all cat daddies!

101-Year-Old Woman Adopts Oldest Cat at Shelter for “Match Made In Heaven”

This story just makes me purr! The Humane Society of Catawba County had a wonderful feline named Gus at their shelter who was 19 years old.

His original owner was heartbroken when they had to surrender him due to unforeseen circumstances. After Gus passed his health screening with flying colors (he was pronounced to be in excellent health) he was ready for adoption but, at 19 years of age the shelter was worried about finding him a furever home..

Shortly after Gus’s arrival, the shelter director received an unexpected call from a family looking for a pet who could be a companion for their aging mother. More specifically, they asked if there was a senior cat they could adopt. The family explained to shelter that their 101-year-old mother, Penny, recently lost her cat, and though they’d given her a stuffed cat to cuddle with instead, she simply wasn’t pleased with something that didn’t purr. Well, duh, what good is a cat if you can’t get purr therapy?

Judging by the pictures the shelter shared on Facebook, this was a match made in heaven and now, Gus is enjoying giving his new human purrs and watching the squirrels outside their door.

The latest report says that Gus has settled in purrfectly and is eating like a horse.

No Dogs Allowed: More than 70 Artists Present a Show of Cat Art in L.A.

More than 70 artists have purrticipated in  a feline-centric group exhibition.  Now in its fourth iteration, the Cat Art Show includes sculptures, paintings, collages, and a variety of other works by artists from 16 countries—Ravi Zupa (previously), Lola Dupré (previously), and Aniela Sobieski (previously) are among them—that capture the antics and sheer fabulousness of both domestic and wild cats.

.If you’re in Los Angeles, stop by The Golden Pagoda between October 14 and 24 to see these works in person, and check out the available pieces on Instagram. Ten percent of all sales will be donated to cat care, with this year’s funds going to Kitt Crusaders, Faces of Castelar, and Milo’s Sanctuary.

Can cats be depressed? Here are ways they may show how they feel and 8 ways to help

Kitties do get depressed. Lily meowed about this in her blog post, “Even Kittles Get The Blues”. There are a number of reasons for this such as loss of a family member, moving to a new house, a change in the family’s schedule or a change in physical health.

And how do you know if your feline is depressed? Some signs are, when your feline exhibits very obvious changes in behavior, when appetite decreases, when they have no interest in playing, when they stop interacting with the other felines in the house, when their vocalization increases, when their sleep time increases (although with felines that isn’t always easy to figure out), decreased interest in grooming, house soiling or not consistently using their litter box. Grief can also make your cat depressed. We talk about this in our book, Are There Head Bonks In Heaven?

First and most importantly you need to take your cat to the vet to rule out any physical problems. If there is no physical reason for the behavoirs, then your kitty is probably blue. There are some things you can do (our Lily has recovered from her grief at the loss of Angel Tucker and she is doing great now). The Human used some of these techniques to help her.

Try some new types of food. Some felines (like our Oliver) are very food motivated.

Play calming music. Lily talks about this in her article and she even has a video about Music for Cats.

Supplements. There are natural supplements that contain l-theanine and l-tryptophan that can increase serotonin in a cat’s brain to help combat depression. Serotonin is sometimes known as the “feel-good” neurotransmitter and higher levels are connected to feelings of calm and happiness.

Use pheromones and invigorating scents. Feliway and other pheremone products are favorites without The Human.

Consider adopting another cat. Make sure you know your cat’s personality and the dynamics if you live with multiple felines.

Get professional help. This is a big one with our Human as she has diplomas in Feline Behavior and also Feline Anxiety. Get an expert to help you assess the situation.

Change happens and we felilnes are not the biggest fans of change so if something happens in your home that seems to make your kitty sad, please investigate and seek help so that your feline will go from blue to blissful!

Walk Through The Web Wednesday 8/12

siamese cat on a leash walking through a garden

Hello Furiends,
I hope this week finds you well. So many of my feline buddies have suffered through hurricanes, tornadoes, wind storms and lightning storms. Meowza, it’s dangerous out there and purraying you all are safe.

The most important news of the week for our neck of the woods is that we won a Muse Medallion award from CWA! We are excited!

In other more boring news, the temperatures are back to what they should be here in the Northwest and it’s cool enough in the mornings for Oliver and I to cuddle in bed.

Well, enough about us, let’s see what wonders the world-wide web holds for felines this week.

Mewsical cats from around the world

Cat videos with classical mewsic. What more could you ask for? Here are a few of the internet’s favourite felines with aspirations to be the next Dame Joan, Martha Argerich, or Berliner Philharmoniker.

Writer of Cats entertains his cat with Prokofiev

How cool would it be to be a cat living in the home of the writer of Cats? I’d say purrfectly wonderful.Andrew Lloyd Webber serenaded his cat with a brief performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf on the weekend .Sitting in front of his gleaming grand piano, the Cats composer gave his own feline, Fez, a special musical treat.

It looks like Fez is enjoying the private concert!

Shoe stealing cat burglar

Meowza! It seems like every week I’m reporting on another feline who has sticky paws. Last week it was a swim goggle stealing burglar, this week’s offender has a penchant for shoes,

Jordan the cat from  Pennsylvania has a human who is attempting to atone for Jordan’s sins. She has created a Facebook page to try and reunite the purrloined shoes with their owners. Now that a camera has been installed to catch Jordan’s thievery on film, he’s garnered quite a few fans.

The camera has captured the klepto cat jumping a fence with a shoe in his mouth-he is determined! Good grief, what will felines be stealing  next – priceless art work?

McDonald’s is selling the cutest cat grips to keep your fingers clean and bother your felines

If you want to eat French fries and keep your paws clean you’ll love these cat paw grips. The good news is you can use them to play with your cat after the fries are gone. The bad news is that, as of now, you can only get them from McDonald’s in China. IMHO I don’t think it’s too much to ask for our humans to hop on over to China to get us a great cat toy.  Sadly, I discovered that this special ended in July so stop your humans before they book a flight.

Kamwei Fong’s new illustrations are purrfectly delightful.

Kamwei Fong loves to draw cats and his latest illustrations of black cats, called “Wonderfurryland” depict a plethora of felines with rotund bodies, puffy tails and whimsical poses. Fong even inked cat-shaped environmental fixtures, like a moon, sun, and mountain, into the black-and-white landscape.

The Malaysian artist said that it took him more than a month to complete this work. We say “paws up” for these wonderful pieces of art. You can see more on his Instagram page. Gee, I wonder if he’d be interested in a rotund model for his next series, Oliver is available.

Walk Through The Web Wednesday 2/26

siamese cat on a leash walking through a garden

Hello Furiends,
I hope your week has gone well and that this week’s feline news report finds you healthy and happy.

We actually had sunshine this week. I must say though, I was a bit annoyed by the laughter from The Human when she came in the office and saw me soaking up some vitamin C. Seriously, I have no idea what she found so amusing.

Lily is still missing her buddy Tucker.

Lily is still adjusting to the change in the Tribe and the loss of Tucker. She is a tiny little feline and she hasn’t been eating so The Female Human went to talk to the people in the white coats about this. She came home with some food called Hills AD Diet for cats and dogs. Now I’ve never heard of a food for cats AND dogs but evidently this is what they give patients when they are not eating well. And I must say it works! Lily is eating again and perking up, even coming over to get her “before bed treats”.The hardest part of this is keeping the stuff away from Oliver who needs no appetite stimulation!

Jasmine enjoys watching what’s going on in the woods.

The Female Human was a little stressed out about Tucker’s sister Jasmine after Tucker crossed the Rainbow Bridge. She took Jasmine to have her blood work done and her regular wellness check. Well guess what….Jasmine’s kidney numbers are lower than when she was first diagnosed with kidney disease. Meowza, you should have seen our Human doing the happy dance.

Oliver misses the big guy too so he spends some quality time with The Female Human in the evening. He’ll even hang out with her when she has a glass of wine on the weekend (note, Oliver does not drink wine)

And, as far as the problem with Oliver and I giving Lily a bad time…..things haven’t changed too much but it seems lately Lily is standing up for herself more.

Well, that’s all the news about the Tribe, now, on to the news!

What’s the best music for reducing cats’ stress levels?

A few years ago we opined about cat music on our website (yes we have a website in addition to this blog that our Purrsonal Assistant does not promote enough). We have mewsic at our house and we quite like it. The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery recently reported on the stress-lowering effects of music in cats. This study says that classical rather than pop or heavy metal soothes felines best….well DUH! I don’t think you need to be a scientist to figure that out!

Now they did dig a little deeper and said that cat-specific music with ‘melodic’ lines based on cat vocalizations (like purring) sooths us. We also purrfer frequencies similar to feline vocal ranges, which are two octaves higher than those of humans.

These scientists studied 20 domestic cadts, playimg 20 minutes of cat-specific music, classical music or no music at random veterinary visits 2 weeks apart.  They used cat stress scores (checking the feline’s body posture., ear placement, etc.) as well as how the cat’s responded to being handled. They drew blood samples to mark the physiological stress levels.


And what did they find out? Cat specific music might indeed lower stress levels.  Now, I don’t want to sound snarky here but when this scientific study ends with, ““[C]at-specific music may benefit cats by decreasing the stress levels and increasing the quality of care in veterinary clinical settings.” I’m not impressed. Even our Female Human knows that our cat mewsic may calm us down but at least I give the researchers an “A” for effort.  You can watch the videos on our website and come to your own scientific conclusions as to whether we were less stressed when listing to our Music for Cats album.

Miau Miau Clothing Company- shopping with a purpose to help homeless cats

Any company whose motto is, “life is better with cats!” is my kind of company! The company’s founder began this company after being inspired after she rescued a litter of kittens and their mother a few years ago. That rescue experience made her realize that there are thousands of cats and kittens who are not as fortunate as the ones she rescued. The company values are: Improving the Lives of Homeless Cats and Kittens – Advocating for Animals and their Rescuers – Compassion – Making a Difference.

Now who wouldn’t love to do business with a company like that! The Female Human loves their clothes and is going to order the pink hoodie.  They have lots of great stuff like a “Cat Daddy” bottle opener, pawsome pins and bags, hats, jewelry and goodies for the felines in your life.

Boris the Yoga Cat

Every time The Female Human gets out h er yoga mat, Oliver and I head on over to snoopervise (well I snoopervise, Oliver splays himself out on the mat) and she gets her whiskers in a twist and shoos us away. Now that I’ve found Boris. the yoga cat I’m going to make a case for us doing yoga with our Human. If you check out Boris’ Instagram you will see there is not a pose that can’t be done with a kiitty!

11 Secrets Your Cat’s Tail Is Trying to Tell You

I don’t think you humans pay enough attention to our tails as they can tell you a lot. I’m not going into all 11 of the tail signs but I will highlight a few. You can read about all of them here.

Straight Up: When we stand with our tails straight up, pointing at the ceiling, it means we are happy, confident and willing to be friendly so come on over and give us a pet!

Fuzzy Tail: Well, that’s what we call it at our house. It’s when our tails get fuzzed up 3 times their regular size.  If we are startled, scared or feeling threatened we will  floof ourselves out to appear as big as possible. Trust me, you don’t want to pet us when are tails are fuzzy!

The Fast Flicking Tail: When you see us flicking our tails from side to side, the message we’re sending you is that something is wrong. It can be fear but it can also mean we are annoyed or reacting to something we don’t like.

The Slow Moving Gentle Tail Flick: This means we are zeroed in on something, that we’re very focused. We may be getting ready to pounce on a toy, another cat or a mouse. Basically it’s showing our intention to make a move.

I’ll let you read about the rest of the tail signals for yourself. Just remember, we are telling you a lot with  our tails!

Your Cat Actually Has a Legit Reason For Getting Hyper Every Night at Bedtime

“It’s quite all right human, go back to bed. I’m just helping you arrange this mess.” – Alberto

Evidently, the fact that we get the zoomies at night is not because felines are nocturnal. Shelly Zacharias, DVM, VPM and vice president of Medical Affairs at Gallant, in an interview by POPSUGAR, said that cats are actually crepuscular, meaning their waking hours are at both sunrise and sunset.

 Well that information is all well and good but our Female Human wants to know how to keep us from waking her in the middle of the night with our antics. Some suggest that you humans play with us before bedtime. Also, some interesting toys for us to play with while  you are sleeping will help keep us busy.

If you have any foodaholic felines in your house (I shall not name names) you might want to consider splitting the evening meal in two. Feed us one earlier in the evening and the other one right before you go to bed. This is supposed to keep us from bugging you for food but evidently ,the expert that suggested this has never met Oliver.

They also suggest puzzle feeders. I don’t know about the rest of you felines out there but The Female Human tried that on us. We quickly let her know we do NOT work for food.

The article also suggests that you humans ignore us if we wake you up. That might work for some but when you suddenly find a 17-pound feline on your chest, your desire to breathe will take over your desire to ignore us.

Our Female Human has decided that the best remedy for our nighttime zoomies is to close her bedroom door (and then prepare herself for the havoc she sees in the morning). MOL

#AtoZChallenge M

Hello,
Oliver here. Today’s letter is “M” and that stands for “Mewsic”. Our Male Human is very mewsical and quite the guitar player. Alberto and I like to make mewsic with him and really like it when he changes the strings (we have loads of fun with that). We also love stealing his guitar picks and leaving them all over the house.

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Friendly Fill Ins, Week 88

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Jasmine Here,
Welcome friends. I’m excited that I get to do the Friday Fill Ins this week. It’s been snowy and cold at our house. Thank goodness the humans provide wheat grass for us to nibble on and to add a bit of color in this white world.

As always, if you are a blogger, we encourage you to go to McGuffy’s Reader and join the Fill Ins blog hop or, feel free to do the fill ins in the comments of this blog. Have a purrrfect Friday (I love the weekends as the humans don’t have to go to that place they call “work” and they spend lots of time with us.)

Purrs & Head Bonks,
Jasmine (The Tribe of Five Diva)

Siamese cat with tiara

begging squirrel

 

 

1. I would like to ask the big fat squirrel who mooches off of us at the upstairs bird feeder why he has such an attitude if the bird seed is all gone? (Take a look at this photo, what an attitude!)

 

 

 

 

2 My favorite fast food restaurant is any place that serves pizza. All of the Tribe of Five love a nice lick of pizza sauce. 

TuckerMusic

 

3. If I could go to any concert of someone still performing, it would be wherever David Teie is playing his Music for Cats  The female human bought us some of his music and we loved it. You can read about us opining about it on our website . When we go to the place with white coats, they have nice cat music too. Music is good for kitties. 

 

4. My Winter pastime is usually sitting at the window and checking out the creatures who come by looking for food because what happens outside our windows is like cable TV.  

Walk Through the Web Wednesday

Hello World,
siamese cat in black and white with blue eyes, Alberto, Feline OpinesAlberto here. It’s my favorite day of the week as I get to share with you some of the fantastic feline related things I’ve found on the web. Without further ado, here is this week’s #WalkThroughTheWebWednesday selections.

Kittens Who Blog-Sending Feline Messages
This made my human smile, and me, as well. I think it’s a great idea to receive messages from your human throughout the day.

Travelling Cats – Tokyo Cats Live La Vida Loca
Marc from Katzenworld reports on one of the most amazing cat cafe’s in Japan.

Catster “Five Ways My Friends Should Act More Like My Cats”
Humans, pay close attention to this one. The human writer here nails it!

CatGrassThe Daily Cat-Is Grass Healthy For Your Cat?
The Tribe of Five are grass aficionados and I was very interested to read what The Daily Cat had to say on this subject.

The Kitten Covers 
As those of you who follow our blog know, we are a mewsical bunch. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found this site  by Alfra Martini that features “legendary albums from a world dominated by kittens.” Rock on!famous album covers with kittens

Well,. that’s it for this week. Remember, if you find something you think is “Wednesday Worthy” send me a link and I’ll have my purrrsonal assistant check it out for me!

Your Friend,
Alberto
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