Hey there furiends, We are excited to share our video for #RememberMeThursday as we shine a light on pet adoption and share our stories. You’ll get to hear the official song too! And don’t forget to check out our contest too.
And here’s this years contest. The theme is “That Was Then, This Is Now” and we want to see the pawsome transformation from our adopted furiends from before adoption to today. And even if you we3re adopted off the street or the front porch of the house you went to you qualify. Send us a photo collage or a couple of photos with a short explanation about your transformation to FelineOpines@gmail.com. The winner will receive a $50.00 gift card for their shelter from Chewy, our 3 Feline Opines Books and a copy of the new compilation book (The Human has a story in it) called “The Cat In The Christmas Tree”.
We hope you’ll purrticipate and remember to spread the word about adoption! #RememberMeThursday #SeeTheLight
Happy Wednesday Furiends, First, Oliver would like to thank you all for the get well wishes. He really apurreciated them. He had a rough few days but he’s back to his old sassy self now.
As The Human was playing nurse to Ollie most of last week and getting up at ungodly hours (and rousting Lily and I from our sleeping positions on the bed) she didn’t manage to capture any new photos of us so I thought this would be a purrfect time to feature Lily’s Remember Me Thursday video and brag that this little video won a Certificate of Excellence from The Cat Writer’s Association.
On September 22, 2022, the entire world shared the importance of pet adoption, and shine a light on all orphan pets waiting in shelters and rescues. Since its inception in 2013, Remember Me Thursday®has made more than 2 billion impressions on social media.
On #RememberMeThursday, love your rescue and help others #SeeTheLight. It’s up to you to spread the word. We’ll be celebrating again this year and hope you’ll join us!
I hope you enjoyed Lily’s story and that you enjoy this week’s news stories.
Now here’s a concept I can get behind. Shanghai’s first cat island is open and housing 20 stray cats and preparing to accommodate 200-300 in the future. The island has interactive activities for visitors and is also serving as an adoption center.
Those wanting to adopt are required to volunteer some time at the shelter and time to get to know the cats they want to bring home. This is to mitigate the possibilities that the cats will be abandoned and that they will have forever homes.
Paws up to the wonderful people that created his sanctuary!
I do not like purrlitical stories as they often result in much hissing and fuzzy tails but this story has to be shared. Larry the cat is appearing on billboards all around London announcing that the No. 10 Downing Street’s Chief Mouser has thrown his collar into the ring to run for prime minister.
While most humans opine that either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, of the Conservative Party will be the winner the #Larry4Leader organization is making sure he is considered in the race.
Larry was only four years old when he was adopted from Battersea Dogs and Cats home to begin his new life in politics and has served as a trusted companion to three prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May and the outgoing PM, Boris Johnson. That means that Larry has more purrlitical experience at the highest level than the two humans running against him.
Larry’s campaign team is making his purrlitical positions clear which include, “responsible hiss-cal policy” and “no lying in No. 10 unless it’s on a comfy cushion.”
If you want to know more about Larry’s campaign you can visit his website.
There is a website, www.larry4leader.com, dedicated to Larry’s political efforts.
Two paws up for the humans who supported Lana’i Cat Sanctuary at their cat yoga session on the lawn of its shelter. The non-profit incurs costs of almost a million dollars a year to house the 680 cats that live there. They bring in about 200 new feral cats every year but they also adopt out about 100 cats a year.
This little island sanctuary that does so much good for felines doesn’t have the kind of opportunities for fund raising that larger places might have. According to the 2020 census there are 3,367 people on the island. That is about half of the population of the town we live in and we live in a small town. They streamed the yoga event on Facebook and plan to stream the next one they do.
A woman created an artificially intelligent (AI) infrared camera rig using a Rasberry Pi to monitor her cat’s poop after she discovered it was eating plastic after her vet advised her to monitor her feline Teddy’s bathroom habits as he is a plastic eater. The vet told her it’s important to make sure Teddy eliminates the plastic and it doesn’t get stuck in his intestines.
The woman knew this would be a challenge as she had two cats so she wrote a program and set up a camera motion sensor that would trigger every time Teddy used the litterbox so she could tell if Teddy was constipated from the plastic he ate.
Estefannie wrote a python script and set up a camera with a motion sensor that would trigger every time Teddy used his litterbox so she could tell if he was constipated or not.
She said, “I did a lot of research and found I need to take a whole bunch of pictures. Luckily I already have a picture taking script that can take several pictures a second,” she explains on her YouTube channel.
This project wasn’t without its problems. Teddy took exception to the flash so she set up a series of infrared lights and gave the camera an infrared filter so it could see in the dark.
Every time a photo is taken it is sent to a server which processes the image and sends back a message to Estefanni’s computer. It tells her which cat is using the litterbox and if they are pooping or peeing. This complex arrangement allows Estefanni to save all of the data so she knows when Teddy is not pooping and if he needs to go to the veterinary hospital.
How long did it take her to create this incredible set up? It took about a year.
Ah, one of my favorite subjects – working cats and what better workplace for a feline than a winery?
Wine magazine has done a feature article on these furry employees. Sometimes the cats arrive at the winery and make it their home, which was the case for the resident feline at Napa Valley’s Black Cat Vineyard. In the mid-1990s, a stray black cat wandered onto the property as proprietor and winemaker Tracey Reichow and her kids planted their first grapevines. Every day, he returned to snoopervise their work.
They named him “Black Cat.” The following year, Reichow decided to name the business after the friendly feral feline. Through her veterinarian, Reichow learned about other needy felines who were better suited to the outdoor life. Reichow would bring them to live on her property. At one point, she had 13 winery cats prowling over her 20 acres.
She has a cat door in case any want to come inside her home. But typically, they prefer to sleep in cat beds in the vineyard’s outbuildings like machine sheds and a huge barn, which she warms with heating pads in winter.
And these cats earn their pay by keeping rodents like gophers (that can tunnel through the roots of grapevines and kill the plants) away from the vineyard.
Many rescue organizations offer “barn cat” adoption programs for cats that are fearful or distrustful of humans. These cats would be stressed as indoor pets and that puts them at risk of euthanasia. But life in a winery can be the best solution for these cats. .
At Black Cat Vineyard, the cats hunt rodents like gophers that can tunnel through the roots of grapevines and kill the plants. One of her current cats, Peanut, even leaves gopher guts on the front porch each morning as a gift.
There are requirements for the humans who hire winery working felines. As the cats are territorial, adequate food, water and shelter is required or the cats will move and find new territory.
And if the furry winery employees decide they like the company of humans there are plenty of people for them to choose from such as employees and guests.
At Carlson Vineyards in Palisade, Colorado the three rescue winery cats—Hank the Tank, Gunny and Willow Taffy Snowball—seem to turn on the charm for guests, according to co-owner Garrett Portra.
“It’s almost like they know, ‘Showtime! Time to earn our keep around here,’” he says with a chuckle. “It’s amazing how many people come in just to see the cats.”
The cats live outside, but they sleep indoors at night since there are coyotes in the area. There’s even a cat bed next to the register, which is “purr-fect” for cat lovers who buy bottles of the winery’s popular “Laughing Cat.”
A beloved rescue cat named Jinx, who was “crazy as anything,” inspired the name of Crazy Cat Winery and Café in Bristol, New Hampshire, says co-owner Claudette Smith. At the end of the day, Jinx liked to come into the tasting room and do the “zoomies to entertain the humans. When Jinx crossed the Rainbow Bridge last year Smith was overwhelmed by the support of his fans. Jinx’s legacy continues as he is on the winery logo.
Now rescue cats Cricket and Jasper attract customers. When asked what they bring to the business, Smith doesn’t hesitate. “People. Cat people.”
Crazy Cat shares photos of the winery cats on social media, as well as posts about adoptable cats from rescues like nonprofit group FuRRR Feline Rescue, which rescued Cricket and Jasper.
The winery recently hosted a month long food and kitty litter drive for FuRRR. Anyone who donated received a 10% discount on bottles of wine, which have names like Whisker White and Cat’s Paw.
For the photography book Wine Cats, Craig McGill and Susan Elliott photographed 108 cats in three countries. They learned of a cat named Mr. Wu, who could detect cork taint whenever a wine writer opened a bottle that was off.
I’ve featured cats that work at distilleries too. At Beehive Distilling in Salt Lake City, Owner Chris Barlow and his daughter adopted a cat named Gimlet from Best Friends Animal Society after they hosted a fundraiser for the nonprofit.
Gimlet’s job is to deter rodents that may be attracted to the grain bags around the gin distillery. But her main job is to entertain guests that watch her strut her stuff as they enjoy a drink. She even sleeps in cat beds on barrels and steam pipes.
“It’s really nice to have a cat around,” says Barlow. “I think she just makes everything better.”
Ultimately, when distilleries and wineries adopt working cats, it benefits the business and saves the cat’s life, according to Megan McCloud, senior manager of lifesaving programs at Best Friends Animal Society.
“Just like people, cats have unique personalities and thrive in different environments,” she says. “Working cats are a great asset to businesses, and it’s a wonderful lifestyle for their unique dispositions.”
Paws up to the great wineries and distilleries who give cats a job and a home!
Hi There Furiends, We decided to release the videos of our #RememberMeThursday contest winners during Thanksgiving week because we felines believe the best thing to be thankful for is a furever home!
We picked two of our furiends as contest winners. Their rescue stories are purrfect and remind us all that every kitty deserves a home. We hope you enjoy their stories, we sure did!
And Ava and Link, please tell your humans that the packages with our books (and a little something for each of you too) are on their way.
Link
Please say hello to Link, from messimimi’s meanderings. He may be a big guy but he still feels like a kitten. Link’s human told us about a friend who stayed with them when Link was a kitten. When the friend woke up Link was perched on the headboard of the bed, waiting for her to wake up so he could pounce. And even today, Link likes to hang out at the bottom of the bed, waiting for a foot to move so he can grab the toes.
Ava
Our other winner is Ava, a beautiful and sleek house panther. from Meowmans – Animal Shelter Volunteer Life. She began life as an adopted kitten but sadly, the humans who adopted her took her back to the shelter because they got a dog. (That just made me want to hiss!!) Black kitties don’t have the best of luck in shelters and shy Ava needed some divine intervention. And that’s what happened when a wise and beautiful angel kitty named Zoe visited Ava. Zoe had crossed the Rainbow Bridge recently and she wanted her sister Gracie (18 yeas old) to have a furiend. Zoe took care of the details and, well, we’ll let Ava tell you her story.
We hope you enjoyed these rescue stories as much as we did and we wish you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving (and lots of turkey!) Purrs & Head Bonks, Alberto, Lily & Oliver
Alberto is FINALLY announcing our #RememberMeThursday winners. Each winner will receive our 3 Felines Opine books.
Our email address is felineopines@gmail.com. And again, concatulations to our winners, Messy Mimis Meanderings and Meowmeowmans! Our Purrsonal Assistant will be sending you an email soon.
And if you’re wondering about that contest I entered, you can read about it here.
This year, millions of people around the world saw messages on social media advocating for pet adoption on Remember Me Thursday®. We were proud to be a part of this and thanks to all of you who purrticipated, it was another success!
People from around the world..India, Nambibia, Croatia, Guatemala and more shared their love for rescue pets. Celebrities (two-legged and four legged) joined in and more than 300 animal advocates registered for the first ever virtual candle lighting ceremony.
Here are some of the favorite moments from the #RememberMeThursday team:
We purrticipated in the Lola the Cat #RememberMeThursdayBlog Hop and you can visit it here.
Watch the #RememberMeThursday highlight video
Watch the #RememberMeThursday Virtual Candle Lighting Ceremony.
A big paws up for all our furiends who support and promote adoption and we are especially thankful for our amazing shelter Panhandle Animal Shelter and the ground breaking work they’ve done in our community and around the country!
Today, September 24, 2020, the entire world will share the importance of pet adoption, and shine a light on all orphan pets waiting in shelters and rescues. In 2017, people using #RememberMeThursday reached nearly 330 million people on social media.
On #RememberMeThursday, love your rescue and help others #SeeTheLight. It’s up to you to spread the word! We are so proud of our local animal shelter and their innovative efforts to keep animals out of shelters and in furever homes! Panhandle Animal Shelter is the former home of all of The Tribe.
Panhandle Animal shelter Executive Director Mandy Evans, photo from Bonner County Daily Bee
By MANDY EVANS Contributing Writer | September 23, 2020 1:00 AM
Over the past decade, Panhandle Animal Shelter has been on a mission to transform animal sheltering in our region. PAS has gone from serving just 1,200 animals per year to serving over 8,400 in 2019. We had big plans for 2020 and were on track to expand our programs to serve even more animals and the people who love them.
Then, enter a pandemic that closed businesses, stalled supply chains, and threatened the safety of our community. Even the best laid plans quickly became rewrites.
To shelter animals, find new adoptive homes, and care for animals in the community, PAS interacts with the public, collaborates with local and national organizations, requires staff and volunteers, and relies on specialized equipment and supplies. There isn’t much of this model that the pandemic hasn’t challenged. Maintaining staff when a suspected exposure occurs is a challenge. Finding medical supplies is a challenge. Facilitating adoptions, intake, and clinics are a challenge. Adhering to consistent hours of operation is a challenge. Finding ways to safely engage volunteers is a challenge. Meeting with donors is a challenge. For a while, even finding a place to buy cleaning supplies was a major hurdle.
Our greatest challenge has been being able to continue spay and neuter surgeries at the level we feel is necessary for our community. Many medical supplies are limited due to the crossover use with human medicine and during the pandemic, human medicine has taken priority. Following veterinary medicine guidelines and guidance from shelter medicine professionals we have limited our spay and neuter surgeries. Additionally, veterinary medicine is a highly specialized skill, and when a team member is unavailable due to COVID-19 exposure or testing, we can’t perform surgeries or other necessary medical procedures to protect our animal population. These supplies and staffing shortages significantly limit our ability to meet our goals for the year.
Just like the community, we want things to go back to normal. Our team is tired and stressed and we miss seeing our community, working with our volunteers, and visiting at Yappy Hour. But be assured, our priorities have not changed. We are still as dedicated to supporting our community as ever before. We ask that you be patient with our staff and volunteers, hours of operation, and modifications to how our programs are operated. We are doing the best we can and we need your support.
During the past few months, we’ve been receiving questions like, “Where donations are going now that there are fewer animals in the shelter?”, “What does the future holds for PAS?”, and the most common question of all, “Where are all the cats?” We hope this article helps answer some of these questions – but if you’re curious about something related to the work PAS does, we invite you to email us at info@pasidaho.org.
With fewer animals in the shelter, where are my donations going?
There’s no better way to answer this question than to share more about our programs and the efforts underway to, by design, keep animals out of the shelter.
PAS operates robust owner support programs that exist to help keep animals out of the shelter. These supportive services are offered through a multitude of programs like our Pets for Life program which supports pet owners by going door-to-door in specific neighborhoods providing services to people and their pets for free. Services may include pet food, advice, spay and neuter, medical, dental, or general pet supplies. Another key to keeping people and pets together has been the PAS helpline, which now serves over 1,800 people each year, and provides services to people to help prevent the need for a pet to be surrendered to the shelter. Services may include medical care, spay and neuter, training, free pet supplies, or connecting callers with PAS’s pet food bank which provides seven tons of dog and cat food to the community each year on a no-questions-asked basis.
Increasing in demand is our Temporary Loving Care program, which provides free temporary pet boarding for people in transition. The program, provided on a case-by-case basis, originated to assist pets while their owners sought mental health care from Bonner General Health, but the economic impacts of the pandemic have increased the need for this program to provide pet boarding for people who are homeless or struggling to find pet-friendly housing. By providing short-term boarding, PAS helps prevent unnecessary surrender.
One of our most popular owner support programs is Home to Home, a rehoming program developed at PAS in 2016, provides support to families who need to surrender their pet with the option to rehome on their own with help from the shelter.
As you may have guessed, these programs come with a cost. Despite having fewer animals in the shelter, donations are still needed to support this work. We’re investing into these programs because it’s part of our mission to support both ends of the human animal bond and we believe sheltering an animal should be the last option. Before PAS takes in an animal, have we offered other solutions like advice for an unruly dog? What about supporting a person and their pet by offering free pet food? Does the pet have a medical issue we can help with? Could the issue be as simple as a pet owner needing help with vaccines so they can keep their pet in their apartment? If these simple questions – a hierarchy of needs for the pet owner – haven’t been asked, then there’s options on the table that could help keep a pet with its family. Your donations help make it possible for people to keep their pets during their time of need, help shelter animals who have no place else to go, and make it possible for PAS to support people and animals across our region.
Where are all the cats?
PAS is a no-kill shelter, and is proud to be a part of a national movement to prevent the euthanasia of healthy cats. For shelters to be no-kill and prevent overcrowding, multiple strategies are needed.
For owned cats, PAS assists owners as much as possible so they can keep their cat and avoid surrendering it to the shelter. This may include providing medical care, supplies, or food. If it’s not possible for a person to keep their cat, PAS will take the cat into the shelter, space permitting. PAS is a no-kill shelter, but the number of cats who need to be sheltered can be so high that the shelter must maintain an intake waitlist. By PAS monitoring the number of cats allowed in the building, cats in the shelter stay healthy. Too many cats crowded together creates stress and stress leads to illness. Illness means cats need to stay in the facility longer to get treated and recover. By practicing managed intake techniques, PAS has decreased the length of stay for cats by 62 days and the number of cats in the building at any given time from 105 cats to 53. This change increased the number of cats assisted each year in the building from 600 to 1,400.
For community cats, also known as unowned cats, PAS operates a “Trap, Neuter, Return” program through partnering with the community to trap cats, bring them to the shelter for spay or neuter, and return them to the location they were found. Due to limited staffing and supplies capacity, this program has been placed on pause during the pandemic, which is also why there are not a lot of kittens in the shelter.
This year, PAS implemented a new methodology provided by University of Florida, University of Wisconsin Shelter Medicine program, and UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program. This program challenges what people believe is a stray cat. When a healthy, friendly, neutered cat is brought to the shelter as a stray, PAS asks the finder to go place it back where it was found. This is because 39% of cats are indoor/outdoor and when lost they are normally found three to four houses down from their home. When an owned cat is brought to our shelter it has a less than 2% chance of being reclaimed by its owner, a rate in line with national average for cats, despite PAS’s best efforts to reunite the cat with its owner. This means the cat has a much higher likelihood of finding its home without intervention. Although kind-hearted, well-meaning people bring the cat to the shelter out of concern, it’s important to highlight that they might be taking someone’s cat from right in front of their home. If a cat is brought to PAS that is in need of medical care, has a low body mass or circumstances that demonstrate the need for intervention, the cat is admitted into the PAS for care and may be adopted or returned to where it was found after it recovers. If you still have questions about managing cat populations, we’ve updated our website, pasidaho.org with more information.
What does the future hold for PAS?
Like many nonprofits, PAS has experienced setbacks due to the pandemic. Thankfully, because of our community centered and progressive owner support programs, we quickly adapted to accommodate the unique challenges of the pandemic. We relied more heavily on Home to Home, our online rehoming program, to help prevent animals entering the shelter. We made our foodbank available for curbside pick-up. We shifted our outreach approach for our Pets for Life program to phone calls instead of door-to-door visits. When many shelters around the country closed, PAS was proud to have maintained its services and as a result helped save lives of animals in need and helped to prevent owners from being forced to surrender their pets due to economic hardship.
While we can’t predict the future, we can anticipate the needs of our community and we can plan for how we’ll respond.
Internally, we are investing in hiring optimistic problem solvers who view the community as their number one partner and we’re continuing to implement prevention-focused, evidence-based, and best practice programs that help people keep their pets. Even during the height of the pandemic, PAS is proud to have hired its first full-time veterinarian who was trained in shelter medicine and management practices from the University of Wisconsin Shelter Medicine Program.
We’ve experienced higher than usual medical needs through our helpline and we expect this to continue. We are also expecting an increased demand by owners who need to surrender their pets due to housing instability, and planning for higher demand for owner support services in case of recession. This means PAS will be providing more boarding, more medical care, more pet food, and more support to pet owners so they can keep their pets and avoid surrendering them to the shelter whenever possible.
PAS will also continue investing time in growing the Home To Home program, a PAS-founded rehoming tool that helps prevent animals from ever entering the shelter. The program is now in 39 shelters around the nation. We have plans to expand the services offered through this program to support local pet owners with rehoming and to include tools to support fostering and increased access for under resourced shelters around the country.
It’s impossible to know what the future holds, but we’re committed to our mission, and we’re proud to serve our region. We continue to receive support from national animal welfare organizations like the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Best Friends Animal Society and Maddie’s Fund. We’re also honored to receive donations from local businesses and supporters who generously support people and animals with their giving and we’re thankful for the community support we continue to receive in the form of donations to our thrift store and donations of pet food and supplies to the shelter.
If you still have questions about PAS, or any of its programs and services, just ask. Staff are proud to talk about the shelter and what they are working on. Email us at info@pasidaho.org
What You Can Do Today
Light a candle for a beloved pet you rescued from a shelter
Happy Wednesday Furiends, I hope your week is going well. Here at Tribe Headquarters we are getting ready for one of our favorite events of the year Remember Me Thursday This world wide event was initiated by Helen Woodward Animal Center and is a time to see the light on animal adoption.
Each year bloggers purrticipate in this event and, as feline bloggers, I feel it’s important that we purrticipate too. The first thing we did was send The Human over to enter her story (about us of course) in the Remember Me Thursday contest. We encourage all our furiends to enter as the three top prizes go the shelter the winners choose. This year they are adding something exciting and that is the public will be voting on the finalists! We sure would love to win any of these prizes for our local shelter Panhandle Animal Shelter:
1st place – $5,000 monetary prize, 1,000 pounds of Blue Buffalo pet food and 100 Kong toys 2nd Place – $2,500 monetary prize, 1,000 pounds of Blue Buffalo pet food and 100 Kong toys 3rd place – $1,000 monetary prize, 1,000 pounds of Blue Buffalo pet food and 100 Kong toys
So tell your humans to get out their cameras and enter your “rescued self” in the contest.
You’ll be seeing lots more fun stuff from us about this wonderful event.
But now it it’s time for us to get to the best of feline news on the web.
Lots of kitties l have eye issues. Our Angel Tucker had some serious depth perception issues that resulted in him plunging 35 feet down into a ravine, which is why we were thrilled to hear that the London Cat Clinic is launching the UK’s first and only dedicated ophthalmology clinic for cats. I sent our Purrsonal Assistant to google to see if there was such a dedicated feline ophthalmic clinic in the US but she could only find “animal eye clinics”, nothing specifically for felines.
The clinic will be headed up by Dr Ursula Dietrich, an RCVS Specialist in Veterinary Ophthalmology, who will be stepping down as senior lecturer in veterinary ophthalmology at The Royal Veterinary College to take up her new post. Dr. Dietrich has some impressive credentials! She said, “ “I am thrilled to take on this new role, heading up The London Cat Clinic’s new opthalmology centre. The clinic is doing wonderful things in feline veterinary care as the largest specialist practice devoted solely to cats in the UK. The ophthalmology service is the next exciting development in achieving our goal of being a centre of excellence in feline veterinary medicine.”
This is very exciting and for our readers in the UK, if you are interested in finding out about referring a case you can get information at their website.
Not every state has a state dog and fewer have state cats. I think this is a travesty that should be corrected posthaste!
Some states have even designated rescue dogs or shelter dogs but cats have been, for the most part ignored. The state of Maine is enlightened and their state cat is….you guessed it…the Maine Coon. Maryland selected the calico cat because the cat’s colors (orange, black and white) match the colors of the state bird, the oriole, and the state insect, the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly.
Massachusetts chose the Tabby as their state representative. The choice was given over to school children in 1998. Now there are some states that recognize shelter cats as their state cats but they are few.
My furiends, I call you to action! If your state does not have a state cat you need to start clawing a note to your elected officials!
Saved by a whisker: Cat charity’s helping hand to owners in crisis
The director of our local shelter (Panhandle Animal Shelter), Mandy Evans would love to see our facility emptied of animals because she believes there is so much more shelters can do than just house dogs and cats. Maneki Neko, a cat rescue charity in Preston, Australia felt the same way when a young woman preparing to enter drug rehab faced the dilemma of having nowhere for her two cats Brittany and Don to stay while she was away and rehoming them was not an option. She said, “They’ve been loyal through all the stuff that I’ve been through. They’re there when I’m upset. They’re steady and a comfort. They haven’t given up on me yet.”
The woman had no close family and couldn’t afford commercial boarding. Friends’ promises to look after her cats did not come through. In a “last-ditch effort”, the day before rehab started in March, she contacted Maneki Neko rescue.
The charity housed and fed her pets for two months, for free, while Karli went to rehab. Today she lives in a new home with her beloved felines. She said that Brittany and Don meant everything to her and she wouldn’t have gone into rehab if they hadn’t been looked after.
Crisis accommodation, or the Feline Friends Assistance Program, is a new arm of Maneki Neko Cat Rescue, which also offers adoptions and has a cat cafe, which is closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. A crowdfunding appeal aims to raise $15,000 for its Preston headquarters to continue boarding up to six cats at a time in cases such as Karli’s.
Other humans who are fleeing domestic violence, facing eviction or going into the hospital would be able to temporarily board their feline fur kids at Maneki Neko and help fund their cat café that had to be closed due to the shutdown.
We give the good folks at Maneki Neko our Paws Up award and hope other rescues and shelters will create a Feline Friends Assistance Program in their cities.
A visitor to the library in Tianjin, China had a pleasant surprise when visiting. The library is located inside Tianjin Tower, which rises to 415.2 meters (over 1362 feet). He found seven cats prowling amongst the bookshelves.
These seven cats began their duties as “intern curators” at the tower library on August 24th. The cats represent a variety of breeds－ragdoll, exotic shorthair and chinchilla, to name a few and all are about a year old.
After reopening the library recently, with the addition of the felines, the staff noted that it will be a place where lonely people can find feline friendship and encourage people to read more.
The library will be hosting activities, including some for the fans of the library cats such as photo ops, reader events with the cats and an event to celebrate the Chinese holiday Double Seven Day, which is similar to our Valentine’s Day.
Well I say it’s about time felines received some of these prestigious honors. Mittens, a feline from Wellington is in the running to be voted New Zealander of the Year, going up against Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield.
The feline joins a host of nominees for the annual Kiwibank award, including figures from sectors such as politics, media, health, music and design.
Mittens, a handsome Turkish Angora, has his own private Facebook group with more than 52,000 followers.
The Wellington Museum has also dedicated a mini exhibition to Mittens and his adventures, named “Floofy and Famous.” And as if all this fame isn’t enough, the Mayor of Wellington gave Mittens the key to the city in May. The last key given went to “The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson.
And how did Mittens earn this honor? The proclamation stated it was presented “in recognition of bringing happiness, laughter and coolness to the capital — and putting the city on the map internationally with his feline antics,”
Nominations close on August 30 and judging panels will evaluate the merits of all the candidates. Overall winners will be announced on March 18 2021.
I don’t know about you but this feline believes Mittens is a shoe in.
How has your week been going? The Tribe of Five is celebrating #RememberMeThursdayall week and we’re reminiscing about when we were adopted because we want to shine a light on adoption. All five of us were adopted. Tucker and Jasmine from a kind lady that rescued cats and Lily, myself and Oliver came from Panhandle Animal Shelter. Our shelter has a fantastic program called “Home to Home” which helps pets get adopted from their homes so they don’t have to ever be in a shelter. The Female Human wrote an articleabout how well this program works and how it helps the animals and the humans. And guess what, this program is being implemented by shelters all over the country so, if your local shelter wants to get involved, have them click on this link to learn more.
The Female Human is part of a large group of pet bloggers and writers who purrticipate in the Helen Woodward Animal Center’s #RememberMeThursday program. You can visit the website and find all kinds of cool stuff, even a song to download by Stevie Woodward called, This Candle Burns Bright. It’s 99 cents well spent!
Here is our #RememberMeThursday slide show, enjoy! And now for some feline news.
Lily is the shyest cat in The Tribe and she loves our Human. Don’t pick her up unless you don’t mind being slashed but when The Female Human sits quietly at her desk, Lily is in her lap.
I hate to even have to feature this article but there are still humans out there who think we felines are not as loving as canines. I guess we just have to let science prove how wrong they are!
There’s a lot of science in this article so I’ll give you the feline, Alberto version. The scientists who did this study replicated a test that was created in the 1970’s that measured parent-infant bonds. That test placed a mother and baby in an unfamiliar room, where they would stay together for a few minutes, and then the mother would leave. Researchers watched to see how the baby reacted, and what his or her response was upon the mother’s return. Scientists have used this test with dogs but never us felines.
They brought in 79 kittens and had them each spend two minutes in a new space with their owner. Then the owner would leave for two minutes, followed by a two minute reunion period.
Many kittens did show signs of distress—like unhappy vocalizations—when their humans left. In fact, 70 of them fit the distinct attachment style. They found that about 64.3% were “securely attached” to their owner.
What did they learn? The test outcomes followed the pattern seen with children and dogs. So humans, we are as loving as kids and dogs, we just show our affection differently and in our own way.
Oliver always has a lot to say, here he’s telling me off ,but our feline communications is not so simple as you humans may think. Every one of The Tribe has a different way of meowing and our human has learned what they all mean. The pet expert in this article says a short, high-pitched meow means that we are saying hello. This may be true but it also means, when Oliver speaks this way, “I can see the bottom of my kibble bowl, please fix this problem post haste.”
A drawn out meow means we are trying to get your attention. This is true. Alberto sits outside The Female Human’s bedroom door and sings the song of his people this way as an attempt to gain access.
As for the other 8 sounds, I leave it to my feline furiends to discuss this with your humans and see if you think they are right.
I seem to be all “sciency” this week but this is a question The Female Human often asks. The Tribe is constantly choosing different sleeping spots. As the article notes, sometimes it has to do with the temperature., You don’t see Tucker and Lily cuddling like they are in this photo on hot summer days but as soon as things cool off, cuddling begins.
What I think is very cool is that we domesticated felines are exhibiting habits from our wilder days. Our ancient ancestors changed their sleeping locations as protection from predators. There are some other interesting tidbits in the article about how fascinating we felines are.
The Moscow Cat Theatre has been using feline actors for 30 years. The talented felines in this troupe ride bikes, walk on wires and perform acrobatic and aerial acts. How do they get these feline thespians to learn their roles? Dmitry Kuklachev, The theatre’s Art Director, said “A cat will never do anything under constraint. But it is possible to make an arrangement with cats, using their natural abilities and needs. And, if there is love and mutual understanding. In general, love and respect give more than banal training. It is impossible to punish a cat backstage, and then, make her perform tricks onstage. With cats it doesn’t work.” Dmitry is a wise man!
The circus began when a circus clown’s son found a kitten who was “very communicative and cheerful”. During a curtain call, he came out with the kitten on his shoulder. And he saw that the spectators warmly reacted to this. So he started developing the tricks with cats and after 20 years in the circus established his own theatre.
This is no small theater troupe; there are about 200 feline performers, most of them acting in 12 performances. There are about 30 who are “pensioners” now and have retired from performing.
It takes about a year to prepare a new performer, from its first appearance in the theatre to the entrance upon the stage. The cats have to go through two castings, first, talent and then, tests, confirming that they are healthy.
Some of this troupe have gone on to more fame and fortune like Boris, a tomcat who works in cat food commercials.
Hmm, maybe I have what it takes to be an actor cat, I’m certainly handsome enough!
A Las Vegas Review-Journal employee was approached with a strange question. “Do you own the green or blue car parked outside the newsroom? Because there’s definitely a cat stuck inside of your bumper,”
People immediately ran to the car to check on the cat. He was breathing and seemed to be okay but getting him out of the bumper was another story. Animal control came to the rescue and dislodged the cat’s tail, then his rear legs and after wrapping the cat in a towel pulled him out of the bumper to safety.
The poor cat was dehydrated and panting but very much alive. He was cared for at the Animal Foundation by veterinarians and after he received a clean bill of health he was neutered and ear tipped as part of the “Community Cats” program. He was released back to his neighborhood and “Bumper” as they named him, took off in a hurry.
It’s still a mystery as to how Bumper got stuck in the bumper of the car but this is a cautionary tale for all you humans. Check your cars before you drive off because you could have a feline hitchhiker.
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