It hurts when I move... Checklist for your human.

Humans take us for granted when we are elderly. "It's only old age," they say when they see us walking slowly or hesitating  before jumping up. As if it doesn't matter...

Humans don't take their own old age for granted. They take painkillers - as all those advertisements on daytime TV show. They consult doctors and physiotherapists.

This blindness to our arthritis must stop!

I've found a checklist that will tell ignorant humans that we are hurting. Here it is: 

• Do you bunny hop going upstairs - using both hind legs to propel yourself upward.
• Do you go downstairs pausing at each stair, or leaning to one side, or taking a break on the way down?
• Do you hesitate before jumping up onto the kitchen table or high place? Or use your front legs to haul yourself up?
• Do you hesitate before jumping down? Or start reaching down with your front legs before launching yourself off?

You can get the full details here. And there is a useful graphic among others for vets and owners here.

Fleas... in 10 Downing St.

Now we can reveal - for the first time - that 10 Downing Street, the equivalent of the US White House - has fleas. Lots of 'em. The whistleblower is Liz Truss, the UK's shortest serving prime minister.

She writes in her memoir just published: "The place was infested with fleas. The entire place had to be sprayed with flea killer. I spent several weeks itching." 

As a cat who knows more about fleas (and probably more about the UK economy) than Liz Truss, I want to put it on record that the woman only spent a few weeks in 10 Downing St anyway. 

Perhaps if she had concentrated on on not wrecking the UK economy, rather than scratching herself and complaining about fleas, she might have had a longer term.

Larry the 10 Downing St cat has claimed " The fleas came from Boris Johnson, the previous prime minister, not me."

Dylan, the Johnson dog, has so far made no comment - which may be suspicious.

I am waiting to hear from Boris Johnson. He is always messing with his hair... is this a sign that the fleas really did come from him?

 

Now it's Biden stealing feline rights...

Jill Biden - https://twitter.com/FLOTUS/status/1487008748577214465

 As an author in my own right, I felt irritated  about more publishing competition from humans. It's bad enough that my human, Celia, keeps making money out of writing cat books...

Now the First Lady, Jill Biden, is getting into the act - with a children's book about the White House cat, Willow.

I don't mean to be catty, but readers will note that she did not write a book about the Biden dog, Major, who bit several members of staff. He was sent away in disgrace to live with family friends.

Neither did she write about the next dog, a puppy called Commander. He bit various secret service agents on at least 10 occasions and finally bit the White House superintendant, responsible for walking him.

No, Jill Biden realised that writing about the Biden dogs was not going to go anywhere. So she settled for Willow, the White House cat who has so far not bitten anybody.

Will Willow bite back, when she realises her owner is making money out of her? I have, on occasion, bitten Celia when I thought she was taking liberties with my copyright.

Watch this space....

 

 

 

Crazy cat men?

Men don't diet themselves or us

We cats are not misogynistic. We don't much care whether are our pets are male or female - though sometimes I have wished that both could be neutered. Humans would be so much easier to control, if they were without romantic interests.

For years male humans have sneered at women for loving cats too much. Now the tables are turned in the UK. More men than women are adopting cats from Cats Protection!

Is this good news for cats? I think it is. Male humans have larger laps than women so we can really stretch out. They will spend hours watching sport on TV giving us plenty of lap time.

Male humans often earn more money than women, so we can probably get more expensive food. But they usually don't diet themselves... or us!

Their bodies smell differently from female humans' bodies, but nowadays they are just as likely to use scents: so that's not a problem.

Disadvantages? Well, it is said that human males are more difficult to train than human females. This is not true. The advantage of training males is that they have no idea that they are being trained (ask any human female!).

It's important only to use reward methods of training for human males, as they are more likely to injure us if we nip or claw them. They don't mean to. It is just male lack of impulse control.

So careful training must start immediately using rewards like loud purring, kneading (avoid tender male body areas),  plaintive meows near food, and generally charming behaviour.

Human males are putty in our paws...

 

Cat photos for free book return!

Sometimes - just occasionally - humans do something clever. So the George Online Cat Award for March 2024 goes to some of the public libraries in the US.

Instead of fining humans for returning books late or damaged, they are accepting pictures of cats instead of money. They reckon they will get back more books that way. (Details here)

It's part of Massachusetts libraries'  Meowness month of March. It doesn't have to be a cat photo. It can be a drawing, a painting or just a magazine picture of a cat. In return for this normal fees for lateness of damaging a book will be forgiven and their library card will be reactivate

Apart from my own best-selling book, I don't go in much for books. They are not soft enough to sit on and they take up space which I would prefer to see used as a cat retreat. 

But I have always treasured the silence in a good library and the way a good book can help my human sit down and provide a warm lap. 

So purrs and rubs to Massachusetts librarians.

 

 

 

Purrlease... give oldies a home

 

Out there in cat pens there are hundreds of older cats that need homes. Brutally left without their humans, they will wait for months for a compassionate human to adopt them.

Fergus is a good example. He was brought into  an Oxford vet surgery by a kindly local woman. He was so thin that every single vertebra on his back was sticking out. He was starving to death.

He has lost his home when his owner died and was living rough at the age of about 11, definitely a geriatric age for cats. He could not have lasted much longer in the English winter.

The vets examined him, thought he was probably ill as well as starving and that the kindest thing to do would be to put him out of his suffering. Fergus gave deep throated purrs, rubbed himself against the staff, and generally showed he was a loving cat that wanted to live.

Sunshine Cat rescue in West Oxfordshire stepped in and paid for medical treatment - tests for diseases and dental work to pull out an infected tooth. Fergus meanwhile was eating as much as he possibly could!

Now he needs an adopter. He is eating three meals a day, and some extra dry food, putting on weight, and growing a glossy coat.

But he is in my spare room. And he's bored. And I don't want to live with another cat...

 

• If you can help find a home, share his photo from the website here - https://www.sunshinecatrescue.org.uk/adopt-cat/?catID=6190
  

 

Are you microchipped?

 

Are you microchipped? Of course you are. We feline bloggers are the lucky ones - up to date with our vaccinations, given regular vet care, and microchipped just in case.

Here in the UK about a third of cats are not. So if or when they get lost, there is no way of identifying their humans. If they are lucky enough to be picked up by a cat rescue organisation they just have to stay in a pen just hoping their humans will find out where they are.

Microchips also allow us to have a cat flap that closes against any feline intruders. This is so important for our mental health and feelings of security.

From June this summer it will be a legal requirement for all pet cats in the UK to be microchipped. All of them, whatever age and whatever their circumstances. There will be a fine of £500 for the humans who don't get this done.

I had my microchip put in when I was neutered - easily done and as I was out cold I didn't feel a thing. But even if I had been fully conscious it would have been no worse than what I feel with an injection.

If I could, I would microchip my human so I knew where she goes when she leaves the house. And then she could have her own security cat door to keep out burglars. But she is so stupid she won't do this.

Get yourself microchipped, if you don't already have one. Spread the word to dumb humans.

Are snowdrops dangerous?

My uncle George scratching

Are snowdrops dangerous to cats? My human was asked this last week and she didn't know the answer. One of her friends had read it in a news outlet - so it must be true.

Well, it was true... but only in theory. Do not let your human believe everything they read online.

Yes, snowdrop are potentially poisonous - the bulbs, that is. And what kind of cat is going to dig up snowdrop bulbs and eat them? A dog - well maybe. A cat - no.

When I go into the garden, I enjoy a good scratch on a tree; I enjoy sniffing where other cats have been; I look out just in case there is a mouse; I laze in the sun if there is any; but what I don't do is dig up things with my claws.

The only digging I might do is for toilet purposes. And I would never eat what I had dug!!

News outlets love bad news and scare stories. This is just one of the latest. 

Sometimes I think the human race has gone completely mad. Or perhaps they always were.

 

Why play matters....

 I play, therefore I am a cat.

I play when I am relaxed and feeling safe. I DON'T play if I am feeling stressed, or angry, or frightened or just hungry. So play is a way humans can recognise feline happiness.

It's also the way humans can recognise an unhappy cat. A cat that cannot or will not play is not relaxed and may be anxious or stressed.

Play is almost as good as hunting. Yes, I know that we house cats don't need to hunt for food any more. But the hunting instinct is designed to make us feel intensely absorbed and fully alive.

We indoor cats don't have the chance to hunt, but play is the next best thing to hunting. It exercises our body, interests our mind and fulfills the hunting instinct. It's not the social play with another cat: it's playing with a cat toy or some little object.

This is a book which will help your human give you the best chance for happy relaxed play. It's written by one of the best cat researchers in the world.

Get your human to read it.

 

• The author also has a terrific blog at https://whatyourcatwants.com/
  

Signs of stress in the shelter

 Many of my feline friends have found their forever homes after a spell in a cat shelter. Otherwise they would have continued to live rough on the street.

So shelters are good - but they are also very stressful for some of us. Most of us cats settle in fairly well and start to feel at home once we have rubbed our scent on the shelter surroundings and got used to strange noises, strange people and strange smells.

Most but not all. Some of us cats are particularly prone to stress and for us stressy cats time in a shelter can be hell - unless we have somewhere to hide.

So we do the best we can to hide. We close our eyes and pretend to sleep. Most humans think we are sleeping.

But the most intelligent humans can see that we are not - our bodies are tense and uptight, not relaxed and spread out, our feet are under our shoulders and firmly on the ground ready to run away, our ears are pointing downwards from anxiety, and every now and again we open an eye.

Here is a video of a cat pretending to sleep. Show it to your human, so that they can spot the signs. If they work in shelter, a cat who copes by pretending to sleep needs a hiding box.

Signs that I am stressed ... ears and eyes

 

This cat is stressed and fearful.

When I am stressed and a bit frightened, I lower my ears towards the side of my head. So there is a bigger space at the top of my head, between each ear. 

I might swivel them back a little too - if I think I might need to defend myself. That puts them out of the way of an attack from the front.

And my pupils grow large as I need to see exactly what is going on. The photo shows a cat that is crouched low too. 

All these signs should be noted by our humans, but some of them are very bad at reading what we are saying. Or they think that stroking us will calm us down when we are frightened. 

Just the reverse usually. If we are scared at a human who is looking at us, we might even nip them if they put out a hand to grope us.

Respect for our feelings is what we want from humans. We don't always get it because they are so ignorant.

• They might learn a bit more if they read the book I have written under a joint pseudonym!
  
  
  
  

Signs that I am stressed - the quick head shake

I need a quick head shake when I feel stressed - often when my human has stroked me too much and I need to regain my serenity. 

It's such a quick head shake that often humans don't notice it. Or they just think I am rearranging my fur.

But it's like the way humans sometimes wriggle their shoulders or do a quick sigh.  Or fiddle with their hair.

A sign that I want to get back to equilibrium. It makes me feel a little  bit better. 

I can't show this in a still photo - my human has tried and it is just too difficult. So she is posting a video at the end of this post. 

 

Signs that I am stressed - the tongue flick

 When I am stressed, I lick my nose - a quick flick of the tongue upwards. This is another example of our body language that humans cannot seem notice. They are very unobservant.

It's not the licking of lips, when I am finishing up a meal. When I lick my lips after a meal, I do several licks in succession or my tongue goes right round my mouth into the sides of the mouth to pick up any food fragments that have been left behind.

This kind of mouth licking takes much longer and is more thorough. The stress tongue flick is a single flicking move and quick. So quick that humans usually miss it. So quick that it only takes about two seconds or even less.

If you have a really good human pet, they will learn about the quick tongue flick. They will begin to notice it. And they will be on the way to understanding  you.

Signs that I'm stressed - the quick lick

Humans often miss what we are telling them. They don't understand our body language. Indeed, they often just don't even see it.

Many of us have humans that just don't understand us.

This is the shoulder lick, which we all do when we are feeling a bit uneasy, or a bit fearful, or we want to calm ourselves down a little. It's a quick turn to the shoulder, and a quick lick on the fur.

It's like the "phew" noise that humans make when they are getting to the end of something stressful.

It's quick. So quick that humans usually miss it. They just don't understand what we are saying. So quick that it only takes about five seconds or even less.

If you have a really good human pet, they will learn about the quick shoulder lick. They will begin to notice it. And they will be on the way to understanding  you.