Black, beautiful and very very rich......

Dear George,

I think I’m in love! I KNOW I’m in love! No, not with my so called boyfriend who only comes in for food and eats everything, my food, his food and whatever else he finds. (I know he’s using me just for food but I’m happy I can feed a hungry cat).

Well, I’m in love with Tommaso, the millionaire cat! It took me one look at him and I knew I’m in love. He is by now famous and the richest cat in the world but that’s not the reason I love him even if $13 millions he inherited won’t hurt me, right? Or the houses in Rome, Milan or Calabria! I don’t know how to clip his photo from internet but you’ll find him through Google and see for yourself how handsome he is.

He was rescued as a back alley cat in Rome. He is 4 and black! He looks exactly like you George but I know you won’t ever leave Celia for me! So, I think I’ll give my heart to Tommaso for now (but let me know if you ever change your mind regarding Celia, of course). I want to send Tommaso a note to see if he shares my feelings. I feel bold and wild and I want to impress him! So my dear George, how can I impress a handsome cat?

Love

CAT Victoria

Dear Victoria,

I so approve of your choice. Not because of his money but because of his dark and handsome looks. We black cats are, all of us, handsome as hell. Dark as the devil with angelic hearts. I found this photo of him on the web and have posted it here though I am not sure if it is really him. Can those dollar signs in his eyes be for real? You can read more about him here.

Getting a note to him is going to be difficult. We cats communicate by smell so somehow you have got to send him an item that smells of you - a half-chewed catnip mouse, a little piece of your bedding, or just a little tuft of fur! I am not a sophisticat, so I just don't know how to find out his address. The richer they are, the more difficult they are to contact in my experience.

Doesn't he look gorgeous. And what a wonderful life story - found on the street and then loved so much that his pet human left him her fortune. There is a human I would like to know. She must have had a loving heart to get a street cat rather than a pedigree. Wish there were more like her. We black cats are often the last to be chosen for adoption. Maybe Tomasso's example will inspire others to offer black cats a home.

In the meantime, Victoria, it's good to have a dream. Purr yourself to sleep in this new year with the thought of those deep golden eyes, that sleek black coat, and that dark black nose and those wonderful long black whiskers.....

Love George

PS. Thank you for the comment about his eyes. Yes, they do look green but the green is the dollar signs and behind is golden, I think. Or maybe just a paler shade of green. Not sure.

Halloween and Fireworks day - be careful out there

Dear George,

I don’t know if Halloween is as popular in UK as it is in North America but I worry for all of us, black cats! We (me and my siblings) are not allowed outside on such day or night but even the kids knocking in the doors can be disturbing. They make so much noise and what for? A candy or a chocolate bar?

Plus, some of them are wearing frightening, ugly costumes and masks. Who could think of this as fun? Some people are even dressing their dogs in ridiculous costumes. Who wants to be a “bat” or “pumpkin” and then taken for a walk? Not us cats, I bet!

I don’t understand what Halloween is all about but, I don’t like it as I don’t like fireworks in the summertime. I think of it as poor taste entertainment! George, what can we do? How can we escape this “sugar rush”?

Bentley

Dear Bentley,

We have Halloween too and then later on November 5 we have Guy Fawkes day or Fireworks Day. There are bonfires and fireworks. The noise is terrible. In the past boys used to make up guys out of mops and old clothes and collect "a penny for the guy." Now they do trick and treat instead or as well.

But there are also a few feral humans who make the fireworks a chance to torture animals. Occasionally cats get deliberately thrown into bonfires. Or these feral youngsters tie fireworks to dogs' tails. It's not safe out there on the street for the next fortnight. Wildlife suffers too, as hedgehogs sometimes take refuge in the heaped up stuff ready for a bonfire - and then are burned to death.

My advice to all cats is to stay indoors as soon as it gets dark. Go under the bed if you are still scared - sensitive humans will not try to rout you out. They will leave you there where you feel safest. Even in the day time stay away from strange humans just in case they are a feral gang.

There's a special danger for black cats like you and me, Bentley. It is twofold. There is a rumour that black cats are caught and tortured or burned alive by black magic practitioners on Halloween. This probably isn't true. But then what happens is that black cats are scooped off the street by well-wishing humans and handed into animal shelters.

So far so good, you might think. Except that in the US (less so in the UK) "unlucky" black cats are slow to be adopted. So these handed in cats are then quietly euthanised by shelters who feel they can't find them homes. (in the l990s, animals shelters killed up to 70% of the cats handed in).

Please, any humans reading this, don't rescue black cats off the street unless you know a no-kill shelter to take them too. You may be "rescuing" them only to kill them. They are better off taking their chances on the street.....

Be careful out there, all you fellow cats.

George

Black IS beautiful.

Hi George,
We are two happy go lucky kittens currently in the care of West Oxfordshire Cats Protection. Our brother Arnie has been adopted. So has our sister Annie. We are the two left over kittens, and as you can see we are growing up fast. Why does nobody want us? We are just as funny and loving and playful as Arnie or Annie, yet we've been left on the shelf.
There are other kittens that are looking for homes - Midnight, Leon, Sammikins, Cecil, Cora, Carissa, Nora , Ozzie, Ollie and Oscar. They look just like us. You can see them on the WOCP
website.
Millie and Lottie

Dear Millie and Lottie,
You've been left on the shelf because you are black. A disgraceful form of colour prejudice still exists in the feline world. People choose light coloured cats, tabbies, naughy torties and even black and white cats before they adopt black cats. But August 17th is going to be Black Cat Appreciation Day on Facebook. I would like anybody who is reading this to take a look at this Facebook page.
As well as 11 black kittens waiting for adoption (and some more on the way), WOCP has two mature black cats looking for homes - Ella and Pepsi. They are black too and the odds are that they will be longer in the cat chalet than the tabbies, or torties, or even greys. It is so unfair.
Black is Beautiful. I am putting some photos of black cats that have been homed by WOCP below my signature. Starting at the bottom, there's Jasmine, a lady of mature years, then little Moth playing inside a cardboard box, Raven looking doubtfully at the camera, and elegant Holly examining a log. At the top is the photo of you two kittens Lottie and Milly sharing a joke. About the stupid prejudice of humans perhaps.
Just take a look below. Black cats are lovely. Though none so quite so handsome as me.
George.

Save a black kitten today.

Dear George,
I am a Cats Protection kitten with no name yet, though my mother is called Angel. She was picked up in the street heavily pregnant and gave birth to me and my four black brothers. I am writing to ask you why I have had an offer of a home, while none of my brothers have been so lucky. It seems so unfair. They have lovely blue eyes like me and are just as friendly, but somehow they don't seem to appeal. What can we do to stop colour prejudice among cat lovers?
Love
Kitten.
Adopt Angel and her black kittens at West Oxfordshire CP

Dear Kitten,
You are right. It is very unfair. We black cats in Britain are often the last to find homes because somehow people don't find us as appealing as the other colours. We also get thrown out on the street more - so that there are more black cats out there trying to survive. Moreover, we are the last to be taken in (apart from Cats Protection who take in all cats that need a home). So the number of stray black cats increases while the number of coloured ones decreases.
It's even worse in the USA where black cats are thought to be unlucky. At Halloween stray black cats are handed in to protect them from being burned alive by Satanists - only to be put down in their thousands in shelters. If your human is going to rescue a black cat, make sure that it is handed into a no-kill shelter. Otherwise it might as well take its chances in the street. At least that is a life of sorts.
Here in the UK they are thought to be lucky - though it doesn't help much. There's also a theory that black cats are wilder by nature, though I think it is just that they get less cuddles as kittens. The prettier ones are picked up more - which makes them tamer.
We can't do much on our own. This is a problem where we need to educate humans. They can be educated. It takes time to get through to this dumb species but it is possible. In the 1990s US shelters were euthanasing about 70% of the cats handed in - the same proportion that were being euthanased in the UK in the 1970's. Nowadays all but about 10 are rehomed in the UK. No-kill shelters have changed the situation. For once, we can help the Americans by setting a good example.
Save a black kitten today.
Love George
Help stop the sick movies that show animals being crushed by signing the petition - there is a link on www.theanimalrescuesite.com

What will 2009 bring for cats?

Dear George,
It's 2009 and here I am sitting in the Cats Protection main rescue centre - The National Cat Centre, in Kent. For me it's a gloomy outlook. I've lost my home and I don't know when I am going to find a new one. I feel disorientated and stressed out. What will the New Year bring? How am I going to cope?
Pumpkin

Dear Pumpkin,
Don't despair. At least you are in the warm and you are getting two meals a day and, best of all, if you are patient you WILL find a new home. Here in the UK we have lots of no-kill shelters that do not put down healthy cats. In the US, where the animal rescue movement is a little behind us, many many cats are just euthanised for lack of a home.
It's much worse for those cats trying to survive on the streets. Or those ones sheltering under the hedges, shivering, who have lost their way in the countryside. Or the cats in towns, who are sheltering in basements, some of them injured from road traffic accidents. Without food. Without warmth. Without human help.
You are a tabby tortoishell and you look beautiful so you will be picked quite early. It's worse for the black cats and the black and white ones that don't look so good. They will have to stay longer. I heard a horrible story about an animal shelter in Ohio where people hand in black cats are Halloween, because they think they will be safer there than on the streets (where they might be used for black magic sacrifices and torture). But 9 out of 10 of these black cats are just euthanised.
Where was I? Well luckily the animal movement bother in the UK and in the USA is working hard on trying to improve the way they find homes. Most of all, they need more animal adopters. The quicker there is a turn-round from unwanted pet to new home, the more animals can be helped. But of course, if they just hand out animals any how, the adoptions may fail. It's quite a dilemma getting it right.
So what do I wish for in 2009? I wish for more people willing to adopt the less attractive cats. Please adopt the ugly ones, the black or black and white moggies, the old, the disabled and the frankly bad tempered. They need help most. Every cat that is given a home from a rescue centre, leaves a pen for a new one. So by adopting a cat, a human is helping two, not one, cats.
Also money helps. With the financial heltdown, all rescues need cash. Cats Protection lost several million pound in the Icelandic Banks disaster. If you can help visit www.cats.org.uk or take a look at my kittenhood home at www.westoxoncats.co.uk If you are very, very lucky, your human could adopt a sleek, shining, and intelligent black cat like me.
George

Black Cat horror.

Just heard that black cats are tortured and sacrificed in Halloween ceremonies in the USA. Is this an urban legend? Can it be true? Lots of animal shelters refuse to hand out black cats for adoption before Halloween for fear they will be cruelly tortured. I can't believe this, but Celia came across it while researching for an essay on euthanasia.
I do so very much hope this isn't true. Perhaps Oscar Snuggles knows about it. He seems a wise US cat. I know that black cats are thought unlucky in the US though here in the UK they are lucky. But animal shelters both sides of the pond find it easier to get homes for cats of another colour. (Stop being smug, William. Tabbies are not that beautiful.).
Will add to the post when Celia gets deeper into the research.

Black is beautiful - and superior for survival

This is me up a tree doing my leopard act. I want to grow up to be a black panther like Bagheera. I used to think I could catch birds this way. Nowadays I just do it to amuse and alarm Celia. She stands underneath saying "Pleeeeease George, come down." She remembers when I climbed up as a tiny kitten one frosty December day, and was only rescued when a passing Human Hero got off his tractor, climbed up 30 feet, grabbed me and climbed down using only one hand.
My colour - black is called melanistic by scientists - may give me superior health and survival skills. Stephen O Brien (see earlier blog on 7/2/07) and Eduardo Eizirik, of the Cat Genome Project at the US National Cancer Institute have tracked down the melanism gene in 11 of the cat species. I have it in common with black panthers (melanistic leopards) and jaguars and jaguarundis. "Perhaps the selective pressure that allowed these mutations to survive in cats may not be camouflage. Perhaps the mutations cause resistance of the cats to bugs," O'Brien told Reuters in 2004.
Interestingly many stray cats are black or black and white. It is theorised that this happens because humans dislike black and therefore are more likely to adopt "pretty' strays - tabbies or tabbies and white like my elderly companion William. They just leave the black kittens to grow up wild and hungry. (Honestly, there is so much to dislike about humans. Colour prejudice is one of their more disagreeable traits.) And the black cats stay longer in rescue establishments because nobody wants them.
But maybe there are more of us on the streets partly because we survive better. I ought to try to contact the Italians who are holding Black Cat Day in November (see blog 8/27/07) to tell them this. We black cats are lucky not unlucky. Black power rules in catland.

How the Pope could help black cats

Bad news in yesterday's newspapers. Black cats are being killed in Italy just because they are black. The Italian Association for the Protection of Animals claims that as many as 60,000 cats like me are slaughtered because of the stupidity and superstition of humans. I know we are discriminated against in Britain - Cats Protection find it more difficult to get homes for black cats like me. But in Italy it is much worse.
In Italy people believe that a black cat brings bad luck if it crosses their path. (Only wish we could sometimes!). And that where there is a black cat, the Devil is present too. Thousands of black cats go missing or are found dead every year because of this ridiculous human belief. Apparently the church itself was involved for centuries with priests ordering massacres like a sort of religious Klu Klux Klan. (And in the seventeenth century British authorities searching out "witches" also demonised their pet cats. Only now Brit humans believe black cats are lucky, thank goodness.) I only wish this Pope, who is meant to love cats, could do something to purge this superstition. Could he not have a word with God (whom I consider may well be a Cat not a Human Person - see earlier blogs.)
Why do humans think it is acceptable to torture and kill an animal because of the colour of its fur? And why black? What is the difference between white and black that black should be demonised in this way? Italian humans even kidnap black cats at Hallowe'en and sacrifice them in cruel ceremonies. Why are humans so very, very cruel? They claim we are cruel but are in denial about their own behaviour.
Help stamp out this discrimination, torture and killing. The Italians are going to hold a Black Cat Day on November 17. Watch this space....
PS. This picture is me inside a drawer. What I enjoy is climbing in, digging a sort of hole in the clothes and having a little nap. Do my bright eyes really look devilish? or just kittenish?

William's nose was put right out of joint

William is not a cool cat. Couldn't be. Not at his age, which is practically an OAP age for cats. (OAP stands for old age pensioner - for cats like Oscar Snuggles across the pond). Only young lean mean hunting machines, preferably black, can be really cool in catdom. Street cred for tabby and white is low, fellow cats. That white and black female next door knew that when she flashed her tummy at me.
William has not been honest about our stay in the cattery. He was frightfully upset by the cat the other side of our chalet, the one in the picture here. He was a look alike - semi long haired tabby and white with markings like W's. Only bigger. Much bigger. Don't let anybody tell you that size doesn't matter. You can't be a cool cat if you are pretty, longhaired and small. Which William is, compared to certain lean black cats. And, worse for him, small compared with the tabby and white next door.
William just tried to ignore him. Then he told me he thought the cat looked like Hitler. Boy, did that show his paranoia. Or it was a pathetic attempt to smear the cat's reputation. Any cat can see for themselves on www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com that Hitler cats have to be black and white. They can't be tabby and white even if they have a small tabby moustache. Tabbies can't do Hitler.
Nor can black rapper street cats. Black is Beautiful. Black Pussycat Power. Slogans for cats... that's another blog entry.