Say no to kitten porn

 

Innocent kittens are being lured into soft porn calendars where they are posed with half naked men... 

Unbelievable?

No, this is the latest trend in Australia, where the fire fighters calendar has decided that male muscles need the help of cats to be popular.

Worse still... not content with using adult cats for this adult human calendar, they have added kittens

Innocent little kittens.

Kittens that are not old enough to give a good claw swipe in order to say No to Porn.

Where will this trend end? How vile can humans get? Don't let your local firefighters get involved.

Say no to kitten porn.

A feline Christmas in the White House

Christmas isn't always a good time for cats. But this year, there is some good news. 

There's a cat in The White House. You can see her enjoying the decorations here on YouTube.

So, fellow felines, with that in mind, be careful this Christmas. Do NOT eat tinsel. It will get tangled up in your gut.

Do NOT eat Christmas pudding or cake. The dried fruit can poison you.

Do NOT drink alcohol. If you are drunk and crazy you may fall off the mantelpiece or injure yourself. 

Go EASY on the turkey. A taste is fine but the cooked bones may cause internal injuries.

If the house is busy with too many humans or worse visiting dogs, fine a safe place to chill out - a spare bedroom, top of a wardrobe or some other hidey hole.

It will soon be over.

Snow - seven rules for sensible cats.

•  Rule no 1.  You cannot have too much heat.
  
• Rule no 2.  Find a human with central heating. If your human doesn't have it, then a wood burning stove, a a gas fire, or an Aga is the next best heating device.  
• Rule no 3 (see Rule 1).  Best of all is central heating, an Aga, AND a wood burning stove. 
• Rule 4.  Snow is magical - but only when seen from the windowsill with a radiator  below.
• Rule 5.   If you don't  have a litter tray, now is the time to educate your human by going behind the sofa.
• Rule 6.  Do not go out.
• Rule 7.  A snowy day is a good day for a very long nap.
  

Why we nip the vet

 

Vets do horrible things to us. No wonder we nip them. We are trying to tell them to STOP.

Humans take us once a year, sometimes more often, to see these veterinary humans. They stab us with needles. They hold our head back in order to shave the neck.

Sometimes they even stick something up our backsides. It hurts and, worse still, it is humiliating and undignified.

There are cats that put up with this but, I am happy to say, many do not. They put a stop to it.

How?

With a nip to veterinary hands. 

Keep nipping, all you cats out there. Vets deserve it!

Alas, poor little cat....

 

For three years, this little black cat turned up at a housing block to be fed by one of the humans living there. Another human from the same street walked up daily to feed him at 6pm.

He did well. He was seen mousing. His hair was glossy. He would sleep under a shrub in the sunlight in good weather.

The humans thought perhaps he belonged to somebody. We cats sometimes just go AWOL. After all, he had a collar. They didn't want to steal somebody else's cat.

Then this year his hair began to get matted. The humans started to feel anxious for him. A dry place was found for him at night, and he no longer seemed to roam away so much.

As the weather grew colder, they decided they had to do something, even if he did have an owner. He was picked up, taken to a woman who put him in her spare bedroom and took him to the vet the next morning. His matted hair was cut off; he was microchipped.

Underneath his hair, it was clear that he was very thin. Painfully thin.  Desperately thin. Despite being offered chicken and sardine, he ate only the tiniest amount over the next 36 hours. He drank a lot of water but was still dehydrated.

On his next visit to the vet, it was clear that he didn't have much time left. He had kidney disease, a heart murmur, something wrong with his liver. 

He purred when stroked. Arched his boney back up to the touch of a friendly hand. Then he was put to sleep for the last time.

Please, you humans, think of homeless cold cats this winter. Don't wait too long to help them find a warm home.

Should humans have babies or kittens?

 Should humans have a baby? Or should they have a kitten? It is question I have pondered every time I meet a single human with a cat. Surely, the advantages are on the side of getting a kitten rather than a human baby. 

Humans enjoy thinking of their cats as their babies - witness the latest book Seven Cats I Have Loved.* "Deep in my heart I knew I couldn't really tell my feelings for my daughters apart from my feelings for my cats," admits the author.

Many humans lie about this. She doesn't.

So here are the advantages of cats or kitten companions rather than human companions.

• Kittens are much faster to learn how to use a litter tray. No nappies. No potty training. No bed wetting.
• Kittens and cats are much quieter than babies. No midnight crying (well, silence most of the time).
• If neutered early enough, there is no teenage dating to worry about. Neutering is not available for teenage humans.
• 
  Humans will find kittens and cats much cheaper, even allowing for vet bills.
• Kittens and cats never talk back. They just walk away with dignity. 
• Kittens are so purrfectly adorable. All that delicious fur. Gorgeous whiskers. None of that bald skin.

The sensible human choice has to be kittens or cats. 

 

* Seven Cats I Have Loved by Anat Levit. Serpents' Tail. £9.99.

Archeological cats

It's not widely known but we cats have long had an interest in archeology particularly in countries with a feline friendly climate like Italy. There is rarely an archeology site that does not have a resident cat or cats.

Take Herculaneum for instance. A feline guide is available for cat-human encounters. She enjoys human company and is willing to engage in shared meals whenever possible. 

The local human cat lovers have ensured that she is neutered and those employed on the site make sure there is regular cat food and water available.

It's a great lifestyle. Dry shelter in the roofed Roman houses, plenty of lizards on the walls to catch, and of course rodents are available. 

Best of all, there is freedom in being a community cat, not a house cat. Freedom to roam all round the site. Freedom to ignore tourists or to engage with them.

Read my paws....

 

Look at our front paws and you can read our feelings from them. If they are tucked neatly under us, bent towards each other or bent back under the chest, while we am sitting, it means we are relaxed and happy.

If they are under our bodies but firmly on the ground, it means we are anxious. /we have not relaxed. We have our paws ready for movement, so that we can back away fast or even flee for our lives.

 

Pay attention, humans. Read our paws.

Pain makes us grumpy

 

My ears hurt. Don't touch me or I will nip

When I have a pain in my ears, my tummy or my joints, I get grumpy. I might even nip my human. I can't help it. What else can I do to stop her petting me in a painful place?

Humans just don't understand this. They think we are being vicious. They should remember that they get grumpy too when they are in pain.

This is Mr Nipper Spangles. He has ear mites or something similar. So he is worried about being petted anywhere near them. 

He nips if he sees a hand coming close to his ears. It's the only way he can avoid the risk of being hurt. It hurts if his ears are touched.

Purrlease. Check us out for pain if we get grumpy with our humans.

Black cats lives matter.

 

Black cats need your help, this Halloween. Black kittens are usually the last to be adopted from a shelter. Adult black cats stay longer waiting in a rescue pen for a forever home.

Worse still, in countries where healthy cats are killed if nobody wants to adopt them, black cats are more likely to be put down. Humans want  white cats, tabby cats, ginger cats and even black and white tuxedo cats before they want an all-black cat.

Humans can help black cats in many ways.

• Adopt a black kitten. If you must have a ginger kitten, then add a black kitten too.
  
•  Adopt an adult black cat waiting for a home.
• Make sure you take a good photo of your shelter black cats. It's not always easy to get one, so take your time until you do.
  
• Highlight the plight of your black cats waiting for homes by sending that good photo to the local newspaper/TV/radio station.
• Add an eye-catching second name to the names of black cats waiting for homes - not just Blackie. Think of a celebrity name like Denzil, Obama, Rishi, Morgan. Or Oprah, Whoopi, Serena and Whitney.
• Tie a large ribbon or a banner to their pen with a heart felt message.
• Have a special black cat adoption day. Or week. Any time you have more than one black cat in rescue.
  

Why do we do the zoomies?

 

Humans don't understand why we do the zoomies. No, I don't mean that boring computer stuff. I mean when we take off and run madly round the house or garden. Frenetic Random Activity is what scientist call it!

Sometimes we do it just because it is fun to work off surplus energy that way. Sometimes we do it when we are playing with another cat. Sometimes we do it because it gets the attention of our humans, who laugh at us. Sometimes we do it the same time every day, because the daily routine has sort of space for this kind of thing.

But.....

Sometimes when we zoom away from the litter tray it is because we want to get our paws away from that disgusting mess. Human hygeine can be very thoughtless. We want a litter tray that is cleaned at least once a day and preferably twice. Or even more often.

We don't like getting our paws wet with damp litter. We don't like an overwhelming smell. We want out as soon as possible. So we zoom away to shake dirty litter off our paws.

So clean up more often, you human servants.

The delicacy of a paw touch

 

One of my many cat friends, Mr Nipper Spangles, is finding it hard to adapt his paws to a key board. He has tried sitting on it. He has attempted to use the tip of hi
s tail as a digit. He has tried to manipulate the keys by standing on several at a time.

To no avail. All that emerges on the screen is a series of meaningless scribbles.

True, when he stands on several keys at a time, the computer makes several strange noises. Clearly it is attempting to communicate vocally. But, says Spangles, it makes no sense at all. It cannot mew or miss or wail in the correct form.

What is the secret of my success at the keyboard? I want to be modest so I shall not mention my immense intelligence or my amazing patience. I will not even mention my days of practice when I was a kitten.

No. All I will say is that the secret of my success is delicacy. The delicate way I have learned to pat with my paw. Gently, Delicately. But with a feline firmness.

My paw work is so fine, so nicely judged, so precise that I am able to write this blog. To encourage other cats here is a photo of me at work. Note the delicate left hand paw.

My advice to cat bloggers is to accept the fact that you may not be able to type... get a human secretary.

Just use the keyboard to interrupt her when she is not paying you proper attention.