Keeping safe. Human killers or animal killers?

 We cats get very frightened when we hear about humans serial killers of cats. How can we tell the difference between a killer and a human friend? Now we can relax a little, if we live in Croydon, a suburb of London.

There isn't a human cat killer at large. The killers were foxes.

Hundreds of cats went missing there, but now a scientific study reported here says the deaths were due either to foxes attacking and killing cats, or foxes scavenging on the dead bodies of cats that had died from different causes.

However, how can we keep safe from foxes? 

The best way to do this is to stay indoors at night. Please, humans, lock the cat flap when you come home from work. 

Yes, we won't like it. Yes, we will complain at first. So call us in for a special meal or special treats, so that we are rewarded when we get indoors.

It's the simple way to keep us safe from predators....

Get microchipped

 So many cats get lost when they stray from home. They have to roam the streets looking for somebody who might help them survive. Or they end up in traffic accidents and their grieving owners never know what happened. Now, at long last, the UK government is going to do something about it.

Microchips can help all cats. That is the message from International Cat Care. But somehow many humans either just forget, or don't care, or feel it cannot happen to them. Why should you be microchipped?

• If you get lost and are rescued by a human, a vet can read the microchip and you can be re-united with your family.
• If you are injured in a traffic accident, a vet can treat you and find your home.
• If, (Bastet or some other cat goddess forbid), you meet your death under a car, your body can be scanned and your humans can get closure. It's awful for them, if you just disappear, and they never know what happened to you.
• Cat rescue organisations will be able to rehome stray cats immediately, if they are microchipped. That means they can take in more cats that need help
• Microchipping may help stop thieves who steal cats to resell them.
• Irresponsible cat owners, including cat hoarders, can be taken to court - which gives them the chance to be re-educated in cat welfare.
• Irresponsible or disorganised cat charities (and there are a few of them) will have to shape up to proper welfare standards. Just handing out cats without microchips won't be good enough.
  

Dumb humans call cats psychopaths.

 Humans shoot rabbits:nobody calls them psychopaths.

 All cats are somewhat psychopathic? So say the human newspapers in a gross slur on cats. Read it here. Psychopathic? Ridiculous. A typical example of dumb humans loading their preconceptions on to the feline species.

I am so cross about this that I would like to write a letter to the newspaper. But my paws just won't work correctly. What can I do? Well I could nip, bite or scratch to express my feelings of frustration against the human race.

Their "thinking" (if you can call it that) goes like this. Human psychopaths are 1) predatory: 2) manipulative and 3) without empathy. We cats are all those things because we have to be, living with humans.

Predatory? Yes. I catch mice and rats. This is what we do as cats. It is how we survived before the advent of cat food in a bowl. So we catch birds? They eat birds like chicken and turkey and duck.

Manipulative? Yes. How else am I going to get my human to do what I want? Or how else am I going to stop them doing what i don't want?  So I purr, rub, or nip or bite. It is my only option since I can't use the human language.

Without empathy or callous? Not fair. I try to understand their feelings, but they express them in such an odd way. They just keep blahblahing at me but I can't understand their language. Their vocalisations are too complex: their body language is not at all expressive: and they hide their natural body scent communications by standing under water, adding artificial scents and flushing away the urine and faeces which I could otherwise get a message from.

There are times when I despair of dumb humans. They are so STUPID.

Toby and Christmas

Humans start to go mad at this time of you. And I mean mad.

They order and pay for paper representations. They then make little scratch marks on them: place them in paper envelopes and take them to a red postbox (in the UK) which swallows them up.

And through a slit in the door, similar paper items come through in large numbers. These are then exhibited on a rope across the kitchen or placed on the mantle piece. Who knows what this is all about? These paper items are not good to eat. Or even to play with.

However, quite often these paper cards include cat photos, as well as fat male humans dressed in red, babies with mothers in blue, or pictures of people with alcohol. Now the cat pictures can be quite fun.

I have put one of these here since my human is going to send a card memorialising my late friend, Toby the Crossed Eyed Stray. The cat that she wrote a whole book about. She hasn't got over his death.

If I had to choose between a fat human dressed in red and Toby, I would choose Toby. I think you will all agree on this.

Growing old gracefully

This is my friend, also called George. He is a senior cat. He is happy, and healthy even if he does sleep rather a lot. He's not as sleek as he used to be, as his fur has thinned a bit and he's not good at grooming himself in the difficult parts to reach.

I think his human  should groom him daily, just to get to the areas where he finds grooming rather tricky. She told me that the next time she takes him to the vet, she will ask if he has arthritis that might be painful. It may hurt him to turn his body round to groom his back.

How does she know he is mentally still active and not suffering from dementia?

•  He is able to move round the house and garden without being disorientated. He can find his way around.
  
• Their relationship is unchanged. He is neither clinging nor strangely distant.
• He sleeps and wakes at his usual times. There is no middle-of-the-night waking and calling.
• He uses his litter tray without trouble
• His behaviour is normal. He doesn't pace restlessly.

Check that we oldies are not in pain from arthritis. Keep an eye on our behaviour - if we start behaving abnormally, it could be disease or the beginnings of losing it. 

We senior cats need to keep their dignity and wellbeing. Get your owner to read up on elderly cat care