If cats designed catteries...

This cattery design looks modern but it gives the inmates no privacy from staring humans.

 If we cats designed catteries, the most important thing we would do is make sure every cattery has a hiding place. A proper one which gives complete privacy.

It's always scary going to a boarding cattery for the first time. It smells wrong. There are weird noises. And - worst of all - there are strange human beings STARING at us.

Staring is intimidating and stressful.

That's why we need a small area to which we can retreat, until we have got used to the pen and can spend some time rubbing around it to spread our scent so that it smells like home.

The worst cattery designs are those that just have a shelf and a blanket. If there is a high sided bed, that helps a little though not enough.

The other cattery designs we hate are those one where only glass separates us from the humans the other side.  We have to sit near the glass because that is the only heated area.

Nervous cats close their eyes and pretend to sleep - it's called feigned sleep and it is a sign of stress. Our bodies are tense, our back is humped up, and every now and again we turn our heads away from the staring humans.

Watch this video at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxnA1YL3KJw   and you will see what I mean.

OK, so you humans cannot afford to rebuild your cattery. We understand. But there is something you can do.

PLEASE give us a cardboard box (photo abovve)  to hide in. Or buy a Hide & Sleep (photo right) from Cats Protection which gives more protection.

 

The Prime Minister didn't adopt. He shopped.

 

KITTENS LIKE CONRAD NEED A HOME....

Humans will keep buying us. As if we were a packet of cereal from a supermarket. Then after buying us with money, they think they own us.

Indeed their stupid laws says we are a possession.

The UK prime minister is the latest idiot to buy a cat. He has acquired an expensive Maine coon kitten "for his children." That's a typical politician's excuse.

He could have adopted a kitten that needed a home. He could have been like American president Joe and his wife Jill Biden who always adopt rescue animals.

Our prime minster just flashed the cash. If it was his purrsonal cash. Maybe it wasn't. He doesn't buy his own glasses and his suits. They are donated by a friend.

He could have set a good example by getting a rescue cat. He could have done something for cat welfare. He might even have shown some love and sympathy for homeless cats.  He chose not to. 

I am glad I am a cat, not a politician. I think more clearly. I have proper pride. 

Cats in hats

Dressing up cats is one of the more disgusting habits of young humans, usually females. It's uncomfortable, and it goes against the dignity of any decent cat. It's feline humiliation at its worst.

Cats hate hats. 

Now adult scientists are doing it and I am not sure whether to give it my approval or not. They have started crocheting little hats for cats, so that they can measure brain activity.

Demeaning? Yes. Should be stopped? Purrhaps not. The aim is to measure feline brain activity so as to learn more about chronic pain. 

Many of us older cats have severe arthritis. Our dumb human companions often don't notice this. We hide our pain and do not complain. Unlike them... have you ever heard two oldie humans swapping stories about their health? Pathetic.

So the aim of these hats is to benefit cats, not humans -- for a change. And although the cats in the Youtube report (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLyRnnprR-M) look very fed up with their hats, maybe their disgust is justified by the benefits that may result.

And, of course, this is non-invasive research. No cat is hurt in the process. Just made to feel very very undignified. What do other felines think?

How we domesticated humans

 This is a home for a cat circa 8,500 BC - one of the first that humans built when they became civilised and friendly to cats.

Before that time they wandered around the landscape without settling down in one spot. 

Once they settled, they had to store food. So house mice moved in.  So did sparrows. And so did we.... for the mice not the humans.

But the shelter from the weather suited some of us too. Admittedly building techniques in the so called Fertile Crescent were only mudbrick and the entrance door was in the roof... but better than a cold cave.

It was the beginning of the domestication of humans by cats. We moved in when we thought they had evolved enough.

• Photo shows early Neolithic mudbrick house, recreated at Asikli Hoyuk in Turkey.
  

Interventions for online addicts

Humans are strange creatures that get addicted to their computer screens. They are simply not present. Not here. Like drug users, they become more and more lost in their addiction.

We can help them get out of the online world and back into reality. But it takes tough love and a lot of purrsistence.

Luckily we cats have patience. We can wait at a mouse hole for hours and hours. This quality will be needed in our dealings with online addicts.

I recommend a sliding scale of action. Try these methods and then use the ones that work best.

• Mewing. Sound not scent is the best normal way to get your human's attention. They are scent blind but can be roused with noise.
• Purring loudly... you need to have jumped on the desk to make this rather charming intervention work. Purr as close to their face as possible. Lure them into looking at you not the screen.
  
• Desk roaming. Walk round the desk area, poking your paw at anything which might fall off the desk.
• Printer sitting. Sit on the printer and wait for the paper to come out. Treat this intervention as if you were waiting for a mouse to emerge from its mousehole. Printers are slightly warm to the butt, so this is quite an enjoyable intervention. 
• Printer take down. If the printer is a cheap one, your weight may stop printing altogether or even, if you are lucky, break the ridiculous item.
• 
  Keyboard paw work. Poking or sitting on the keyboard can produce a pleasing range of gobbledegook on the screen. Useful in vet's surgeries to prevent note taking.
  
• Screen blocking. Some cats do not bother with the above methods. They move straight to screen blocking. Blocking the screen makes online users unable to use. It is probably the best intervention going but comes with hazards if the online addict is likely to be violent.