Pet Channel

Global warming leads to more cats. That’s the claim of Pets Across America, who says warming has lengthened the feline mating season. I’m normally opposed to taking drastic action to fight climate change, but if this dubious claim is true I might have to support some massive CO2 reductions. Or perhaps we could just use the excess kitties as a source of biofuel? Whatever’s cheaper.

This weather is bringing out all the creepy crawlers. Thank goodness for my cats who chase flies all day and alert me if a rogue cock roach is in the house and eat up any other creepy crawlers that find their way in. However if I find my cats chasing a lizard I may freak the hell out. Bugs, yes. Reptiles, no.

When I was in my twenties, I had a beautiful white cat who shared a tumbledown apartment with me. She served as a kind of dysfunctional flatmate – pulling cones all day, hitting me up for cash all the time and generally wreaking havoc in my life. Velcro had two personalities. When she wanted to be fed: she’d purr in my arms like a big, fluffy marshmallow. When she didn’t: she ruled the household with an Iron Claw.

There is trouble brewing down in Key West, Florida. The Hemingway House, where novelist Ernest Hemingway wrote the novel “A Farewell to Arms” is famous for its lineage of cats, each of which have six toes. All of the cats are descended from Hemingway’s cat Snowball. A neighbor down the street from the Hemingway House and museum became upset when one of the six-toed Tomcats started mating with her own cats. So she called the Federal government to do something about the Hemingway cats.

Why do cats that fall from higher altitudes suffer lesser injuries than those that fall from lower heights? A revealing National Geographic video presents some intriguing new answers to this eternal cat conundrum, a phenomenon New York vets call "high rise syndrome".

And, finally, an explanation about the first picture. Coming back from the negotiations Kai decided to celebrate his tree-climbing prowess by tucking into the specially prepared meal he found on top of the fridge. Unfortunately the sustenance found was neither specially prepared nor a meal. It was chicken fat cooling off in a foil container before being thrown out. Kai, a kitten of the messy eater persuasion, managed to coat his chest, stomach and front legs in gooey fat.

We currently have no furniture on the first floor of our house (that is not under a sheet or pushed against the wall), so we have been living upstairs. While I realize this is probably as much room as some apartments, but when you are used to an entire house, two adults and four cats in three rooms is a tight fit.

Birds need room to move around and stretch their wings so you want to buy the biggest cage you can afford. You want to get a cage where your bird is able to fly from one end to the other. This is good but if you have a spare room or bird-safe-place where the windows are closed (never a kitchen or a bathroom) and it is protected from other pets such as cats and dogs, this is way better.

Didn’t do much in the way of knitting this weekend. I started the second plain-jane roman sock (whee!) and pulled Seraphim out for the first time since Momoze died. I had initially intended it as a Christmas gift for my MIL, but Saraphim was the project that Momoze was helping me on and seeing how much of his fur is lovingly knit into it…yeah, I’m keeping it for myself. It’s even retained a bit of his soft, powdery, dry scent that was uniquely him.

According to a Meow Poll, 83% of American cats are concerned about national security. Catnabbit! interviewed several felines about their greatest fears, and here are the top ten concerns of cats in regards to national security:

Well, I have to tell you today was an interesting day. We are trying to get our cat to be an indoor cat because we have coyotes in the area that prey on cats at night. Now that our cat is 6 months old, well, he wants to go outside. We have put the barrier door on our dog’s doggie door because our cat has figured out how to go outside using the doggie door. We take the dog out several times per day to do his duty. But now it’s a battle to keep the cat in … every time we go out, the cat tries to sneak out. This takes time away from my Internet website about artists wall clock because I’m always trying to police my cat.

Jimmy and I would ride our skateboards or bikes around with nothing else to do except be kids and man was it fun. I wish I had just a few of those days back just so that I could actually get some exercise. Pretending to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle was quite an aerobic and exhausting task. I would always pretend to be Donatello, the ninja turtle that wore purple and had a stick as a weapon. I was a bit of a nerd and so was Donatello, so it fit me pretty well. Jimmy and I also did the activities boys often do before reaching their teenage years. You know, putting firecrackers in frog’s mouths and watching them hop around until they explode, burning ants with magnifying glasses, shooting out abandoned house windows with a pellet gun, and the occasional throwing of cats into a swimming pool for good measure.

Once we meld the blogging world with the physical world, the communities are going to explode, people will make solid relationships, cats and dogs will love one another, it will be amazing. I'm just happy to be involved in that transformation, its a cool feeling today.

Tonight, Calvin get a sleeping pill (@mitriptyline) and I get half an @mbien.

It’s sad that I have to give antidepressants to my cat.

Sometimes, for no apparent reasons, M just switches to a crazy cat mode. All cats do it.

Langley has always been a 'picker.' Some cats meow, some cats nip and some cats pick. Langley loves to sink her claws into a chair, a foot stool or a plant pot and stretch until her heart's delight. When she does this we typically give her what we call "liquid justice," a squirt bottle full of cool water.

So I was watching the 2nd period with the cats lying on my stomach. The Bertuzzi goal happens and I raise an arm in the air and call out “Yeah!” with what I thought was admirable restraint, so as not to bother the pussycats.

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this subject. On one hand, most of the time, animals are harder to treat than people for several reasons. Take a dog for example. There are hundreds of dog breeds, all with slightly differing internal structures. A veterinarian's job is to make an educated decision of how a dog's system works based on how the "average" dog's system works. Also, an animal is not capable of telling someone when and where something hurts, making it even more difficult to determine the problem. Sometimes there are cases that are just near impossible to treat. In addition, most veterinarians love animals and want nothing more than to help each and every creature. Some, however, are more concerned with making money rather than treating the patient. These are the veterinarians who recommend surgery when it's not necessary, and prescribe expensive treatments that don't even touch the problem. I definitely can relate to the woman who lost her dog because of misdiagnosis. My cat died the same way, and I was furious with the veterinarian, so I understand her actions. However, it's hard really to tell whether the case was one with a caring vet who did all they could, or one with a vet who just wanted to make money.

Two Sundays ago I was doing one of my favorite things, that I don't get to do as much as I would like, taking a daytime nap. Just as I was dozing off I heard a "chirk, chirk" sound. I thought it was a bird in a tree outside the window and ignored it, but the "chirks" got louder and more frantic and I remembered the times one of the cats had brought in a living bird, and I leapt out of bed as if aliens were beaming me aboard their craft for unknown, but intrusive, medical experiments. (Have you ever noticed how infrequently people who claim to have been abducted are anyone one would want to spend time with? They apparently have such empty, and to them, unimportant lives, that they have to make up alien acquaintances to have anyone to spend time with. I have a higher opinion of beings who have the intelligence and quest for adventure for space travel than to believe they have nothing better to do than abduct these sorts of people.)

A couple days before Rita hit a cat showed up at our doorstep. The cat was pretty beat up. His neck was pretty torn up. We think he may have been attacked by a dog or something. He was pretty skinny. We’ve been feeding him though, and he’s starting to look a little healthier.

Thursday after work we made the decision to cancel our trip. I cancelled the kennel and the hotel. But we had no supplies since we weren’t planning on being here. We always keep bottled water around, and we have plenty of empty bottles laying around that we could fill before the storm hit. But food that doesn’t require refridgeration? One can of black beans and some summer sausage we got as a Christmas gift. And we were running low on cat food. A co-worker mentioned that the health food store wasn’t crowded, so I headed there. I bought two different kinds of cat food - I didn’t know you can buy vegan cat food - hoping my picky eaters would take to one.

In keeping with a recent Doonesbury comic strip, wherein Garry Trudeau-via the cartoon radio host Mark Slackmeyer-explored certain bloggers' affinity for Friskies, I salute Tigerhawk, the Blogosphere's latest cat-food connoisseur. In his response to this Nick Kristof column, Tigerhawk argues against America's obligation to stop genocide.

I have damaged the cat and now he is not speaking to me. Sly has been scratching at the carpet in this house. In our last house, he never did any damage. This house has a level loop through out it (terminology courtesy of my Dad). Every time Sly scratches, he does damage. Not wanting to de-claw him, I looked on-line for a solution. I found a product called Soft Claws that solve the problem. These little vinyl tips come with glue and you glue them over each claw. The cat can scratch but no damage is done.

I am owned by two cats . They are insane well at least one is. My insane cat is named Indy Kitty and he is the cutest thing ever. I will share pictures and everything as soon as I can.

The rest of the bat was MIA, and the five loose cats were looking very self satisfied.

You know what this means? Rabies boosters for the whole damned crowd. 19 cats. Although the others were confined in their runs and rooms, because they could come in contact with the bat killers, they must be vaccinated, too.

Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and their collaborators said Sunday they found a dysfunctional feline gene that probably prevents cats from tasting sweets, a sensation nearly every other mammal on the planet experiences to varying degrees.

Generally, women seem to like cats, and boy, does this woman loves cats. In fact, she likes them both dead and alive. Police said that Ruth Knueven, 82, of Burke, Virgina had more than 100 dead cats, plus nearly 50 more live ones, in her house. She was previously arrested before after authorities removed more than 270 cats, both alive and dead, from another of her homes. It’s not just her, police found another 134 dead cats and 47 living ones in a Burke home belonging to her family. What’s with old women and cats?

I think our cat Tigger can read, he was acting all jealous toward me today. I was reading a Cat Who series book and he is not the main character. All cats are vain that way, thinking things have to be about them all the time.

The Airborn Cats series at Flickr is priceless. And nearly unbelievable.

Argh. I hate it when a loved pet gets sick and is clearly on its deathbed. I inherited two cats from my ex-girlfriend, both rather elderly. One of the cats died a year and a half ago of stomach cancer. The other one, Freckles, was diagnosed with heart disease about 3 months ago. She's been doing remarkably well with her medication, but this last week she's taken a serious turn for the worse. She's so adorable--follows us around in the house, purrs, but is really having trouble with anything more than walking a room length at a time. It's so sad. And you never get used to it. And even though I've dealt with the death of people (like my father when I was 15, and like the 8 year old son of a dearly loved friend), it just always feels awful. Whether it's sudden or slow.

The cats aren’t coming inside, though… but that all-grey kitten is fucking cute as hell. The picture here is of the little black kitten. His bother and sister scampered off when I opened the door to take this picture, and mama cat growled…

I went to visit one of my rental properties. I convinced the previous tenant to move out after she decided to use the entire unit as a toilet for her and her cats. I found out today that removing the carpeting was a very good decision because it had maggots and fleas. She managed to take most of the drugs with her but left enough defiled crap to fill an entire 30 foot dumpster (rolloff) with no room to spare.

On top of that my Aunt Margret lives there. She and my Uncle don’t have children, they have showdogs. There are three of them, and two three week old puppies. The barking never stopped. They also have this poor little cat who is alone in a house of dogs, who never gets paid attention to, so all she does is sit on the table and meow the most sad and depressing meow you have ever heard, over and over again.

However, the secret place for which i had successfully squeeze myself in shall not be disclosed here. it will remain confidential between me n my cats... i bet my cats were thinking that their master is going 'coo-koooo' in the head... haha.... well they're not exactly helpful though... they just sat there in a group n watching me...as though i'm putting on a freaking show for them... damn these lazy cats!!!!! eat sleep east sleep!!hhehehe but i still love them to death.... i mean if anything were to happen to me.... they'll be the last living things that i see n they're my sole witnesses over my stupendous act of stupidity!

Cat update: He managed to pull the splint off while we were asleep on Thursday night, making our late night emergency vet visit completely unnecessary. R took him to our vet yesterday, who set the leg, took new x-rays, and kept him overnight. Now he's got a new splint, an e-collar (lampshade thingy to keep him from eating it) and tranquilizers. We borrowed a big dog kennel from a friend and will keep him in it (doped up) when we're not home. He's already figured out how to walk and climb things with it on, so he should do OK. Poor little thing.

I went through3 1/2 years of allergy shots, never getting past the 1/2 way point because I was so dang sensitive. What a waste of time. I’m allergic to dust, grass, Alder trees, Timothy weed, cats, dogs…oops, did I say cats….um yeah, mold…I think their’s a few more but I can’t remember them.

A friend of mine emailed me the following photo series of the most patient mastiff! I don’t think these two know the meaning of “fighting like cats and dogs!”

My parents have a cat that’s been hanging around their house and sometime in the last two weeks it had 6 kittens under their front porch. They are feral cats and very skittish. I was able to catch a glimpse of one the entire time I was there.

Cat Vomit Sign: these would be handy. Our cats are always horking everywhere. If it’s not hair, it’s masticated bits of cat chow.

s and today on a whim I decided to check out the cats which they had at the local Petsmart. I looked at all the various cats and read their stories…and then I saw McCoy. I asked it I could go back and pet him to see how friendly he was and I almost started sobbing because he reminded me of my Mario. I needed a moment to think over adopting him but after my husband and I ate lunch, back we headed to Petsmart.

The neighbors’ two cats had kittens recently, about a month apart. The kittens for the first mother have all either been given away or disappeared. The kittens for the second mother seem, at least for tonight, to have moved onto my porch.

This picture is just wonderful. Ferrets have such cute faces. I've heard they make great pets, and I knew a woman in college who had a ferret.

But we have cats. I don't think they mix.

When we showed up, the store cats were closed in the bathroom, but the lady who was working let them out for Sarah to meet. I really like those cats as they are about five thousand times more affectionate and friendly than Indy is (which doesn’t mean I love Indy less, it just means that I like other kitties too). Last time I was there, the younger cat put her paw on my tummy and when I gave her the okay, she climbed up onto my shoulder and then cuddled into my arms. This time, she did the paw thing, and then she climbed onto and stayed perched on my shoulder and back. It was random, but it was nice to have a soft, purring catlet pressed against my face.

Sasha, Lyra, Sergei and I welcome you to the new home of Music and Cats, and to Carnival of the Cats #64, the Just Barely Out of the Boxes edition.

A couple of days ago, I was sitting in here, in my office at home, and the cats were both under the desk by my feet. Normally, I will shoo them away if they start messing with the cords that are under there. But they were being quiet, so I wasn’t paying them much attention. One of them must have gotten tangled up in the mouse cord, because they both ran out of the room and the computer was pulled over onto it’s side. I had to go searching for the mouse, and found it under the bed. Both of the cats were in the bedroom, big-eyed, looking...

From that day forward I was a Republican, and I never owned another dog ever again, because dogs are like Democrates and cats are like Republicans.

LIVING in an area populated by dogs is probably a nightmare for most cats, but Gidget loves every minute of it.

Boldly-striped tabby cats are the best bed companions when one is fighting a gallstone attack.

Fifi regaled us with entertaining obvious lies about her friend who has every kind of animal. "She has a frog. Actually 5 frogs. Actually she has 9 frogs and a snake and a lizard and a puppy, no, 11 puppies, and a cat." "I wish I had an otter for a pet." "Oh, she has an otter too." Then, equally hilarious foul boasting about her pony and her other pony and how she is getting a new pony, and her ranch, and her riding lessons, and how the ranch is next to the beach, and how she has a huge playroom full of toys. (Oh, how her mom would kill her to hear it! But I'll never tell.) Also - she can stand up on her horse while it trots AND canters. *SNORT* Backwards.

Truth be told, I'm all for beauty, and I don't think that's shallow at all. We love art, we love beautiful music, we love pretty cats... well, I love pretty cats. I love ugly cats too. I love all cats, the way some people coo over any and all babies. But I digress.

I mentioned Mojo, my shop manager/feline last night… Here's a pic of her enjoying a bonfire over Memorial Day Weekend. When it comes to the Hot Rod Styled BBQ Pit, all I can say is: Cats dig it! She seems to like the fact that by raising the bowl off the ground, she can bask in the heat without getting singed.

Today was a fantastic day at the zoo. It was 67 degrees, warm breezes and sunny. Malia loves to watch the animals and the other kids. She of course refused to ride in her stroller and had to be carried the whole time. I don’t think that she is ready to pet other animals besides our cats. We went to the Children’s Zoo to see if she would be interested in the animals up close. The highlight (for Keegan) were the goats. Malia wasn’t too sure about them. She looked at them and made her sounds then when we put her down next to them she...

Hi gang. I’ve finally got today’s update posted; sorry for the delay. It’s in the “Webcomic” section, where I’ve added another incredible daily for “Clan of the Cats” by Jamie Robertson. It’s a daily from January of this year, and features kitten Sebo saving Chelsea from harm. As always, there’s the original art pictured with a full-color print of the final page. Go and check it out, and don’t forget to visit the COTC site as well! Tell Jamie I said hi!

This is a problem right now. We're here in Boston. Had a lovely drive up, thanks for asking. We're staying with the boys' Uncle Merlin, and he has two cats.

They're not his. They're interlopers. Merlin's a dog man. Actually, he's a dog's man. He's owned by an English bull terrier named Aloysius. The cats belong to his parents, who have parked them here while they are traveling.

Carted off for a psychiatric evaluation Thursday was Veronica Helen Smith, of Lorain, Ohio, who apparently kept about 100 cats in her house. My parents had cats in the house; and while I don't appreciate cats as pets, I can tolerate them. Keeping 100 cats in the house deserves a trip for a psychological evaluation.

Now to find Chariosma a home……Anyone need a cat??? He is in great health, although a little overweight but a happy indoor cat that puts up with dogs and other cats. He is great around the baby and very affectionate when he wants to be…..*cries* I hate this!!!! I love my animals. J totally owes me BIG for this……Oh wait we had a baby! I guess we are even =P

The next update for the growth chart will come in August, when Sawyer is 2 1/4 years old. And the next major update for Sawyer's World will come in the next day or so. It will contain new insight as to the meaning of the word Foepeen! It will talk about Sawyer's newfound affection for cats -- singing, dancing cats! And it will, of course, include many many birthday party photos!

Well I was going to go out tonight but I just didn’t feel right about it. My cats let my gerbils out this morning and Zip is still missing and Diamond was lick and mauled almost to death. I’ve been sitting at home trying to get her to eat and drink for me but I don’t think things are going so well. I’m scared to pick her up because I’m pretty sure her back leg is broken and I don’t wanna make her uncomfortable. I just feel so sad and alone about this, she will most likely die and god knows if Zip is even alive...