Cat Chit Chat

The internet is becoming worse. I have more internet copyright issues now than before. People "steal" photographs and text from my website all the time. Despite warnings on the homepage , despite placing clear copyright notices under photos - which is not obligatory as all work is automatically protected by copyright - unscrupulous people just download them and upload to their website. I can add software that prevents right-click downloads but that does not stop a person stealing a photo - they can take a screen shot and crop out the image. A watermark across the image will make it almost useless to steal but make it far less effective as a image on my site. Once they have placed the stolen photo on their site they fail to protect copyright so other unscrupulous and immoral people steal it again from their site and that enlarges the problem substantially. It also simply duplicates what is already on the internet - hardly beneficial. Then Google image search finds the stol

Abyssinian cat "Hawkeye" - photograph copyright Helmi Flick Introduction The Abyssinian cat is a very popular, slender purebred cat that is well known for his or her special ticked tabby coat . The history of this cat breed is interesting. There are no facts but plenty of speculation. There is agreement that this cat breed is one of the oldest in the cat fancy and that the breed quite possibly originates in India as a jungle cat ( Felis chaus ) wildcat hybrid that was imported to England by a British soldier via Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). Showing ticked coat Photo by key lime pie yumyum (Flickr) The two most recognised cat coat colours are probably the ruddy or natural colour and the blue. History of Abyssinian Cats My assessment as to the possible history of the Abyssinian cat is based on historical record and Darwin's records that come from his voyages to the far east. As mentioned above my theory is that this cat breed started in India, around t

A cat eating litter must be rare and it is means a trip to the vet, for sure. Dogs are less particular about what they eat. They are omnivores with a carnivore bias. They can eat cat food for a while. Dogs sometimes eat cat litter and cat feces. Not a cat eating litter but sleeping on it. A sign of anxiety. I'll cut to the chase. There is no reference, as far as I can see, to a cat eating litter in the best book on cat health on the planet: Cat Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook, Fully Revised and Updated . Neither is there any reference to it in a first class book on cats: The Cat: Its Behavior, Nutrition and Health . That is what tells me that it is a rare condition. I am therefore reliant on the internet for information. And the internet is not that reliable. However my research indicates that when a cat eats litter it may be one of three conditions: A dietary deficiency Feline anemia Pica in cats Clearly the type of litter being consumed will inform us as to wh

Here is a nice way, umm..interesting way and a safe way to take your cat out for a walk on a leash . Only this black and white cat prefers to be transported by his male human companion, which allows the cat a nice high vantage point. Cats feel safer high up. Common sense, I guess. I like this because it is safe. The human is a young hip male and that debunks the notion that all cat people are older frumpy females and the cat is on a leash that is not needed. From POC STUFF I included a still from the video in case the video gets removed for some reason. From Cat On Leash On Head to Home Page

There are more people who love cats than hate cats. How do I know? I have used keyword search statistics backed up by common sense. I think you would actually deduce that more people love cats than hate them without reference to any statistics but it is nice to have that gut feeling confirmed. What are keyword search statistics? People use the search engines to search for information. The words that they use are saved by search engines and other Internet businesses. These are called keywords. The chart above shows how many people search for "I love cats" compared to those who search for "I hate cats". "People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life." Faith Resnick Photo by herrwiggens I have made the reasonable presumption that in general people who search for a "I hate cats" will dislike/hate cats and those who search for "I love cats" will like/love cats". I wrote an article about people hating

It is eating us up - Photo by Will Lion (Flickr) i hate the internet. That is how people say it - lower case. It's all in lower case. That is the modern way on the blessed, bastardized internet. I also love the internet. I depend on the internet for a lot of things; food, maps, information, socialization etc. blah, blah, boring. I depend on it more than most as I have a successful website: PoC . It gets, got, lots of hits: One million page views in one month... until Google thought it would change the algorithm (ridiculous word). Now it is going down and down and turning me off, off for no good reason other than it serves the purposes of good old Google to constantly fiddle with the rules. Google off, Google! Google is more important than any government including the US government. The USA has lost its way. It has too much debt. It can't afford to do anything on the world stage. It just has to survive and I am not sure it can do that. It is one notch above Greece in t

Off to be spayed and neutered - Photo by Shamey Jo (Flickr) People think that in the United States of America there is a cat overpopulation crisis. When you read the statistics you can believe it. There is a bland almost calm acceptance of this crisis. Millions of cats are deliberately killed in "shelters" every year and people just carry on as before with little effort to address the cat overpopulation problem. If we are killing cats by the million yearly there has to be a crisis. So what do we do about it? Firstly, I want to make clear that cat overpopulation refers to domestic cats and the problem is not only an American problem. The same can probably be said about Europe. It is much less discussed in Europe and the figures are not as transparent. That does not mean that there is no problem. Secondly, having said this is about domestic cats you could argue that there is a tiger overpopulation in America ! There are too many captive tigers in the US and not enough

Siamese cat who was given spot treatment behind the head (see spiky fur) Photo by terriem (Flickr) I explain how to get rid of fleas on cats. The cat flea is probably the most common cat health problem that we have to deal with. It is certainly the most common parasite on the cat's skin. An understanding of the life cycle of the cat flea helps us get rid of them. If you open the link a new page will open too so you can read it while you read this page. As you can see from the life cycle a holistic approach has to be taken to defeat the horrible cat flea. By holistic I mean that the flea needs to be killed both on the cat and on the ground in the areas inhabited by the cat. There is no point just killing fleas that are currently on the cat and ignoring the larvae and fleas that are off the cat and which will jump on him or her. At any one time, one percent of fleas are adults while the remaining 99 percent are at the larval and pupal stages. The fleas on the cat are the t

Miss Kate a famous Maine Coon Photo copyright Helmi Flick I explain why the Maine Coon cat is the world's most popular cat breed. You might argue that this is the world's most popular cat, period, full stop. I am not saying that this is the most registered cat (with cat associations), by the way. That accolade might go to the Persian. I am saying that the Maine Coon is the most popular with people who keep and care for cats - you and I. I have broken things down into sections. Vote I know of no better vote-for-your-favorite-cat-breed-poll than the one on my own website, Pictures of Cats.org (PoC) . It is a great poll because: it has been running for several years; the site is visited by people from all over the world. It is very much an international website; Americans make up most of the visitors and therefore most of the voters but America is by far the biggest cat breed market. At one time the Abyssinian led the way. Then the Siamese but for the last 18 mont

I find the concepts behind cat clicker training hard to understand and the explanations of how it works unclear. Maybe it is me being a bit thick but I would like to see if I can put an explanation about this training aid into clear simple language. Cat clicker training is part of training cats by positive reinforcement or giving the cat a reward for behavior that we consider good. Let's be clear though. From the cat's standpoint the behavior is neither good nor bad. It is plain natural, but we like cats to do certain things. Whereas we train ourselves to do things for monetary reward cats don't understand money. The classic reward for a cat is food - their favorite food or treat. This will motivate a cat in a positive way. If a cat does something that pleases us we reward the cat with a treat. If we do this enough times the cat will do the same thing so that he or she gets the treat. Positive reinforcement happens naturally all the time. Often mutual training is go

The extraordinary words of a vet "THE GUILT FREE LASER DECLAW" is the title of his web page . He carries out laser declawing and he wants to promote it. I find this title extraordinary because he goes on to say that he knows cat owners feel guilty because he hears comments all day from customers that tell him that they are feeling guilty about asking him to chop of the last phalange (section of bone beyond last joint) of each front toe. He is trying to assuage their guilt, make them feel less guilty by saying that the operation is less painful and much better for the cat. The cat gets over laser declawing faster. Not all vets agree. This page discusses laser declawing in more detail . I just want to analyse the idea that the vet can promote declawing on the back of the customer's guilt! It seems very odd indeed. He is sure people feel guilty about getting their cat declawed. This tells us that these cat owners know that what they are doing is wrong but can't

Feral cats - we need better stats Photo by dimitridf Either there are no cat statistics, or they are disheartening cat statistics. In the USA there is a need for a proper government compiled and managed national statistics database on matters pertaining to cat adoption, cat abandonment, cat rescue and cat cruelty. We need to get a handle on cat ownership in the USA. The same can be said incidentally about most countries. I am mainly writing about the US because that is the biggest domestic cat market and perhaps the most advanced market for companion animals although there are some peculiarities and anomalies in the USA companion animal market. I am thinking of cat declawing (legal in USA, illegal elsewhere) and the huge number of pet tigers (believed to be about 12,000) far more than wild tigers worldwide. ASPCA provides some cat statistics but says that there is no government body that is responsible for compiling the figures. What figures we do have paint an uncomfortab

This is what the Google algorithm looks like to me! Photo by Zer0Her0 (Flickr CC file) I am critical of the new Google algorithm but cannot criticize Google. I'll tell you why. Firstly, though I think we need to decide what the internet is for or what it should be for. Taking a broad brush approach, there are three types of website: (1) content sites like this one and PoC , (2) social network type sites and ancillary sites like Facebook and (3) sites that sell products or are fronts for businesses selling products or providing services. I am sure there are other categories. Content sites make their money from advertising and affiliate work (acting as an agent of another online or offline business and directing traffic to it and receiving commission for that). Another fundamental thing about the internet is that it is all on one "high street". It is very cramped. What I mean is that on the ground, in the land of reality - shops and stores - there are hundreds of th

Here's a nice selection of rhinestone cat collars brought together on one page. They look particularly good on wildcat hybrids . I am thinking Savannah cats in fact, F1 Savannah cats in particular. Cat collars should be the type that release if they get caught as there have been cases of cats being injured and hanged by cat collars . Cats can get feet and legs caught in them too. Please take precautions and chose wisely if you buy a rhinestone cat collar. They look classy on the right cat but there is a health issue. Collars can become too tight if the cat is growing up. This is another thing to factor in when buying. Personally I wouldn't buy one but I respect peoples' choice and preferences as long as they are sensible and show concern for the cat as well. Rhinestones are fake diamonds. They are made of glass, rock crystal or acrylic. As for the Amazon UK market, I don't see rhinestone collars. One of the nearest to this type of cat collar is a glitter one