Tigons are a hybrid cross between a male tiger and a female lion. These are man created - correction person created (I don't want to be sexist although it is always a man who does it) - wild cat hybrids. A lot of private zoo owners in America like to mess around with ad hoc big cat breeding to entertain themselves and any customers who wish to pay money to see their miserable establishments.  There are a lot of private zoos in America but they've been tarnished and discredited by Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue (BCR) who has exposed them for what they are: seedy, exploitative businesses where young big cats are exploited and where their parents are disposed of when they are no longer financially profitable. Enough of my distaste about private zoos in America. Picture in the public domain. Read another post on the same topic with more detail if you wish The answer to the question in the title as to whether tigons are fertile or not is that the female is often fertile but the

This video, in a tweet on the Twitter.com website, shows us a Russian waste processing plant worker removing a tuxedo cat from a sack inside a box next to a fast moving conveyor belt on which there is a ton of waste products being conveyed to a device which probably crushes it.  If the worker in the video had decided to throw the sack onto the conveyor belt the cat would have been killed in minutes. So this man has been praised for rescuing this cat. The cat was apparently healthy and has been checked out by a veterinarian. The cat has also been taken to the ministry in charge of waste in Russia where he will be looked after by the employees and I would hope live out the rest of his life safely.  The minister in charge has praised the employee who saved the cat and in a commonsense way advised that if people don't want to keep their cat they can take the animal to a shelter rather than putting them into a bag and throwing a bag on the rubbish dump. Common sense indeed but it takes

The UK government has been discussing the mandatory microchipping of domestic cats for a long time. It makes sense and surveys indicate that the citizens of the UK want compulsory micro-chipping. The current government minister who can introduce a bill for compulsory micro-chipping is Lord Goldsmith who failed to get a seat in the Commons but who was appointed a peer by Boris Johnson. He wanted to keep him in the government. One reason is probably because Boris Johnson's fiancé is Carrie Symonds and as you probably know by now she is very much an environmentalist and an animal welfare advocate. She is a member of a campaign group called Oceana. She speaks a lot about cleaning up the oceans and her presence at the centre of government, in effect, is very welcome for animal advocates. I'm sure that she together with Lord Goldsmith with whom she is friends decided to attempt again to get through Parliament a bill which would make cat microchip in compulsory. It is long overdue but

Because of social distancing and an increased fear of contracting the Covid-19 virus, doors have been opened to unscrupulous kitten and cat sellers who exclusively ply their trade online. It is very dangerous to purchase a kitten online without visiting the breeder at their home and watching the interactions between kitten and mother and asking questions of the breeder. There is no shortcut to this and if you simply select online you really do not know what you are buying for sure. This is a 5 week old kitten but not Lola mentioned below. Photo: Martin. As the head of advocacy and government relations at Cats Protection, Jacqui Cuff said, "The Covid-19 pandemic has created the ideal conditions for unscrupulous sellers to thrive, as they appear to have a credible reason for not allowing buyers to view the kitten with their mother first". It is very difficult for buyers of kittens online to be sure of the kitten's background and health. You simply cannot buy a kitten sight

Cats confined to the indoors are dependent upon their owners entirely when it comes to feeding. The way a domestic cat feeds should reflect how their wild ancestor feeds. It is also said that cats naturally eat several small meals per day. The feeding of domestic cats, confined to the indoors, should try and introduce some sort of hunting behaviour which is perhaps attempted with food puzzles. I don't believe in food puzzles because they don't work as far as my cats are concerned but they do attempt to replicate hunting prey. In other words it's an attempt for a full-time indoor cat to feed naturally. Are some dry cat food pellets toos small promoting swallowing without chewing? Image: PoC. The feeding of a domestic cat should promote their physical and mental/behavioural health and they should be given a choice to allow them to find what they like best. Choice is a massive factor in the feeding of domestic cats in my view. I strongly believe in having a selection of foods

Domestic cats need vertical spaces and places. This is a good example. The cat's owner describes it as an act of wanton destruction and in some ways it is but it is not wanton. It is simply an example of a domestic cat trying to find something to climb because it comes entirely instinctively to them. We all know it by now or should do that domestic cats like to live in vertical spaces as well as horizontal spaces. It appears, and I have to make a presumption which may be unfair, that in this home the owner has not provided sufficient vertical spaces for their cat to enjoy. And of course I'm talking about those cat trees that are so common and popular and which can buy on Amazon. Or you can make your own if you are handy with carpentry. Jackson Galaxy has talked a lot about making your home more cat friendly. He calls it "catification" as you may know. He likes to make up his own language to describe the world of domestic cats. My cat with every item I own that I val

Cat television is when domestic cats spend a lot of time looking out the window. It's a great way for a domestic cat to entertain themselves because a lot happens outside the window in terms of animals that they might chase and hunt. This cat has taken cat television to an extreme level as he rests against a Venetian blind looking very comfortable despite being precariously balanced. It's a testament to the athletic ability of the domestic cat as well as his fascination with the outside. He is probably an indoor cat. Well, I'm sorry but the video which was published on Twitter no longer works because the person who published it on Twitter has been removed from the website. Therefore the video which was charming does not work on this site. It depicted a ginger tabby cat, the one you see in the picture below, wedging himself in between a Venetian blind and a sash window so that he could look out of it. It was athletic and a committed attempt to do a bit of feline television.