PLATTSBURGH, NY, USA - NEWS AND COMMENT: Mike Clowney has been issued with a "court appearance ticket" to use an American term which I presume means that he has been ordered to attend court because he has been feeding, caring for and neutering and spaying stray and feral cats under a TNR program.   Mike Clowney in violation of local ordinance for assisting in a TNR program. Photo in public domain. Sorry for the poor quality. He's been doing this for more than 10 years as he looks after a cat colony. He provides food and water twice a day every single day and he builds winter shelters and finds homes for kittens. Everything he does is good and decent. It benefits animal welfare. You could argue that he does the job of council workers because he is helping manage cats in the community. Arguably the local authority should be helping to do this because it is a community issue. He has said that the authorities are going to have to put him in jail to stop him looking after t

Do cats recognise laughter? No, but they recognise friendship and affection. I take that from first-hand experience with my cat. I often laugh with him and, of course, I love him. We interact in a happy way. When I laugh in his company it is clear to me that he does not understand the meaning of it. It doesn't help him to create a stronger bond. He doesn't laugh back or even smile back. His face is deadpan. We know that cats don't really smile and they certainly don't laugh. Laughing is not in their vocabulary. It is not a part of feline behaviour. It is not part of their culture in any shape or form.  Do cats recognise laughter? No but they recognise friendship and affection. Photo: Axelle Spencer from Pixabay . Laughing is meant to help with bonding. That is its purpose, apparently. It strengthens connections and indicates that people are comfortable with each other. They say that a woman falls in love with a man when he makes her laugh. It might be the single most

I have spotted this pair of jaguar gargoyles on the largest neo-Gothic church in South America, the Basílica del Voto Nacional. The church is littered with gargoyles. It is a Noah's Ark of animals circumventing the basilica. There are goats, turtles, what appear to be sharks or ominous-looking sea creatures in addition to this pair of jaguars.  Jaguar gargoyles at the Basilica del Voto Nacional. Photo: in public domain. The jaguar is a revered animal in South America . For thousands of years the people of South America have worshipped and been fearful of it. And the animal, remarkably, is still in South America including Ecuador. The basilica that I referred to is in the historic centre of Quinto, Ecuador. It is no surprise, therefore, that there are a pair of jaguars decorating the exterior of this impressive church. READ MORE ABOUT THE JAGUAR BY CLICKING THIS LINK The jaguar is in these countries as at July 2021: Argentina; Belize; Bolivia, Plurinational States of; Brazil; Col

The food consumption of wild lions is very impressive. They can eat enormous amounts of meat at one sitting. G. B. Schaller in his book The Serengeti Lion  published in 1972, records one male lion eating 33 kg or 73 pounds of flesh during a single night while another ate 27.4 kg during the night. He also reported that 4 lionesses each ate 25 kg of zebra in 5 hours and 2 males ate an estimated 43 kg of topi in 20 hours. He estimated that lions fed at an average rate of 20 minutes per kilogram per lion. Lion eating. Photo in public domain. If a large group of lions can't finish off the entirety of the animal that they've have killed by consuming it they occasionally try to protect the remains by staying nearby and sometimes they may try to bury the carcass. The trouble is that scavengers are very numerous over their entire distribution and their habitat is very open. Therefore, it is difficult to hide and protect animals that they have killed. Perhaps lions realise this becaus

The lion is the most famous cat in the world (with the tiger) and at the same time the least typical member of the cat family. While other cat species are solitary hunters, the lion is a cooperative group hunter or at least the lionesses are. Male lions like to hunt alone in denser vegetation using the stalk and ambush technique whereas lionesses, as you've seen in video, cooperate with wing lionesses and a central lioness when chasing prey. Male lions in a coalition. Photo: Daily Mail. These are black maned lions. The dark mane is attractive to females. This difference in the behaviour of the female and male lion is also shown in the quite stark difference between the male and female in terms of appearance. Most cats do not have great gender differences in appearance.  There will be size differences but other than that they look very similar. But with lions the huge mane of the male sets him apart from the maneless female ( some females have manes ). Lionesses prefer males wit

This is NOT about why cats purr but how they do it. I'll say it again for Google, this article is about how cats purr . And I'll tell you right away that the scientists are slightly unsure even today how they do it. There have been several theories postulated over the years.  One looks very outdated now which is based upon turbulent blood passing through a cat's veins and heart causing the sound of the purr. I think we can dismiss that categorically for obvious reasons.  Another theory was called the "false vocal chord (cord) theory". This theory refers to the presence of a 2nd pair of chords thought to be the secret behind the extraordinary purring mechanism. That theory states that purring is no more than noisy breathing of the type that humans indulge in when they are asleep i.e. snoring. I think we can dismiss that theory too. The modern theory is the one stated in the video below. Note : This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at so

I wouldn't normally do this and in fact this is perhaps the first time that I have done it but I'm going to promote an American Ragdoll breeder - American Ragdoll Kitten - because they emailed me. They saw the potential for emailing me which tickled my fancy! I don't know how good or bad they are but they look good. Their website looks good. You can click on the link below to go to their website. As they say, Ragdoll kittens are available again. It is that time of year for them. Ragdoll Kittens are available again from 'American Ragdoll Kittens'. Photo: the cattery from their website. These are satisfied customers with their gorgeous Ragdoll cats. When I think of the Ragdoll cat, I think of a cat which is probably the best suited to modern life. They are perhaps the only purebred cat where the breeder is concerned about both appearance and a specific character. Normally the appearance is 90% of the task for a breeder but in respect of the Ragdoll it is a 50-50 si

Lucy is described by her owner as "the bat cat". Not a particularly flattering title I have to say. You might know me and that I dislike these sorts of Instagram accounts because you get owners of strange cats vicariously achieving some fame for themselves through their cat.  Often these cats are misshapen through a genetic defect or in this instance this hairless cat suffers from hydrocephalus which is a buildup of fluid on the brain which puts pressure on the brain and which can damage it. It is treatable and for humans and the survival rate for treated hydrocephalus is high.  Lucy the bat cat. Photo: Instagram Sorry if I upset some people in disliking these sorts of social media accounts. The pics are from Lucy's Instagram page. They were taken by her owners. Lucy is called 'the bat cat' because of the obvious reason: she looks a little bit like one of those strange bats. And the stranger the cat looks the better for the celebrity cats. My research indicates

Lions copulate in a way that puts humans to shame in terms of frequency and speed! Here are some statistics. This is a slightly sensitive subject but the information that I have is interesting so I thought I would present it to the public. When a male lion attempts to mount a female, she may evade his advances and swot him away or growl and snarl. When he is finally allowed to mate with his chosen female, which might be his daughter, he sometimes grasps the female by the neck and the typical way that we see domestic cats mate. Lions mating. Montage by MikeB based on images in the public domain. When a lion copulates, the act averages 21 seconds in duration. Across all copulations it lasts from between 8 to 70 seconds (G.B. Schaller 1972). Captive lions under observation in one study copulated 360 times in 8 days (J. Kingdon 1989). G.B. Schaller, in his study observed one nomadic male lion mating 157 times in 55 hours. During this period, he did not eat despite the fact that some lio

In this article I want to point out the bulging eyes of the Exotic Shorthair and the Persian, two associated breeds because the former is a shorthaired version of the latter. In this picture we can see the "punch-face" appearance of the Persian. It almost looks as if this cat has suffered a catastrophic injury to the face as it's been flattened. And this, to my mind, leaves the eyeballs bulging outwards beyond the protection of the bones of the face. This leaves the cornea exposed because there is a reduced ability to close the eyelids.  Brachycephalic Persian cat with bulging eyes and flat face. Photo: Irina Gerasimova. And of course, the cornea is exposed anyway as it sticks out so far. This contributes to 'exposure keratitis' and it is said probably contributes to corneal sequestrum development (the development of an opaque, dark brown to black plaque on the cornea). Persian cats are predisposed to this. Exposure keratitis also occurs in people and it is des

The question in the title is asked by a cat owner whose job requires them to work long hours leaving early in the morning and coming home quite late at night. They think that their cat should be particularly pleased to see them when they arrive home but he barely acknowledges her existence. Sometimes he misses meals and he has stayed away for a couple of days at a time. Outdoor Cat. Photo by Andrew Currie on Flickr. This, on the face of it, is a classic case of a cat migrating away from the home in which he lives to find a new one . And sometimes, albeit rarely, domestic cats return to the wild, voluntarily. That might seem strange but it does happen. It happened to my mother about 40 years ago when her ginger tabby upped sticks and went to live on the golf course opposite her home. He came back about 15 years later riddled with arthritis for some warmth and attention. She put him down which I think was an extraordinarily cruel thing to do. I don't like my mother although she

Yes, male lions do hunt but they are solitary hunters in contrast to lionesses who hunt in groups, in partnership. Further, male lions use the cover of dense vegetation to stalk and ambush in the classic style of wild cats. The general feeling before about 2013 was that male lions sat around to let the lionesses do the hunting and then they would be the masters of the feast afterwards.  Scared male lion waits for a herd of buffalo to go in the Masai Mara, Kenya. I suspect that this male was not hunting at the tine but came across the buffalo who intimidated him because of their numbers. Lion can be killed by buffalo. Photo: Olav Thokle, 54, from Norway. But using GPS collar trackers and airborne Light Detection and Ranging measurements which provided 3D mapping of the landscape and vegetation, researchers found that male lions did indeed leap out of thick vegetation to ambush their prey. The researchers studied a pride of 7 lions in South Africa's Kruger National Park. The femal

Back in January 2017 it was reported that bizarre cat-like creatures had been found behind a cupboard in a home in north-western South Africa. The photograph shows us that they are indeed bizarre-looking. But what is equally bizarre, for me, is that there was no follow-up story telling us more about these creatures. Sometimes I believe that they were a prank. A photo-editing exercise to jazz up the news on a quiet day. You know how people are taken in my stories of weird creatures. Weird cat-like creatures found behind cupboard in South Africa. Image in public domain. Were they domestic cats bred by somebody in the home? They might be a hybrid cat which looks a bit like an Oriental Shorthair. The very slender body and large ears points to the fact that they were Oriental Shorthair siblings but that's a wild guess. The news media described them as 'half-rat, half-cat' creatures. I guess I can go along with that description. In the photograph they appear to be wet and blac

Yes, neutered male cats can still mate because they are driven to mate by 3 things including testosterone, but they can't procreate. This question has been asked thousands of times and answered pretty comprehensively but I'm going to throw my hat into the ring. In this article I interpret 'mating' as the desire to have sex with a female. It seems to me that there are 3 drives which make a male cat want to mate with a female and they are (1) it's in his DNA i.e. it is inherited, and (2) behaviourally he has learned to do it after mating with queens (unneutered female cats normally breeding cats) and (3) the presence of the hormone testosterone in his blood. Gunner an unneutered male Sphynx cat. Photos: Helmi Flick. As he is hairless his testicles are very visible. Sorry Gunner, I realise it is a bit rude to talk about you like that. It is the last factor which is the most relevant and certainly the most relevant in this instance because it is the male cat's te

I'm going to refer to domestic cats mainly. I can think of 6 ways which help a cat to cool down. Cats do sweat but in a much more limited way than humans . They sweat from their paw pads and the latent heat of evaporation cools down their paw pads. You will see the sweaty pawprints of a cat in a veterinarian's consultation room on the table. This is because as they are nervous and agitated, they over heat and they sweat. Licking helps to cool a cat as well as clean them. Photo: PDSA. Another way is licking their coat. The saliva deposited on the coat evaporates and once again through the physical properties of the latent heat of evaporation, it's cools the cat down slightly. This is a substitute for sweating. A third way is panting like a dog . I'm sure that you have seen this before. My female cat used to plant in the car in her cage when I took her to the veterinarian. She became agitated and overheated and so instinctively she panted to cool down. Panting as a

It is not cruel per se because your kitten will be well looked after, I hope. However, it is a strong curtailment of a kitten's desire to be in that room and they really want to be in that room because your bedclothes smell very strongly of you. Cats are attracted to the smell of their owner. They want to be in it, so to speak. They want to be surrounded by that smell. They want to lie on your bed clothes and take up some of that scent onto themselves. This is scent exchange , which is a merging, in their minds, of themselves and their human companion. It is highly reassuring to them. You should let your kitten do this as it pleases him or her. And it makes them feel happier. Ideally you should let your cat be in your bedroom at night. Pic in public domain. It is obviously beholden upon all cat owners to make their cat as happy as possible. So, if you want to keep your kitten out of your bedroom at night you are doing it for yourself primarily. There may be a safety issue for a

You can build your own catio for $80 in the USA. It sounds incredibly cheap but of course you have to put the effort in as this is DIY. The video shows you how to do it. You can see that it is quite a small catio. Catios very tremendously in size and they can be as basic or as luxurious as you want them to be. I would classify the one in the video as small but nonetheless very useful. DIY inexpensive outdoor catio cat enclosure. Screenshot. For many years, I have considered the catio to be a great compromise between providing a safe environment for your cat while, at the same time, allowing him or her some outside space where they can smell the air and feel the grass under their feet. The added benefit is that it protects wildlife. Attitudes are changing on wildlife conservation and cat predation. Although, it should be said, that the catio in the video does not have any grass under their feet! I think she could have grown some grass. Update: I just noticed some grass or foliage on the

This looks entirely genuine: a standard sized moggie gets through a 3-inch gap (max) under an interior door. He or she twists onto their side when half way through and seem to compress their rib cage to get under.  It is remarkable. On this page is the video which may stop working as they often do when they are stored on a third-party site (this time TikTok) and three still images (screenshots) of the feat. Standard domestic cat slides through 3-inch gap under door Then she turns over half way through: The last bit, the legs are the easy part! Standard domestic cat slides through 3-inch gap under door. And this is the TikTok video: @stlrgrl8717 ##catsoftiktok ##liquidcat ##wtf ##fyp ♬ Touch Down 2 Cause Hell - Hd4president Note : This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Laser declaw is NOT humane, do not listen to their lies, vets need to pay for their $40K laser machines, of course they are going to deceive you. pic.twitter.com/RMpBpZbvJv — Cassandra🐾Wants🐾Claws (@DamnDeclawVets) June 22, 2021 Laser declawing is, in my opinion, an invention by veterinarians to try and better sell to the paying and gullible public their gruesome operation which is their bread-and-butter and which is worth billions of dollars annually across North America.  They effectively con millions of cat owners out of their money in convincing them that declawing is okay and that their cat is not going to be harmed 'that much' and will recover from the operation very quickly et cetera. Declawing is never a last resort for the veterinarian despite what their association tells them that it must be. Declawing is bloody painful and there can often be complications and long-term behavioural consequences . Laser declaw is NOT humane, do not listen to their lies Some vet

Steve Bouquet, 54, from Brighton is on trial for the "murder" by stabbing of 9 domestic cats and seriously injuring a further 7. He was described as the "Brighton Cat Killer". His spree of serial 'murders' came to an end when he was allegedly filmed by a security camera attacking a 9-month-old black kitten called Hendrix was sitting on a wall near his home.  Bouquet the devil incarnate. Image: MikeB based on pic by GARETH FULLER/PA UPDATE JUNE 30, 2021 : He has been found guilty 16 offences of criminal damage, in relation to the cats, and possession of a knife. Judge Jeremy Gold QC said:  “I suggest it is only really during lockdown it has been particularly clear how much many of us who have pets rely on them for companionship and comfort. One can only imagine the distress that was caused to the owners of those various cats in this case at the very thought of having a knife plunged into their beloved pet.” Please read. The page has been continually updated..