Ambitious kitten plans to be Microsoft certified by next summer. There are one or two barriers. The keyboard is a little bit too big. If he wants to depressed the "Q" key he walks on the space bar. It gets a bit complicated. He is determined to complete the course.
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| Kitten plans to be Microsoft certified by next summer. Image: MikeB |
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation have a headline, today (Dec 30, 2021), on their website which I would strongly argue is very misleading and deliberately so. They state that hundreds of feral cats have been "removed" from Kangaroo Island in a bid to protect endangered native species.
It is the use of the word "removed" which I believe has been deliberately chosen to paint the authorities in a better light that should be the case. These feral cats have been removed, yes, but they have been removed because they've been killed. This is actually mass slaughter. The authorities are killing feral cats in their many thousands. It has been going on for a long time. However, it is the first time I've seen this kind of language used which distorts the true picture.
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| A deadly feral cat pointing device which delights the Australian authorities even though it kills feral cats in a decidedly inhumane way. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation call this device a trap when it simply is not. |
Of course, as usual they refer to feral cats as 'pests'. It is rather strange because in some countries feral cats are not regarded as pests but as community cats. The Australian viewpoint is a very negative.
How do you decide if an animal is a pest or not? Well, I would argue that they have labelled feral cats as pests because they kill native species. To restate that in a different way: the behaviour of feral cats leads to the death of native species. And so they call them pests.
On that criterion, they would have to call themselves pests because humans in various ways kill more native species than feral cats. You won't find any information or hard facts on it. It is an estimate from me. But that is not a bad thing because all the numbers about the killing of native species by feral cats in Australia are estimates anyway.
There is one particular method of killing feral cats which they delight in. In another example of a distortion of the truth and heavily biased reporting, they describe the Felixer as a "trap". It is not a trap. It is a device which chucks 1080 poison onto passing feral cats. They groom themselves and ingest the poison and die a painful death.
RELATED: Picture of feral cat Doomsday Machine.
There is no way on God's earth that you can call this device a trap. Nothing is trapped. It just kills feral and stray cats. It also kills domestic cats and other animals but it is designed to feral cats only. How effective is it?
They persist in calling this feral cat poison a trap and that it is five times more effective than a standard cage trap. Standard cage traps do not kill the cats. Cage traps are not designed to kill cats but to trap them after which they can be sterilised and returned under a TNR program or in the worst case scenario they can be euthanised in an humane way.
The Felixer simply poisons animals. There is no attempt to kill the cats humanely under this scheme. Whether it is humane or not is entirely irrelevant to these people.
Yes, I am hammering away as usual on what seems to have become a boring topic to some people in America. I'm sorry if you are bored by it. I've become somewhat bored myself. However, I will never stop being disgusted by the operation. Every time I think about it it conjures up images of vulnerable kittens being hauled into veterinary clinics before a veterinarian who has totally lost his moral compass. And he gets the guillotine out and chops off the ends of those toes. Rant continued below the image....
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| Infographic on cat declawing which is self-explanatory. My thanks to Cassandra. |
The poor kitten hasn't got a clue what is going on. He or she is bemused and confused. And he or she will be in chronic pain when they come around from the operation. They will be climbing the walls of their cage moaning in agony. Despite a heavy dose of painkillers. And then if they are lucky they will walk fairly normally for the rest of their lives but they may be one of the many hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of cats who develop complications which have a severe and negative impact upon their lives.
RELATED: Complications Of Declawing.
This operation is unnecessary. It is morally repugnant. It is an aberration and a stain on the veterinary profession in North America. It must stop. There has been piecemeal prohibitions of declawing in some cities in California and New York state banned it recently.
But this is not enough. Piecemeal prohibitions means that millions of kittens are being declawed. It could stop tomorrow in a federal ban but of course there is no chance of that because it is not on the radar of the politicians who run America.
There has been a gradual chipping away of the freedoms of the domestic cat in Australia. Here are some examples. Cats in South Australia's Adelaide Hills are banned from going outside from 8 PM to 7 AM. In Fremantle, Western Australia, domestic cats will be banned from public areas as reported in the Daily Mail.
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| Cat preying on a bird. A major reason why Australians want to confine domestic cats permanently. The photograph is provided by Shutterstock. |
The new rules in Western Australia need to be signed off by the state parliament but if and when passed the legislation will ban domestic cats from footpaths, verges and roads unless on a lead. Cat owners already face a $200 fine if their domestic cat strays onto council bushland. That may be extended to other council land.
It is believed that a nationwide ban on cats being allowed to roam freely is creeping nearer. The objective is to bring cats into line with dogs so that when they go outside they are on a lead. Otherwise they are confined to the home plus a catio or back garden enclosure.
If and when such a federal law exists, either by default through local governments enacting such laws or to a federal law, Australia will be the first country in the world to confine cats in this way.
Canberra already plans to make all new domestic cat companions full-time indoor cats from mid 2022. A violation of that future law will result in the owner facing a $1600 fine.
Residents in Bendigo, Victoria, must now keep their cats within their property or pay a AU$120 fine to reclaim their cat from officials.
One council member of Fremantle, Adin Lang, thinks that one day Australians will look back at this time and scratch their heads and wonder why they allowed domestic cats to go outside so freely.
RELATED: European settlers: the world’s greatest invasive species (not feral cats)?
Australia has a particular problem, as I'm sure you are aware, with feral cats and indeed domestic cats preying on native wildlife particularly small native mammals and marsupials. They hate it although they are myopic in respect of human destruction of wildlife habitat. They like to pass the buck onto the poor cat which was put there by people in the first place. The domestic and therefore feral cat is non-native to Australia. They were brought to the island by settlers. Some domestic cats turned feral and now there are 2 million feral cats in Australia. That's a guess because they don't know the true number.
Although the reasons for confining cats to the home and the backyard are very cogent. Not only is wildlife protected but so is the cat from accidents and other events which can injure the cat such as people poisoning cats or shooting cats.
RELATED: Speaking with an Australian lady about feral cats and Australia’s native species.
I've interviewed an Australian woman for my website (see link above). Like perhaps the majority of Australians she was for the culling of feral cats in order to protect wildlife. Arguably, there has been a gradual indoctrination of Australian citizens by local governments to implant the notion that feral cats need to be killed and domestic cats need to be confined.
One Australian, a cat breeder whose name is Pamela Lanigan of Cats United WA believes that councils and owners can do more to protect native animals. She also believe that more can be done to sterilise domestic cats. She wants low-cost spay and neuter clinics. Arguably, she is hypocritical with the nerve to speak up. She is breeding cats, bringing new domestic cat into the world while there are unwanted cats at shelters waiting to be adopted. I think she would do better to keep quiet.
On her Instagram page, Taylor Swift, lip-syncs to her upbeat song "22" in celebration of her Ragdoll cat, Benjamin Button's 22nd birthday in cat years. As a rough estimate you divide by seven so I'm guessing that Benjamin is about three years old.
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| Taylor Swift celebrates Benjamin Button's birthday by lip syncing her song "22". Montage: MikeB based on screenshots. |
The pop superstar celebrated her 32nd birthday on December 13. She took to her Instagram account on Monday, December 27, to share her video while sitting alongside her adorable purebred cat. Ragdoll cats are particularly attractive, perhaps the most attractive of all purebred cats.
RELATED: Taylor Swift falls in love with Benjamin Button (a Ragdoll kitten ‘purrbox’).
The recording used a New Year's themed filter and the brief clip features swirling confetti and Swift wearing a headband that reads “I’m Feeling 2022".You can watch the video on Instagram by clicking on this link. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CX_inZjhMPY/
It has received 2,539,963 likes ❤. That is because Taylor Swift has 194 million followers on her Instagram pages. It might surprise you to know that that places her 14th in the current list of most followed Instagram celebrities. The top spot is Instagram itself at 453 million followers. The top genuine spot by an individual person is Christian Ronaldo at 381 million followers.
NEWS AND COMMENT-WHITE HOUSE: It is all over the news and it is pleasing news for people who like and live with domestic cats. We know that the Bidens like animals and so you could say it's about time they adopted a White House cat. There's a cat waiting in the wings, apparently, currently with a foster carer, which they are going to bring to the White House in January 2022. That is the sum total of the news about the Bidens and a new cat.
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| Jill Biden and Major in the foreground. Photo: Jill Biden. |
They've also adopted a new dog whose name is Commander. It appears that their two-year-old dog, Major, couldn't settle in the White House and they have wisely, I would say, decided to rehome him. There were reports of him nipping people or a person. I don't think these were really difficult situations but he was clearly unhappy. Perhaps these were defensive bites because of stress. He's gone to a quieter home with family friends. It's best for him.
Major has not been at the White House since the beginning of the year. He was undergoing 'additional training'. Commander is the sole companion animal at the moment at the White House.
I suppose, on a realistic note, the Mr and Mrs Biden will have to ensure that their new cat fits in. It depends upon the individual's character. But bringing in a new cat into the White House is not the same as bringing a new cat into a three bedroomed, semi-detached house in Washington DC.
There's lots of activity I guess at the White House, a lot of people, noise and disturbances from time to time. The new cat is going to have to be well selected which I think he is. We don't know the cat's gender but for the sake of convenience I have described him as male.
When they placed a mouser at Downing Street in the UK, the residence and office of the Prime Minister, they went to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home to select an individual that they believed could cope well under tricky conditions for a domestic cat. He had problems with the new dog, Dilyn apparently.
The Bidens' new cat is going to have to get on with Commander and settle in quickly and feel confident and relaxed in their high profile role. There will be lots of news about him or her. I'm sure the Bidens want it to go very well. They don't want to be seen as failing. It would not look good if they had to rehome their new cat having already rehomed Major.
It's good news though. It's good for domestic cats to have a high profile feline in the White House to generate some pleasant, light-hearted cat news for the future.
The Dodo asks: "Can cats eat avocados?" For the life of me, I cannot see why that question is being asked. Who feeds their domestic cat companion avocados? Don't tell me, you're going to write a comment and say that you feed your cat avocados because it benefits their health. Personally I can't see the point of the idea or the article. It's impossible to think of a more inappropriate food for your cat.
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| Cat eats an avocado? The images provided by The Dodo. Thank You. It is a good image but you are not going to see this in real life. 😊. Obvious. |
The avocado is a fruit, a single-seeded berry. Domestic cats don't eat fruit. No cat eats fruit. They might eat digested fruit in the belly of the prey animal that they have killed. So, yes, cats might eat fruit but not specifically or deliberately.
As expected, The Dodo tells me that avocados aren't the worst thing that you can give your cat to eat (if they would eat it in the first place) but that they can cause a stomach upset if they eat too much. Why should a cat eat avocados in the first place?
The Dodo spoke to Dr. Stephanie Liff about letting a cat eat avocados. It seems that her advice is that avocados are considered toxic due to the presence of persin, a substance which is in leaves, barks and seeds. It is not highly toxic but it can cause damage to the heart and mammary glands. It should not be offered to cats the doctor says.
Avocados can cause persin toxicity in cats. Apparently, the high fat content of avocados might cause your cat to develop pancreatitis. It seems that they have to digest a large quantity of avocado to achieve this state of toxicity. And as I can't see any domestic cat wanting to eat any quantity of avocado it seems highly unlikely that a domestic cat will be poisoned by an avocado.
The Dodo article is, in my opinion, a sign of desperation to find something to write about. I can, however, understand that problem. All websites about any species of animal will end up running out of material at some stage. It's a finite subject. And there will come a time when I stop. I did say that about 10 years ago 😉.
This is a really cute photograph of a Siamese cat with a ring of plastic in his mouth. It's one of those security plastic rings used to keep the screw top of a milk container in place during transportation. Just another bit of waste plastic to humans. A great toy for this Siamese cat. I can remember my cat being fascinated with one of those plastic covers for a three pin UK plug. He chased it around the room for hours. Another bit of plastic to be discarded but in the meantime a great cat toy.
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| Simple, free cat toys are often the best. This is Mikey with his favourite toy. Photo: u/iwantmyhalfsleeve |
As long as the bit of waste plastic is sufficiently large and therefore cannot be ingested these are great toys. They probably remind domestic cats of insects. They are a similar size. They are not animated which is why cats animate them by pushing them around.
This 'old-style' Siamese cat, Mikey, made the front page on the Reddit.com website five years ago according to his owner. He has sadly reached the end of his life. About eight hours ago his human caregiver announced that tomorrow he is going over the Rainbow Bridge. He will join his brother there on the other side.
Wouldn't it be great if we could all meet up with our long-lost, deceased cats on the other side? I would love to do that although I don't believe in it. It's a charming thought nonetheless.
Home-made cat toys of the very simple kind are often as good as the most expensive manufactured toys. We don't need to spend money on cat toys. My girlfriend likes to buy cat toys for my cat at Christmas. That's fine. It gives her enjoyment. Far more enjoyment for her than for my cat 😉. He might play with them. I stress that he might play with them but if he does it won't last that long.
I have said this in the past: plastic cat toys aren't ideal because they can't be killed! Cats want to see the destruction of a toy to confirm that they have hunted it and killed it. That's the theory and it is a good one.
RELATED: Cat bored with flapping fish toy because she can’t kill it.
It's why you see cats ripping scrunched up paper balls to death. It's why you see them destroying toilet rolls. They want to destroy it. You know that all domestic cat play is a substitute for hunting and killing. They can push an item of plastic around the room to simulate hunting. But they have got to end up killing it.
RELATED: Why does a kitten sometimes throw a toy into the air when playing?
Clearly, the desire to kill was not satisfied with respect to this plastic ring. That's a downside but it seems that the upside outweighed the negative. This boy loved his plastic ring and although he couldn't kill it it didn't stop him playing with it and hunting it.
The world has read about the deadliest tornadoes in history at a location in central America called Tornado Alley where they are most frequent. Kentucky is in Tornado Alley. We've seen the pictures of flattened houses. Utterly destroyed. Homeless people. Ninety-four people confirmed dead across six states. It has been described as one of the largest storm outbreaks in history devastating the Midwest and South.
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| Cat and dog rescue from Tornado Alley after the deadliest tornadoes in history. Photo: Zak Bennett for the Daily Mail. |
They believe that 30 tornadoes ripped through Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, Kentucky, Illinois and Arkansas. It is now time to pick up the pieces in respect of companion animals.
Fortuitously, and perhaps remarkably, the Mayfield-Graves County Animal Shelter in Kentucky withstood the tornadoes and remains standing which is why they have had a huge influx of animals displaced by the catastrophe.
There are hundreds of injured animals and displaced pets at the shelter currently. They decided to move a little over 100 animals to other rescue organisations to make more room. They been taken to Massachusetts for adoption. Specifically they been taken to shelters in Boston, Methuen, Centerville and Cape Cod.
These animals were taken to Massachusetts before the tornado struck in preparation for the projected large influx of displaced pets after the tornadoes.
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| Volunteers do vital work in cat and dog rescue. Photo: Zak Bennett for the Daily Mail. |
The Daily Mail newspaper online say that they 'got a first look' at the displaced animals being held in crates waiting for their owners to pick them up. It appears that they will also remove some of these animals to Massachusetts and other states to cope with the ongoing influx.
I'm told that they are micro-chipping the animals. The idea behind that is that when their owner returns to pick them up they can properly keep track and identify them at the reunion. I think it's a way of identifying and managing the large number of rescued animals so that they can keep a handle on where they are and what is happening.
They expect to take in more animals in the coming days. David Spalding, Board President of the Mayfield County Animal Shelter spoke to DailyMail.com. He said that the animals don't have a place to go back to but they are out there amongst the carnage. He thinks it'll take awhile for them to calm down and come out at which time they will become visible. This will allow volunteers to catch them and bring them to the shelter.
Spalding said that he was overwhelmed but was managing. He said that he has not slept that much.
Kat Rooks, the Initiatives Director at the Kentucky Humane Center, was in one of the three vans that left Louisville to pick up 27 dogs and a cats from the Mayfield shelter (see photo at top of page). She said that it would take a long time to recover, remarking:
"Animals are coming in surrendered by good Samaritans. Animals coming in as strays. [Workers] are going out and assisting search-and-rescue teams and helping to remove animals from properties that have been devastated. They are already seeing an influx and expect that to continue. There were a lot of tears on Saturday. These are my friends, people that I know, I work with closely. People that I know lost everything there."
Hello Magazine tells us that Michelle Pfeiffer was stunned to discover that her cat drinks water using her paw. Specifically her right paw. It is as if the earth has moved off its orbit. The online newspaper paints the event as if it is the most shocking thing that has happened in history of humankind. But it's just something that is very normal. We see a lot of it.
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| Michelle Pfeiffer has just noticed that her cat uses her paws to drink water. This is her cute cat. She looks like a Ragdoll, perhaps. Her name is Bella .Screenshot from video by Michell Pfeiffer. |
And a lot of people have thrown their hat into the ring to try and figure out why domestic cats like to do this. They want to give her their valuable advice. They say that Maine Coons in particular enjoy drinking water with their paw.
I am not sure that that is correct. Individual cats because of their character might use their paw from time to time when drinking water from a bowl. The habit is not necessary breed-specific.
There might be a specific reason but often times I believe that they do it because they simply prefer to drink water that way. And why not? Humans do it. When humans drink from a stream they use their hands. Admittedly humans don't have feline tongues. The tongue of a cat is designed to "pick" water up using surface tension and inertia. They don't actually scoop up the water with their cupped tongue but employ some fancy physics to get it into their mouths.
When I've seen cats drink water with their paw, I've seen a cat that is entirely healthy and normal. There is no apparent reason why they're doing it. In that case, I would say they do it because they simply want to do it. It's a variation on the usual method. This may be borne out of boredom. It makes drinking water a bit more interesting.
You could theorise on a range of possibilities such as the domestic cat's wildcat ancestor occasionally drinks water this way in order to test it or to be cautious about a potential predator under the water. I've heard that said before.
The classic reason is that the bowl is too small and cats don't like their whiskers brushing against the side of the bowl because they are super-sensitive. Therefore they are forced to use their paw instead. This may, indeed, be a reason.
RELATED: Why is my cat not drinking?
Another thing that you might notice when you see a cat using their paw like this is that they look at the water falling off it. They look at what is going on inquisitively. They seem to be interested in the way the water falls off their paw. There may be something in that. It may provide us with a hint as to what is going on in their mind.
To me, it hints at a need for stimulation. They are injecting something different into their lives and trying to stimulate their brains. They make the world more interesting around them. This is the reason why cats knock an item off a mantelpiece or a table. This is not vandalism 😉. I think drinking water with their paw has the same underlying reason as knocking objects of tables and mantelpieces.
When they knock something of a mantelpiece they watch as the item falls to the floor and bounces. They are creating something which is animated and therefore interests them. I'm driven to conclude once again that this activity originates in boredom and a lack of stimulation.
My message to Michelle Pfeiffer is to test out that theory by playing with her cat more if she has the time; to see whether her cat stops drinking water with her right paw.
Chris Packham describes snares as "antiquated, cruel and hideous". They are still legal in the UK and the Countryside Alliance say that they are useful in wildlife conservation. Packham says that snared animals "die of starvation, they die of dehydration, they die in excruciating pain, often they break their limbs". The Countryside Alliance insists that they should stay as part of the management of the countryside in the UK.
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| Snares are still legal in the UK and they are "antiquated and cruel". Photo in public domain. |
The Countryside Alliance, in a statement, said: "Snares benefit conservation and a range of economic activities from shooting and agriculture to forestry and eco-tourism. There is often no practical and effective replacement for snaring at crucial times of the year to protect livestock and wildlife, particularly during spring and summer. Well-designed snares, used properly, are a humane and effective form of fox control."
An Animal Aid petition supported by Downton Abbey actor Peter Egan is online presently. Mr Egan said: "The snares are just absolutely horrible and they are indiscriminate. Whether it be a fox or any animal that gets caught in it, often domestic companion animals. It's so cruel."
Mr Egan is a well-known animal advocate. And Chris Packham made the point that if a small animal is trapped in a snare they become a prey animal to a larger predator so they are killed and eaten. The important issue for pet owners is that sometimes cats and dogs get caught in them. The Head of Campaigns at Animal Aid, Jessamy Korotoga, said that many people can't believe that they are still legal.
The problem with snares is that they are indiscriminate. Any animal that wanders into them and gets caught by them is killed cruelly.
Comment: personally, I hate them and I dislike the attitude of the Countryside Alliance who blithely state that they improve wildlife conservation while ignoring the pain they cause animals. They treat foxes as pests and accept that they're going to feel pain and die of starvation. They don't find any problem in that at all. And yet foxes are wildlife like any other creature with a right to survive. The Countryside Alliance practices speciesism which means they favour certain animals over others. This I think is inherently incorrect and unfair.
Chris Packham says that snares should be banned and they are banned throughout most of Europe. It's remarkable that the UK is behind mainland Europe in this regard. We have, at the centre of government, Carrie Johnson, the wife of the Prime Minister, who is a strong animal advocate. She is behind the introduction of current animal welfare legislation with the assistance of Lord Goldsmith, a friend of hers. In other words, the UK is strengthening its animal welfare laws. Why, therefore, is the dreaded and barbaric snare being omitted from these improvements in British legislation?
It is ironic that hydroelectric power through the building of dams is seen as ecologically friendly as they ostensibly help prevent global warming but at the same time they are ecologically damaging. This is because huge areas of tiger habitat are flooded. This removes habitat from the tiger. Habitat loss is the biggest problem in the conservation of the tiger.
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There is constant pressure on tiger habitat which is being gradually destroyed. It is all about increased human activity including deforestation, the building of settlements, mining, the removal of forests to build plantations to create products to sell on the international market. The building of dams adds to that problem.
A study found that 164 dams affect the habitat of the jaguar and 421 dams have eroded tiger habitats. They say that one in five tigers are affected by dams. Tiger numbers are already precariously low at around 3500 total in the world, in the wild.
And as dams destroy forest, they are contributing to global warming because forests remove carbon dioxide from the air, a global warming gas. There are other issues.
RELATED: 5 reasons why the tiger is endangered
Rivers pass through many countries. If the country at the top of the river, at the source, builds a dam countries further down don't get their water. And as human settlements increase there is more demand for water. Industrialisation creates an increased demand for water.
There is a big problem building up along the Nile. There is a long-running dispute between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over a massive hydroelectric dam which is at the heart of Ethiopia's manufacturing and industrial dreams.
RELATED: Indian Bengal Tiger Reserves
Tigers and jaguars need large areas in which to live. Their home ranges are enormous. Adult males in India can have home ranges 15 times larger than those of females. An female home ranges can be up to around 50 km². Arguably, India's reserves are already too small and they're being gradually eroded because of a continually increasing human population in India.
As human population grows there is a commensurate need for more energy, more power which puts pressure on governments to build more dams which in turn destroys tiger habitat at least potentially. It's a vicious cycle. It starts with human population growth. That is the root cause of pretty well all conservation problems.
Conservationists are going to have to try and compensate tigers for the loss of their habitat by providing additional protected areas. This is highly unlikely. Dams are contributing to the gradual and almost inevitable extinction of the tiger in the wild.
ABC News tells me that there is a pet food supply shortage in Ohio as at December 2021. They report that the Pause & Whiskers cat shelter in Toledo, Ohio has seen a drop of 75% in cat food donations. Sara Baker, the shelter manager, said that there is a global supply chain and production issue and stores such as Pet Supplies Plus are affected. That company anticipates shortages into 2023. I decided to check it out to see whether there are other sources providing us with the same news.
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| Pet food supply shortages in USA late 2021. Photo in public domain. |
The website Green Matters states that officially there are no food shortages as at October 15, 2021 in the USA. That news comes from the USDA. However, a business strategy expert, Xavier Naville, said that there are disruptions in the supply chain. In an interview on October 14, he said that the shortages result from a combination of increased demand (an increase of 13% according to the USDA compared to last year) and a tightening in the supply.
So this is a supply and demand issue. Demand is up and supply is down. This means that some items are hard to find. Human food is also affected.
Why is supply down? There appears to be two factors. The yield in many crops is down due to climate change. Another website tells me that dry cat food supplies are down because corn supplies are down. In addition, there have been structural changes at food processing factories and slaughterhouses many of which are following social distancing guidelines. This slows production.
An uncomfortable reality is that there's too much waste in the developed countries generally of food in general including pet food and human food. As per Feeding America 108 billion pounds or 40% of all food is wasted in America every year. That takes a bit of digesting 😉.
The Green Matters website states that pet food is in short supply. There are empty shelves across the US and food shortage fears. They say that the pet food supply chain is facing issues as at October this year.
Reuters reported that both dog and cat food prices have increased by up to 20% between the beginning of the Covid pandemic and July 2021. The reason? Higher labour and transportation costs and rising prices of corn, meet and soybeans. In addition, there has been an increase in pet adoptions so there are more mouths to feed.
The UK has matched the USA in this regard. There has been a surge in pet adoptions beginning in the early days of the Covid pandemic and continuing throughout 2020 and this year. Some of these adoptions have been irresponsible.
Supply chain issues are affecting other goods as well. President Biden has commented on it in a speech delivered on Wednesday, October 13.
Tip: arguably this is a good time to consider home-made raw cat food. I'm sure the ingredients for that can be obtained readily. So the only issue is whether you can be precise and careful enough to make it to a high standard and also store it to a high standard. There might be a silver lining. You might see the health of your cat or dog improve. You might stay off commercially prepared cat food indefinitely. But please be careful. Veterinarians think that cat owners are not able to make their own home-made raw cat food to a sufficient standard. There are some pitfalls. You simply have to ensure that the required nutrients are included. Please do your research thoroughly. Your efforts may be rewarded. But don't take risks.
Bear Grylls has admitted that too many animals were killed during his early television shows in the name of survival. He believes that it is far better to forage for dead animals when surviving under incredibly harsh conditions. During his survival show The Island contestants were featured killing snakes and an iguana. He has also killed rabbits and frogs as part of his expeditions.
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| Bear Grylls. Photo: Wikipedia. |
He regrets the practice now and believes that survivors should live off animals that are already dead. He was speaking on BBC Radio 4. He said:
"I think in terms of survival and food; definitely in the early days we were killing way too many snakes and stuff like that in the name of survival. I've moved so far away from that nowadays. It's always about finding carcasses, bugs and grubs. If you look at great survivors historically they are always the foragers."
He also believes that if you go after big game you take too big a risk and you are using your energy inefficiently. Also, the increased popularity of veganism and vegetarianism has changed his mind. He's taken many stars who are vegan and vegetarian into the wild and he respects them and their views.
And, his position on climate change has changed as well. This is because he has seen far too many consequences of climate change during his travels over every corner of the planet. He said:
"I've seen it [global warming] in every corner of our great planet-extreme one-off weather, freak conditions, totally unseasonal flooding, unprecedented wildfires, polluted broken oceans that are often, I've seen, starting to turn to swamps. Thousands of remote Pacific islands covered, so you can't even see the ground, in plastic and rubbish. Habitat and wilderness starving."
Bear Grylls is influential. He is a big voice on television and I hope that these views are heard. There are still too many people on the planet who see nothing wrong in killing animals for pleasure never mind for survival. And there are still far too many climate change sceptics. There is almost nothing you can do to change their minds. They remind me of the anti-vaxxers who don't believe in vaccinations but they do believe in conspiracy theories. You can't change their mind either. They have rigid ways of thinking and are completely convinced that they are correct when it is clear that they are incorrect.
There's not much to say because the photograph is self-explanatory. It comes from Indonesia, by the way. The person who uploaded it to Twitter called it 'cosplay' which means costume play. This is when people dress up in costumes which represent a specific character. It's a role-play form of entertainment. I'm not sure of the relevance of that to the photograph. I tried to figure it out but at the moment I'm unsure. Actually I'm nonplussed 🤔. I think the reference to 'cosplay' is an in-joke in Indonesia which is why I can't link it to this photograph.
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| White shag pile cat coat on white shag pile bath mat. Photo: Twitter. |
What cosplay has to do with the image is irrelevant really. This is an example of camouflage; domestic cat camouflage. Perhaps the domestic cat has evolved over 10,000 years of domestication to find a way of camouflaging themselves within the human home 😊.
I'm just messing about because as I said at the beginning there is nothing to say but I have to say something as just a photograph on the page doesn't really hack it for SEO purposes.
The great debate about feral cats in Australia rages on. They are non-native to that country and therefore they are considered to be pests because they prey on native species, often small mammals which are endangered in any case because of human activity. The feral cat gets the blame. But, the question here is whether feral cats will remain non-native to Australia in perpetuity. Will there be a time when we can say that feral cats are no longer non-native in Australia? And I think there is.
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| Australian feral cat. Photo: Pixabay. |
I like an article written by Peter Banks, Professor of Conservation Biology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Australia. He makes the point that there can be a time when a non-native species becomes native. He even sets out criteria for classifying whether a species can be considered to be native when at one time they weren't.
He applied his criteria to dingoes and concluded that they are now native to Australia. This is despite the fact that dingoes were brought to Australia from Southeast Asia about 4,000 years ago. Technically they are non-native or alien to Australia. But he says, interestingly, that most legal definitions consider dingoes native because they were brought to Australia before the Europeans arrived.
RELATED: Make Australia’s native species more cat savvy rather than try and kill all the cats.
So here is his "ecological definition of nativeness". To put that another way, these are the three criterion that should be applied when deciding whether a non-native species has become native.
The first is whether the introduced species has evolved sufficiently into its new environment. The second criterion is whether native species recognise and respond to non-native species as they do to other species. And the third is whether the interactions between established native species and non-native species are the same as if they were interacting with native species. This last point is asking whether the impact of the non-native species is exaggerated because native species don't know how to relate to them.
RELATED: Does Australia have a native cat?
The last point is important because in Australia some native species haven't learned how to defend themselves against feral cats. It takes a long time in evolution for a species to build up defences against a predator. Therefore, when you introduce a strange and alien creatures into the landscape the resident species are nonplussed and are therefore very vulnerable to predation by that animal.
Applying the criteria mentioned, he decided that dingoes are native. And clearly, a major factor as to whether a non-native species become native is the amount of time it has been in that environment. With respect to dingoes it's 4,000 years. That provides enough time for this species of dog to fully integrate to the point where you can't tell the difference between them and native species in terms of interactions.
On this basis, there will be a time when the feral cat in Australia becomes native to that continent. Peter Banks says that cats have not been on the continent long enough to qualify as native. He said that they have not had enough time "to get past the exaggerated impacts on local species".
What I like about the article by Peter Banks is that he is saying that non-native species need not be non-native forever. There is a cut-off point which is directly linked to the amount of time that they have been alien to a particular country or place. I have always believed that.
RELATED: Exterminate the cat from North America because it is non-native!
You could apply that rule to the domestic cat in America. It is believed that the domestic cat was brought to America by European settlers which means they've been in America for about 400 years. But they are non-native to America. Americans unlike Australians don't want to exterminate all feral cats. Americans have a more sophisticated attitude towards feral cat predation on wildlife. And I don't think Americans consider feral and domestic cats to be non-native or if they do it is a very weak point which is rarely if ever raised.
No, the word "jaguar" should not be capitalized as the word is not a proper noun. It's interesting because I write these articles using speech-to-text software called Dragon Dictate.
Dragon Dictate capitalises the word 'jaguar' and I don't understand why. It appears to be an error in the software or it is because these words are often used in a human context such as naming a sports team e.g. "the Jaguars are playing the Bobcats tomorrow". Sports teams often adopt the name of a wild cat species for their name. Under these circumstances 'jaguar' is capitalised as it refers to a proper noun: the name of a sports team.
The software also capitalises the words 'tiger' and 'lion'. But this is incorrect, strictly speaking.
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| Black jaguar - melanistic jaguar. Photo: The Big Cat Sanctuary from a video by them. |
RELATED: Should 'veterinarian' be capitalised?
Although some authors incorrectly still capitalise tiger and jaguar. Often you will see it in old books when grammatical conventions were different.
With respect to tigers, if you name the region then that name is capitalised such as "Siberian tiger".
An example of a sentence with the word jaguar in it would be: "The jaguar at London Zoo is beautiful".
It's important to note, though, that grammar evolves. Things change over time. The current policy is not the capitalise the names of the big cats. However, you will still see these names capitalised. It's not a big error.
The reason, by the way, is that they are not proper nouns but common nouns. You only capitalise proper nouns such as the name of a place. Common nouns refers to a generic person, place or thing within a group.
@66supermandavid kitten vs big steak
♬ original sound - 66supermandavid
It is a cute reminder that kittens are born ravenous and carnivorous. A mentality inherited from their wild cat ancestor. It certainly pays dividends to remember that domestic cats are wild cats at heart; a whisker away from their wild ancestor in behaviour.
And this carnivorous mentality is all apparent in the short video. In terms of mentality there is no difference between this cute little kitten and a big tiger on a reserve in India. They just want to bolt down the food as quickly as possible. I wonder, though, if this kitten has been starved a little bit to make sure that he behaves as you see in the video and as desired by the video-maker.
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| Starving diminutive kitten behaves like a tiger eating a buffalo |
The video has been engineered to be interesting which it certainly is. But you wouldn't feed a kitten a raw steak like this normally. It is not a good lesson in how to feed your cat. Let's put it that way.
Because that steak does not contain all the ingredients that a cat needs. It contains some of them but not all of them., In that way, therefore, this is a slightly careless video but we shouldn't snipe at it because it teaches us the lesson that domestic cats need a meat diet or one that replicates it accurately.
In fact, it is bigger than that because when a wild cat eats a prey animal they eat more than just the flesh which humans call meat. In human language the word "meat" means muscle. Meat is a euphemism for the flesh of an animal.
The video is duplicated below but it is from a different platform in case the TikTok video above fails. The one below may also fail 🤞.
Wild cats and indoor/outdoor domestic cats eat all the animal including the gut and the contents of the stomach, the fur and some bones et cetera. It is the whole which provides the balanced diet with all the requisite ingredients.
We exactly what ingredients are needed by domestic cats and can add them in commercially made food. If you feed your cat a raw diet you can buy a powdered supplement which contains these essential nutrients to add to the mix.
Of course, Gordon Ramsay has a very high hitting Instagram account with over 13 million subscribers. And he has a son called Oscar. And the family also has what appears to me to be a pointed Exotic Shorthair cat. A very good looking cat although bred to extreme. The Daily Mail has picked up on the photograph and said how adorable it is as Oscar who is two years of age goes for a 'walk' with the cat. Well, they are joking of course because Oscar is carrying the cat and here is the point of this article.
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| Oscar Ramsay carries the family cat in the wrong way. Photo: Gordon Ramsay. |
Oscar is carrying this purebred cat in a very bad way. It's the kind of way that children do carry cats. Every time they do it it is incorrect. It's common sense that it is incorrect. You don't need a sophisticated argument from a cat behaviourist to tell you. 😉.
When you carry a cat you have to support them properly and not have them hanging from their shoulders putting strain on their spine. I've got a nice graphic prepared by Ruth which shows you how to pick up a domestic cat.
If you want to pick up and hold your cat, the only way to do it is to place your hand under the cat's chest while they are standing on the ground, and you lift her up while at the same time you place your other hand under her bottom so that she is fully supported.
Then as you lift up your cat to the vertical position you continue to support her bottom with your other hand and arm while also supporting the upper part of her body (under the shoulders) with the other hand.
Essentially there needs to be two support points on a cat: the upper part of the body and more importantly the entire weight should be supported under the cat, under the bottom.
Sometimes you simply want to lift up a cat in the horizontal position with both hands and place the cat on a table or whatever. That's different. In the first description I'm describing how to pick up a cat and carry a cat in an intimate way as opposed to a functional way.
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| Oscar Ramsay carries the family cat in the wrong way. Photo: Gordon Ramsay's Instagram page. |
You don't carry a domestic cat as if you are carrying a baby which is belly-up and cradled. And you certainly don't do what Oscar is doing.
He just needs to be taught because he doesn't know better. There is certainly a responsibility on cat owning parents to both teach their children how to interact with the domestic cat and secondly to supervise until they are confident their child can interact properly. This should be a proper parent-to-child training session with practice.
It's important both for the cat's health and welfare and also from the standpoint of the child because if a cat is mishandled they can strike out. A child might become scratched. The parents then don't like the cat. They relinquish their cat to a local shelter. That's how it can play out.
I don't want to be a wet blanket but I don't see it as that amusing to be honest. I just see a need for Gordon Ramsay or his partner to do a bit of research, such as read this article, and teach their son (who looks like Gordon) how to lift and carry a domestic cat.
My advice would be: don't try it until you are a bit older. To be honest Oscar is probably too young to be carrying a cat of this size. The cat is about half his size. This is quite a well fed, plump Exotic Shorthair. Although, I don't think that he or she is obese. Just well looked after except for the technique in carrying her 😊.
This image is on Twitter. I like it because I like anything which refers to the domestic cat which this very definitely does. I see the image of a domestic cat's whiskers etched on Chenle's face, around his eyes. I guess he is exaggerating for the camera but when he laughs or smiles the whisker lines are produced. His name is written thus in Korean writing, Hangul: 천러
So who is this guy? I had never heard of him which is unsurprising because he's a Chinese singer, songwriter and actor currently based in South Korea. In the West we don't hear much about these celebrities from Asia. They seem to obtain their celebrity status within Asia. His full name is Zhong Chenle but he is known professionally by the mononym Chenle. He is on Wikipedia which is always indicative of success.
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| Chenle's cat whisker dimple |
There are a lot of South Korean K-pop bands all of which are made up of pretty boys. They are all over Twitter. I am not a fan of K-pop or their childish tweets but they are very popular but manufactured by producers. They are like robotic clones; all very similar with constant attention to a preened appearance and an androgynous look. K-pop is for young girls. The only reason why this photograph is on this page is because, you guessed, there is a reference to cats.
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| Cat whiskers. Photo: Pixabay. |
The emotional connection and friendship is tangible. There is no doubt that this bobcat is deeply emotionally involved with the ginger tabby-and-white domestic cat. Obviously, the bobcat is domesticated to a large extent. But wild cats never quite attain that level of domestication that domestic cats do.
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| Deep friendship between a domestic cat and a wild cat: the bobcat. Screenshot. |
But in this video, it almost looks like we are viewing two domestic cats. The behaviour of the bobcat is no different at all to a domestic cat. He or she is allogrooming which is mutual grooming.
It is the kind of thing humans do to cats when we stroke them. It's a bonding exercise which is exactly what it looks like. And they lick the parts that the recipient cat can't get to for obvious reasons. They must do it totally instinctively. They know the part that cats can't get to and therefore they lick them. I think that pretty clever actually.
Note: This is a video from another website which is embedded here. 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.
The woman states on Reddit.com that her "final form" is to take her cat on errands all the time. I take this to mean that she has firmly decided that the final version of her, in respect of her relationship with her cat companion, is to take the cutie on her daily errands. This is a brave move.
I took my cat to all my errands today and I think that’s just how I’m going to live my life from now on 😂 crazy cat lady final form.
Provided she is careful to ensure that her cat does not get into any trouble, it's a good idea. I am one of those people who believe that too many domestic cats are too often bored because of a lack of stimulation which arises out of the simple fact that they are cared for and therefore do not have an outlet for their desire to hunt for a living.
Walking your cat on a lead outside, if that's possible and often it isn't, and in this instance carrying your cat into the local DIY store can work wonders to stimulate your cat. There are potential pitfalls and dangers obviously. Cats can be scared under the circumstances. They can wriggle out of their harness. They can disappear and become lost. You just have to take precautions.
What about an unexpected encounter with a dog? You need a safety procedure prepared to deal with the unexpected and dangerous.
I bet that this woman gets into a lot of conversations with people that she would otherwise not have ended up talking to. That's a positive spin-off. It is very unusual for a person to do this.
I can remember Taylor Swift carrying her Scottish Fold companion cat under her arm like an accessory as she 'swiftly' walked from a building down some steps. A good picture with good and bad points.
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| Taylor Swift walks out of her apartment into NYC with her cat under her arm. Image: Twitter. |
You have to be careful that you don't treat your cat as an accessory to your lifestyle. I'm not saying that Taylor Swift was doing that. She is a good if not excellent cat caregiver. But you know that those images of celebrities carrying their miniature dogs under their arms don't really tick the boxes when it comes to dog caregiving. For me, the relationship has gone a little awry.
Answer: cats slow-blink because they are expressing their emotions at a moment when they feel reassured as they are in an emotionally friendly environment when communicating with their human caregiver. The relaxed state in the cat results in the restful slow blink which humans have interpreted to mean more than it truly does. This is my personal view and I don't expect people to necessarily agree with me. The jury is out to be honest on the slow blink. The information provided is anecdotal and the studies are not conclusive.
Why do cats slow blink? Image: MikeB.
This question has been answered a million times on the Internet. But the books on cat behaviour that I have never mention it. It is simply not on the authors' radar. The experts don't write about it in books. It is only discussed by cat owners on the Internet and there are a few studies. However, I think people place too much significance in this aspect of feline behaviour.
We have to answer the question by observation. Like any other cat owner, I have seen my cat slow blink on thousands of occasions. It always occurs when I am speaking to him and when he is opposite me, quite close by and in a settled, restful situation. He is always looking at me while resting when he delivers the slow blink to me.
RELATED - THE MORE CONVENTIONAL VIEW AS PER A STUDY: Cat slow blink is a signal of friendly intentions
My personal interpretation is that this is not a deliberate signal from your cat to you. In other words, your cat is not trying to tell you something through body language when they slow blink.
It is more likely to be an instinctive response to what is happening. Your cat is receiving body language from you should which signals friendliness. This is supported by your friendly voice. The sounds of your voice indicate friendliness and companionship. The situation engenders a feeling of security and restfulness in your cat.
The cat's instinctive response is to blink slowly and there may also be other signals such as purring and perhaps a quiet meow. I think the slow blink comes from the feeling of security and restfulness that the cat has at that time. These slow blink may be an indicator of sleepiness.
Some cat owners interpret it as a sign that their cat loves them. As it occurs in a situation where both human and cats are interacting in a very friendly and emotionally warm situation it is easy to interpret the slow blink as a signal of love or deep friendship.
But I don't quite see it that way. People sometimes slow blink when they are feeling particularly relaxed and chilled out. I think the same thing happens with cats.
RELATED: Domestic cat slow blink is not a sign of love.
There have been studies on this, I notice. One study called: The role of cat eye narrowing and movements in cat-human communication, concluded that "Our results suggest that slow blink sequences may function as a form of positive emotional communication between cats and humans."
Well, yes, it does but the big question is whether cats deliberately blink to signal a positive communication to their human caregiver. Or are people simply interpreting the slow blink as having that meaning?
I reiterate, I think the slow blink happens at a time when there is a warm interaction between cat and person and therefore you could say it's a signal that the cat feels relaxed and content and reassured. But I don't think the cat is deciding, rationally, that 'I'm going to send the signal to my human friend that I feel relaxed and that it's thanks to you'. It is more likely to be a spontaneous instinctive reaction which expresses a feeling of well-being.
I also believe that if a human slow blinks at their cat they don't necessarily slow blink in response (but see study). Anecdotally people say that cat owners can use this behaviour to communicate with their cat.
A study tested whether cats behaved differently towards their owners when they slow blink at them. The study concluded that cats are more likely to slow blink if a person slow blinks at them. The same response occurred when non-owners blinked at the cats. The researchers interpreted this as the cats understanding the slow blink signal and responding positively to it.
This may be true but I am inclined to believe that it's not. I believe the truth is that if a person is in a situation where they slow blink at a cat they have created a warm friendly environment for the cat which encourages them to instinctively slow blink. I'm not completely convinced that I'm correct but I don't think you can positively infer that slow blinks between cat and person are a form of deliberate communication. It is more likely that it has inadvertently become a form of communication as a side effect.
I don't know of any study, by the way, which researches the slow blink between cats. I don't think cats do slow blink at each other. Do they? And if not why not? Is the cat slow blink exclusively a communication between cat and human. Is it a way to communicate between cat and person only and never between cat and cat?
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| Boy has special relationship with neighbor's cat in suburbia. Screenshot. |
This is a particularly delightful little video. It comes from Springfield, Oregon, USA. The encounter was videoed on December 7, 2021. His mom said:
"My son and I visit this cat in our neighborhood walks. She’s not a stray, just friendly."
Comment: it is great to see. I always think that children of this age learn to love animals more when they have these sorts of experiences. Is it probably fair to say that this boy inherited a love of animals. Perhaps all children like animals. That inherited characteristic is sometimes knocked out of them by their parents and early life experiences if they subsequently learn to dislike or even hate cats. But the inherited starting point for children is not to hate cats. That's my viewpoint.
Although, it is also plausible that humans might inherit an innate fear or anxiety around large cats because millennia ago they genuinely did prey on humans or they were competition to humans. But domestic cats are not large and I would suggest that the default attitude from children to domestic cats is either neutral or positive.
Note: This is a video from another website and embedded here. 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.
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