NEWS AND COMMENT-MELBOURNE PRIVATE SCHOOL: A year eight student at a Melbourne private school who is described as being 'phenomenally bright' but is non-verbal has decided to identify herself as a cat. There's been a trend of adopting a furry animal identity and there is a kind of a culture among some kids in some schools to do this. People take a different attitude towards it. School kids. Pic: Getty Images. Those who support the woke movement are very sensitive towards it and the school is providing support staff to deal with a range of psychological issues. The school said that some students were presenting with a range of issues including mental health, anxiety and identity issues. These sorts of issues are present in a sizeable percentage UK school kids according to reports. Self-harming comes to mind as well as a manifestation of these pressures. The school in question is tackling the issue gently and their approach is to always take matters on a student-by-student ba

YES , is the answer to the question. The phrase "kennel cough" refers to a respiratory infection caused by both bacteria and virus but the most common cause is the bacteria Bordetella bronchiseptica . Cats can transmit this disease to dogs as well but my feeling is that this is rare. How many cats have bad coughs? Rare, I would say but I don't live with a cat and a dog. The disease transmits both ways. And between other species of animal. It is highly contagious. Cats and dogs in kennels, hence the name, are the most vulnerable because they are close together, confined to one place. Image: Warren Photographic published here with his permission. Both cats and dogs can acquire kennel cough from a variety of microorganisms including parainfluenza virus, adenovirus, reovirus and the distemper virus. They might get it from mycoplasma. But as mentioned the most common cause is the Bordetella bacterium and if a cat is exposed to it in direct contact with an infected animal such

The woman asked the following:  Do cats forget their owners? I’m leaving my cat for three months cause I’m going to college and I’m gonna miss him so much:,) is he going to remember me when I’m back? This is the loved cat. Photo: u/Cloutlordcatto on Reddit.com She asked the question on the Reddit.com website. My response to her question is as follows: Provided that you have a very good relationship with your cat (you clearly have), he will remember you immediately you talk to him because he'll remember your voice and he will be pleased to meet you again. I can guarantee it. Domestic cats have good long-term memories. There are stories of cats remembering their owners when reunited after years apart. The link below goes to an article which I wrote some time ago about the long-term memory of domestic cats. Cats have good long-term memory . He is a super-looking cat by the way. Good luck at college. Perhaps the obvious point to make is this: there is no reason why cats should not have

There are reports online in the news media websites that cat owners are abandoning their cats to shelters as the increased cost-of-living bites. This refers to the UK but I am sure there are inflationary pressures and cost of living pressures in other countries. This is the big discussion at the moment: how to reduce your living costs in order to cope with the dramatic rise in gas and electricity because that megalomaniac Putin is holding the world to ransom by stopping the supply of gas.  Please note that I'm referring to standard, typical households. I realise that there are many households where costs have already been cut to the bone and I have great sympathy for these people. But I have to talk about typical family homes in this discussion. I have probably waffled a bit too much in this article but the point of this article is that cat owners need to do all they can reduce household expenses other than those expenses to do with maintaining a domestic cat and providing them wit

Astonishing and difficult to see but it is nature. Thankfully the size of the elephant and its thick hide protects it even from a marauding pride of lions. This is not a particularly large elephant but large enough to survive this attack. He walks into the river which helps to shed the attackers but he turns back to attack the primary attacking lion which allows more lions to rejoin the attack. Anyway, the elephant wins. But sometimes young elephants are brought down by a pride of lions. It can be done. RELATED:  Lions and elephants revolt against poachers in South Africa . Lions are not very fond of water as you can see. It stopped them attacking the elephant.  RELATED:  Are lions good swimmers? ‘Quite capable’ is the description . RELATED:  Do lions eat elephants ? You may have to click the play button twice to get the video to run. Google reduces the image quality automatically so it is not great but good enough.

Social media can create pressures on kids. It needs to be controlled by parents and the government and kids need to use it to good effect and not bad. Image: BUPA. I've written two articles about children adopting the identity of animals, specifically cats. They call themselves furries. There is a high-profile case currently in a school in Melbourne, Australia and several months ago I wrote about a school in Michigan, USA where the kids had decided to be cats and there was a viral story about the teachers providing cat litter  trays for the furries. The school denied it but the press was all over it as it created an interesting story. Kids identify as furries to escape the world created by their parents. Image in the public domain But the underlying story is far more important. I see children as providing a window on the kind of society that the adults are creating. The distorted behaviour in children is a symptom of a world that they find unacceptable and which has been created

There is another report today in the news media about animal charities being swamped with abandoned cats and dogs because of a double whammy of major problems. Firstly, there was the surge in cat and dog ownership during the pandemic with those owners now giving up their pets because they've decided they can't afford to keep them which has been exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis.  In isn't just the cost-of-living crisis which is causing this abandonment of pets. People adopting pets during Covid now see the reality of cat and dog caregiving and have decided that they were unprepared or uncommitted for a lifetime of cat or dog caregiving. RSPCA shelter. Image: RSPCA The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has reported a 25% increase in abandoned pets during 2022. They say that their employees are overwhelmed at their call centre from owners reporting that they are struggling to feed and care for their animals. During the first seven months of

Cat in toxic but amusing relationship with jovial owner. Screenshots. Image: MikeB. This amusing video is on Reddit.com. Below the video is my suggestion on Reddit.com to try and stop it ✔️. It is very brief and I am not saying it is the full picture. But there needs to be remedial cat training. My God, some human training too, perhaps. But they are obviously a nice couple with a close relationship. It is just that the cat has developed a habit of biting his human caregiver. A well-known saying comes to mind: to bite the hand that feeds you.     Note : This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which would stop it working here. I have no control over this. Made me laugh. Thanks. I think the problem here is not with cat behavior but human behavior. The cat has got used to biting his arm. That needs to be trained out. Trying playing with him more using a tease not the hands or arm 😎. Much more. And perhaps

Although it is not clear what species of cat this is, it must be a leopard judging by its size and the markings indicate this too. Although the image quality is not great. The attack took place on the on Dehradun-Rishikesh Highway, India and both cat and human were lucky to come away unharmed. Cyclist attacked by a leopard, but the leopard rapidly retreats when it realises that the attack was not working. Screenshot. Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of this video is that the leopard failed in their attack and quickly retreated and disappeared into the jungle.  The cat regarded the cyclist and the bike together as a prey animal obviously. When they hit the cyclist and the man at the same time it seems that the cat realised that this was not viable and gave up immediately.  The attack must have been instinctive and then immediately on making contact the leopard change its mind sensing that the outcome may lead to injury to them.  I think that can only be the assessment otherwise why w

There is a story and video currently doing the rounds on the Internet, on the news media websites. And the title is that a cute baby bobcat has been rescued from a dog attack in Indonesia. The problem is that there are no bobcats in Indonesia. The picture is of an Asiatic leopard cat in my considered view. They are quite rare (and endangered) and this is the wild cat half of the Bengal cat which is a very popular domestic cat. The authorities in Indonesia are describing this small cat as a bobcat which is entirely incorrect. This is an Asian leopard cat. But the Asiatic leopard cat is much less pliable and amenable to being domesticated them a bobcat. Not that you would normally domestic at a bobcat either. But judging by the video the Indonesians who found this leopard cat are treating it as a pet.  That is not going to work out sooner or later as the kitten or cub grows up a bit and becomes more independent and manifestly aggressive. The story behind this young Asian leopard cat is t

A woman on the mumsnet.com website has befriended a couple of stray cats. She calls them feral cats but they might not be. She wants advice about it. She plans to let the cats come into and use her utility room by putting a cat flap in the door to that room. She is asking about how to arrange that and whether to put down a cat letter. My answer on the mumsnet.com website is repeated below. I think the point that needs emphasising really is that once you get involved with caring for 2 stray, feral or wandering domestic cats you then become their caregiver and by your behaviour you have adopted them.  You then have the responsibility to be their caregiver for the rest of their lives. Therefore, this particular moment in time for this woman is a very big one. It will change her life to a certain extent. It depends if she has a cat already. Indeed, if she has a cat or cats already, adopting to strange cats might cause quite a big problem. She might be lucky but it is likely that the reside

The RSPCA say this about 'Lord and Lady Sugar', two rescue cats in their care who've fallen in love: "A beautiful love story so far for Lord and Lady Sugar. Will you be part of their next chapter?" Link to the RSPCA on TikTok: rspca_official . For this video and others. Is there someone out there, ready to adopt them as a pair? You know what they say about adopting rescue cats in pairs it makes life much easier for the human caregiver because they can entertain themselves.  It takes some of the pressure away from ensuring that your cats are happy and content and entertained. It becomes a shared responsibility which I think is beautiful. If you have a ready-made relationship like this one where two cats get along so well, I think it should be taken with both arms. RELATED:  Should I adopt one or two kittens ?

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home has reported that 148 cats have been surrendered to the shelter for financial reasons. This is double the number compared to last year. They've all been handed in because their owners are cash-strapped, hit by the cost-of-living crisis which has been so heavily reported on in the UK. And the winter is yet to arrive. This is when gas and electricity prices are going to double or treble or whatever the figure is. That's going to push up inflation even further perhaps to around 13% in the UK. There will be more surrenders. Pictured: Dustin 2-month-old male tabby and white kitten gifted to Battersea his as owners were no longer able to look after him. Image: Battersea Dogs & Cats Home (believed). What is particularly sad about this story is that the people who adopted kittens and cats during the Covid lockdowns are now abandoning them because of, yes, the cost-of-living crisis and inflation and, frankly, because they didn't really work out how

Pallas's cat is a popular zoo species. They are endangered in Central Asia but they are fairly numerous in zoos where they are bred. They've encountered breeding success but the kittens frequently die from acute toxoplasmosis, an infection of the Toxoplasma gondii protozoan. Bunch of Pallas's cat kittens. Photo: Reddit.com. A study entitled: 'Toxoplasmosis in Pallas' cats ( Otocolobus manul ) raised in captivity', reported that a breeding pair of Pallas's cats in Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria produced 24 kittens between 1998 and 2002. Sadly 58% of the kittens died mostly of acute toxoplasmosis between the second and fourteenth week of their lives. The study was published online by Cambridge University Press on 21 October 2004. This problem has been known for a long time. RELATED:  Pallas’s cats at zoos infected with Toxoplasma gondii . This page discusses this topic in more detail. They decided to develop a strategy to protect the cats from fatal toxopla

No words needed really; except I think of Chairman Mao! You remember the reformer: Mao Tse-tung. It is better to call him Mao Zedong actually. Chairman Mao to his followers. I wonder if he liked cats! I doubt it. He was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and the founder of the People's Republic of China. He was the son of a prosperous peasant and supported Chinese nationalism and had an anti-imperialistic outlook when he was young. He is still regarded as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. I can remember one thing about him!  How you say 'cat' in Chinese (video). Screenshot. He ordered that Chinese citizens clapped their hands all over the country to stop starlings landing to prevent the birds from damaging crops. The birds couldn't land so they died in flight and fell to the ground. They then realise that they had created a catastrophe because the starlings ate insects and there was a plague of insects as I recall. Clever wasn't it! The word &#

All the dairy cows want to lick this farm cat. Screenshot. This is a cute and brilliant interspecies relationship. But in this instance, all the cows want to be friends with this farm cat and wash her. It must feel good to be so popular. An interesting aspect of the video is that clearly domestic cats enjoy being licked by another animal.  Domestic cats are known to be fastidiously clean but here we have a cat which allows themselves to have the saliva of a cow deposited all over their head. You might think that this would be uncomfortable or even unacceptable but no. They like it and by the look of it seek out those licks. You may have to click on the play button twice to get the video to work for which I apologise but this is Google software and I cannot improve on it. I apologise for the music. I did not make the video and I wouldn't have added music like this to it but the visuals are good.

 This is a highly amusing video on Twitter. The cat is sitting on a laptop keyboard which is not that unusual as we all know. The attraction is the heat from the computer chip which leaks upwards through the keyboard and via the cooling fan (which is probably blocked by this cute cat). And they are depressing a couple of keys one which turns the letter into a capital and the other is the letter 'a'.  Cat self-entertains without knowing it. Screenshot. And so, we have a rapid production of a capital 'A' being rolled out on the computer screen which this cat enjoys watching. It's an example of self-entertainment without any knowledge of it. It is a version of cat television. Cat television normally refers to watching the comings and goings outside the home through a window. RELATED:  Cat Television – a good example . I think you'll have to click the play button twice. It is a cute video though. On a technical note, I wonder how long that could go on for before the

If you are one of those cat owners who really objects to your cat occasionally bringing in prey animals, through the cat flap, into your home and really can't wait to do something about it, well you can now! You can subscribe or you can be an early bird and buy this smart cat flap today and get big discounts.  OnlyCat®  cat flap. Screenshot from their kickstarter programme. On the downside, its projected retail price is £499. Sadly, I will have to conclude that that is just too much even if you don't like your cat bringing in prey. You've got to have quite a lot of disposable income to want to pay that kind of money for the convenience of a bit of peace and quiet. And don't forget even in homes with cat flaps sometimes the backdoor is open or the patio doors are open in warms summers. The cat will prefer that route of entry. And the UK is currently embarking on a cost-of-living crisis which is set to become much worse when gas and electricity prices more than double sho

This is a story about a woman who found joy in a robotic cat after the loss of her cat companion. And I think it points to some situations when robotic cats can perform a function which is superior to the real thing. The truth is that people can become attached to robotic pets that are sufficiently lifelike particularly if the person involved perhaps has intellectual disabilities or perhaps a head injury or they might be autistic or simply elderly with dementia of some kind. RELATED:  Reason why robotic cats and dogs are so successful with the right person . Linda Williams with her robotic cat which pleases her. Image: WIS 10. Tri-Development Centre of Aiken County runs a program with a mission to provide, promote and coordinate community services in that county for individuals with "autism, head and spinal cord injuries and intellectual disabilities". South Carolina Department of Ageing runs a program to help people who are socially isolated.  RELATED:  Heartwarming story on

You may have heard about the two major collar-mounted cat predation deterrents which are worn by cats. One of them is quite effective (see link below) in that it warns birds of the approach of a domestic cat. It is the Birdsbesafe® collar. The other is called the CatBib. It uses a similar same method in warning prey of a cat attack but is clumsier. And it presents a barrier between prey animal and cat which prevents the cat killing prey. RELATED:  Noticeable, brightly coloured, cat collar protects birds from cat predation (47 – 54% reduction) . In Australia, the authorities often want domestic cats to either live indoors full-time or not wonder so much and therefore reduce their predation on native wildlife species.  In this study they wanted to find out whether a cat wearing these two predation deterrents decided to wander less as a consequence. I guess the theory is or was that if a wondering domestic cat is unable to attack birds because they fly off because of the collar they are w

There is no doubt in my mind that my cat wants his coat to be full of dusty earth which is why he rolls around on dusty ground at the end of my backyard. He is lying on my bed as I type this which has exposed the copious amounts of soil in his coat as it is deposited on the white sheets.  What I am saying looks counterintuitive because cats are fastidiously clean and committed self-groomers. But they don't see dusty earth as dirt. They must see it as a beneficial material to assist their health. I'll have to hoover the bed again. It is happening daily in the dry weather. Actually, it is an official drought in the UK and it is driving me mad. But my cat thinks that dirt in his fur is good for him. It must be. It must help deal with skin parasites and remove them from the fur. It seems that the parasites get caught up in the dirt and removed. Only my cat does not have any skin parasites (ectoparasites) such as fleas or ticks. But he rolls in dirt instinctively to remove ectoparas

Scientists say that experienced cat owners don't pet their cats correctly but I believe that their study is flawed in a couple of areas which I discuss below. Although their overall conclusion as stated by Dr. Lauren Finka is probably correct. This is slightly tricky topic and I am sorry the article is not straightforward but I hope it is reasonably interesting. There is a very lengthy report on the Scientific Reports website (largely unintelligible) which looked at how experienced cat owners pet cats. They found that some self-proclaimed "cat people" don't know how to pet their cats. They looked at a range of people types and assessed how they interacted and petted domestic cats. The study was carried out at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. News media reports state that it was surprising to the researchers that the people who participated and self-rated themselves as having knowledge and experience of cats were more likely to touch areas of the cat's body that th