NEWS AND COMMENT-BANGKOK, THAILAND: A tabby-and-white male domestic cat weighing 8.5 kg living in a flat on the sixth floor of a high-rise building fell off that building and bounced off a balcony on the third floor before smashing into the rear window of a car parked underneath the building which entirely shattered the window but the cat walked free without a scratch.  The MG car. Image: Facebook (Apiwat Toyothaka). Shifu after the fall. He's fine. Image: Facebook (Apiwat Toyothaka). That sums up the story in one sentence but I'll add a bit of detail. His name is Shifu. The owner of the car,  Apiwat Toyothaka,  shared his experience on Facebook on May 27. He said that he was surprised to discover the rear window of his car smashed to pieces at 7 AM.  He told a news media that the cat had fallen from the sixth floor as described. He found Shifu hiding under his car after he had jumped out through the massive hole in the rear window that he had created. For some reason which has

Chongqing, China - opinion:   Yes, once again, I'm going to be highly critical of China in respect of their lack of animal welfare laws and their lack of respect on too many occasions for the sentience of domestic cats and dogs. They deserve to be criticised because the kind of cruelty we see on Twitter perpetrated upon these innocent animals is truly shocking. The tweet: #China: May 22, Chongqing. Pet cat was thrown to death by the neighbor. The owner: What kind of person can do such a thing? There's no legislation on cruelty to #animals. Those crazy people cannot be sanctioned. Comment: I take that tweet to mean that the cat's owner threw their cat out of a high-rise window. I could be wrong but they threw the cat with such force that death was instant on contact with the ground due to blunt force trauma and catastrophic injuries. This happened by the way during Covid when some cat owners in China were anxious about getting Covid from their cat. Without animal welfare law

OPINION: This is another way that cruel men travel around a big conurbation in China (perhaps in the north somewhere) looking for street and domestic dogs to snatch. They take them to the south of China, to the dog meat markets by lorry in the most appalling conditions. In this instance, this man who I have described as the "Angel of Death" is a pillion passenger on a small bike.  They are searching for stray dogs and one turns up. They stop and the Angel of Death fires a dart into the dog who immediately collapses and is then taken away speedily. See the video below. RELATED:  25,000-30,000 dogs are being slaughtered DAILY for food in China . China: Angel of Death dog snatcher arrives on a bike to fire a dart into a street dog. Image: MikeB. I have decided that he is using a tranquilizing dart of some sort rather than simply shooting the dog in order to keep the animal alive for the journey to the south where they are brutally killed as fresh meat. The great brutality of all

It is blood lust war on an unwanted animal. Sod the philosophical issues. Just grab the rifle and bullets and get out there in the Aussie outback and start taking pot shots at cats as fast and as furiously as possible. I can't watch the video. To sick and irritating for me. But it may interest some people and provide an insight into their thinking. Did I say 'thinking'? Not much deep thinking going on. The caption to the video reads: "In Shooting Cats, VICE set out to explore the consequences of Australia's feral cat plague, and confront the uncomfortable and violent realities of dealing with it. Most suburban Australians give feral cats little thought. But for residents of the country’s rural fringes, they’re a diabolical pest and scourge on wildlife. Found in 99 percent of Australia, they’re estimated to kill more than two million native animals a day. That devastation has seen Kangaroo Island local Barry Green declare a personal war against cats; trapping and sk

The video is completely explanatory and horrific to any decent person. It shows a couple of men getting out of a van and climbing the wall surrounding a front yard in which are two pet dogs. They use dog catcher poles to capture the dogs and in the case of one of the dogs drag them over the wall with force by the steel collar around his neck. Horrendous. It could have killed the dog. Perhaps it did.  Utterly, utterly brutal. By Western criminal standards these men are psychopathic bastards. They'd be in jail for several years if they did this in the UK and were caught and successful prosecuted. The dogs are then driven in lorries in very cramped, rusty cages to China's south to the dog markets where their end will be shockingly brutal. My heart hurts for them. May they rest in peace. Bless them. As a wise person said, hell is empty. All the devils are stealing cats and dogs in China for dog meat and fur. I won't say what I'd like to do to these men. It'd be as bruta

Animal advocates protest in China for animal welfare laws sparked by the sadistic murder of 'cowcat'. Screenshot. The cat's picture is on the placard in the picture . NEWS AND OPINION: As I understand it, "cowcat" is the name given by animal rights protestors in China to a stray cat who was hideously tortured and then murdered after three days. And I believe that the person who did this is notorious now in China. He is a food vlogger (makes videos about food preparation).  He is also a horrendously cruel animal torturer specifically against stray cats. He has created, I believe, a video game app in which the players have to kill domestic cats in food blenders and other disgusting ways. And I believe that he runs a gang of Chinese people living in China who enjoy cruelly abusing, torturing and then "murdering" cats in sadistic ways. He has various names and these are some of them:  Xu Zhihui - Xu Mouhui - Jack Hot Strip - Jack Spicey Strip. His photo is

I see a parallel between San Francisco, USA and UK. The end result is similar.  An opinion piece in The Times  (author Rohan Silver) reports that the radical Left running San Francisco has basically decriminalised crime and underfunded the police.  San Francisco is now lawless and crime-ridden thanks to policies that decriminalised theft and the push to defund police. This was the Left's reaction to way that Republicans managed the city which resulted, arguably, in the police being too heavy-handed and too many people being prosecuted, convicted, and sent to jail. America has a very high jail population. San Francisco a no-go because of mass crime. What affects us affects our cats. Image: MikeB. The city administrators, started in 2014 with a radical law known as Proposition 47 which in effect decriminalised thefts up to $950. This meant that most robberies and shoplifting incidents weren't investigated. My mind goes to the police in the UK about 10 years ago saying that they w

This is a video from PETA. It is hard to watch as usual. They say you should listen to the soundtrack. I haven't. I can barely look at the first three seconds of the video. It is horrendous. And yet people in the West rely upon this when they buy their duck down duvets or clothing insulated with down. Nobody should be buying duck down duvets. They should buy synthetic insulation. WARNING: take deep breath and steal yourself if you feel that you are up to watching this rank cruelty. Shame on these people. PETA exposed so-called responsible down standards farms live plucking geese. Another scam in this world full of scams. In a world getting worse with more and more objectionable human behaviour. This live geese feather plucking has been going on for donkeys years. It is a process known as "live plucking". Producers developed international standards claiming that they were more responsible which did not include live plucking.  You can see a screenshot of the video by clicki

OPINION: China celebrates the domestic cat huge cat wall murals and yet is simultaneously and culturally cruel to them far too often with no laws to protect them. The photos are on Twitter. The murals seem to me to show a schizophrenic attitude towards the domestic cat in China. China's culture states that companion animals need to be useful and if they can no longer be useful, you can eat them. Not good and a violation of the unwritten agreement between domestic cat and human. And the simple fact that Beijing obstinately refuses to create animal welfare laws strongly indicates a lack of respect for the cat, dog and other sentient creatures. What kind of developed country refuses to enact animal welfare legislation? A backward one. But China is not backward. They are very advanced in many respects. The problem is that the CCP ( 中國共產黨)  is rooted in the past in respect of attitudes towards animals. The culture is rooted in tradition and you can read about the Chinese tradition conce

OPINION: Once again, I can't look at the video below. Here's an insight. If you write about China's relationship with domestic and street cats as portrayed on social media IT CAN HARM YOU. Yes, very much so. If you are sensitive to the sentience of animals. If you care about animal welfare as I do. And as many others do as well. Ms Wang met a cat seller on the sidewalk in China. Screenshot. I feel a duty to spread the word about what is happening in China. It is one of those countries which throws up some horror stories of animal cruelty. This can only happen under an attitude that in general disrespects animals. Pakistan is another country which is woefully out of step with the world in this respect and very backward. This disrespect is SCREAMED out from China to the rest of the world by the stark and entirely unacceptable fact that they don't believe in animal welfare laws to protect animals. There are almost none and there no umbrella animal welfare law such as we se

This is a straight forward photograph of a street cat in China, somewhere. It should not worry us but it concerns me because I've just been reading and writing about a monstrous individual who likes to torture and kill street cats in China. You can read about this man if you want to buy on this link but it's unpleasant although there are no photographs which might harm you psychologically. Street cat in China. Image: What's on Weibo. The picture that you see on this page accompanies an article written about 3 years ago which tells the story of a Chinese security guard pouring scalding water over a pregnant cat. another psychopathic individual who gets kicks from extreme violence against cats.  The story went viral on social media and there was a call for animal welfare legislation in China which trended on Weibo.com. It takes extreme animal cruelty to provoke Chinese citizens to demand animal welfare laws which should be entirely acceptable and which should have been in pl

NEWS AND OPINION : Xu Zhihui - Xu Mouhui - Jack Hot Strip - Jack Spicey Strip leads a gang torturing street cats in China and he created a video game app in which cats are cruelly killed in kitchen blenders. These are ALLEGATIONS. He did it for real! He killed a cat in a blender and videoed it and uploaded the video to Chinese social media. Xu Zhihui - Xu Mouhui - Jack Hot Strip - Jack Spicey Strip. Gross and disgusting cat torturer and killer who needs to be stopped asap. Gang? torturing and killing street cats The story isn't clear but in my current opinion, Xu Zhihui is the leader of a gang (not sure if it's a gang or he kills alone) of Chinese men who like to torture and kill street cats in China. He is a food blogger/vlogger and he runs multiple accounts. He has a large following on a Chinese website called Bilibili with 400,000 followers and a Weibo account with over 20,000 fans. He posts videos of himself cooking (cats??).  That seems to be his mainstream activity but I

This is a discussion. The title sounds mad. It might be. But I don't think it is. The point of the title is that there are no signs in behavior to tell us that some domestic cats think they are in the wrong body and want to transition from male to female or female to male. Gender transitioning is big human news. But it is exclusively about humans. It is a human condition. The desire to gender transition can only come from a higher non-instinctive intelligence.  Cats don't want to gender transition. Image: MikeB Animals behave instinctively. Instinctive behavior does not provide an avenue in which thoughts about gender transitioning emerge. Thoughts about gender transitioning requires the intelligence and social pressures that only humans enjoy or submit themselves to. Instinct is natural. It is a part of nature's way. But we should all respect people's thoughts and desires. If a woman wants to be a man and human society can help, we should help.  But human society shoul

We should all at least be interested in global warming. Better still be concerned if not greatly concerned - as many youngsters are as they'll be facing the consequences in years to come. In that vein, it is useful to look at the carbon footprint of pets. They do contribute to global warming just like humans as the food they eat and the products that we buy for them have an underlying carbon footprint. Overall, the carbon footprint of pets is enormous. UCLA researchers calculated that meat-eating by dogs and cats creates the equivalent of about 64 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which has about the same climate impact as a year’s worth of driving from 13.6 million cars. - Zero Smart Here is an infographic on the topic: Carbon footprint equivalent (CO2e) of a pet cat and dog. Infographic by MikeB Suppressing our carbon footprint What can we do to contribute to suppressing global warming as pet owners? We can buy pet products which are not made from plastic which is made from

Interspecies allogrooming occurs when animals of two different species groom each other. This is mutual grooming. It may be the case that one member of the couple grooms the other more often than the other grooms them. So, it might not be entirely mutual. In all cases it is an altruistic animal behaviour in which one animal grooms the other without expecting or demanding anything in return (unconditionally). They give it to them voluntarily and with pleasure. But it can be entirely mutual most often when the same species engages in allogrooming such as between two domestic or feral cats who are friendly with each other. The unconditional nature of allogrooming must seem special to humans as we nearly always give conditionally even if it is not said but simply in the mind of the donor. In this instance we see a group of cows frantically allogrooming a ginger tabby cat who must be very familiar to them because he lives in and around their barn. It's probable that the cat sometimes gr

Paddy Gower - I'm told on a news website - has 'issues' with feral cats. He thinks that they are dangerous pests and that they should be shot dead ('hunted'). They should be hunted to extirpation. I can't read the article on their website because I live in a region of the world where it is not published. I have no idea why they restrict publication of this site to certain countries. That seems bizarre to me. Patrick Gower. Image: Twitter. His face is as unattractive as his attitude towards feral cats. Paddy Gower's attitude towards feral cats is also bizarre. Actually, it's more ignorant than bizarre. But then again, it should be added that a lot of New Zealanders (Kiwis) dislike feral cats to the point where they think they should be shot.  Simply do away with them. It doesn't matter whether it's cruel or whether they are euthanised humanely. They actually prefer the former method because it's quicker and cheaper. The objective after all is,

NEWS AND OPINION : This picture in the news today caught my eye for the simple reason that we have a couple of beautiful Bengal cats struggling to extricate themselves from ugly conditions under which they were kept by a man who has been prosecuted under animal welfare legislation in Scotland.  It always astonishes me how people can be so cruel to domestic cats and dogs. And this behaviour is highlighted (but no worse for this reason) when the animal concerned is a beautiful Bengal cat. It is the juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness which makes the point. Beautiful Bengal cats kept in ugly and cruel conditions. Image: Crown Office. The cats that you see were kept captive at a farm in Perthshire, Scotland. The man involved is Daanyaal Chowdhury, 30. He ran a chaotic and hazardous kennels for dogs and cats. The police attended his kennels in October 2020. They found a diseased German Shepherd dog called Sophie and the general conditions were wet and filthy. The animals were dirty with ur

The picture comes from Reddit.com again - a good source of questions about cat appearance and behavior. The problem stated in the title is one which crops up from time to time on the Internet. It can look a little concerning because cat owners expect the inside of their cat's mouth to be pink because the mucous membrane there is normally evenly pink.  Pigmentation in the mucous membrane of a cat's mouth. Image: Reddit.com But sometimes the cells of the mucous membrane can be black because of the production of melanin which is the same pigment which colours the hair strands. It's all perfectly normal. They look a bit like freckles inside the mouth. This is not a health problem in any shape or form. Sometimes there are large blotches of black mucous membrane and sometimes you might see little dots of pigmentation along the gum line. No problem. It is nice that the owner of this cat who posted the picture on the Reddit.com website is asking if other people are concerned about

This picture is on the Reddit.com website and the person who posted it said that this is a 'very rare and strange cat'. It is a strange-looking cat (but not very rare) because the photograph captures nicely, almost in silhouette, the curled-back ears. It looks like everything is against what we normally associate with the domestic cat appearance with their ever-alert ears pointing forwards to collect the sound waves heading towards them. What is this strange looking cat with odd ears? Image: Reddit.com Domestic cats have really good hearing, better than human hearing. Their large ear flaps which can rotate around the head thanks to the 30+ muscles controlling the them, help in picking up the soundwaves. So, when the ears fold back like this it must affect their hearing and it is due to a genetic mutation. It does look very strange and a bit disturbing to be honest. But this is an American Curl purebred cat (probably) and if he is not a pedigree cat, he'll be a random bred

Since Covid (and continuing after Covid) Gen Z - those born between 1997-2012 - have traded all the usual milestones such as getting married, buying a home and having kids for a much simpler goal which is having a cat or dog or even two of them. Image: MikeB The trend started during Covid because they were allowed to work from home and it continues because a lot of them are still allowed to work from home although there is a backlash building from employers who often don't like it. Elon Musk says that it is a bad idea for productivity and creativity. But the cost of living in the UK and perhaps elsewhere has encouraged Gen Z young people to downsize their traditional objectives. A lot of people in Britain can no longer afford to buy a home because of the high cost of the deposit. It takes years to save the money or your parents step in if you are lucky. So, there are many more people renting. Rental prices have gone up as a result. Covid started off the trend for adopting pets beca

Throughout history, there have been many mystery cats. These are terrifying creatures often created through superstitions, myths and legends handed down to generations probably for thousands of years. One of these mystery cats is the "Red Tiger". What does it mean? You will not find a lot about the red tiger on the internet. You will have to read the book Mystery Cats of the World  by KPM Shuker to find out more. However, I can rely upon a couple of experts, Dr. Desmond Morris in his book Cat World and Sarah Hartwell on her website messybeasts.com Dr. Desmond Morris He states that the plain red tiger was reported in 1936. It is a tiger with the usual background colour but no stripes according to him. This is a uniformly reddish-brown animal which was said to inhabit a region of open sandy tracts hence the colour of the coat which evolved. It provided better camouflage. Dr. Morris said that its existence has never been scientifically verified. Sarah Hartwell As usual, she has

The background music is obviously highly inappropriate but probably significantly in line with the attitude of the person that we see beating this donkey because they can't pull a weight which apparently is far too heavy for them (I can't watch it). This is a very difficult topic because it means we have to talk about cultural attitudes which are clearly in general completely different in China compared to the UK for instance. The tweet accompanying the video from 'We Are Not Food' states: Does this reflect China's attitude towards animals? Or would it be high time to start protecting these most vulnerable members of society? The choice of background music tells a lot - no respect for the suffering of a sentient being. I have a nice article which I wrote some time ago which helps to explain these cultural differences and which you can read by clicking on this link if you wish . I think that it is a very enlightening article because it does mystify a lot of people in

Everybody should be as aware as possible about their contribution to global warming because it will affect both us and more importantly our children and generations to come. Companion dogs and cats (as do other pets) contribute to global warming. They don't directly contribute to it. They might in a very small way such as flatulence (carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane)! But this is a reference to the food and products we give them. Global warming news - having three dogs is as bad for the environment as taking a private jet. Image: MikeB Farming beef is bad for the environment. Pet food contains meats from livestock albeit wasted livestock that would not be used to feed humans. And as wet cat food contains more protein i.e. more meat than dry cat food it is said to have seven times the carbon emissions of dry food. We know that private jets contribute to global warming. There is a backlash against their use by people who are concerned about climate change. There are protests at

Animal advocate Chris Packham has successfully sued Country Squire Magazine for defamation and was awarded £90,000 compensation plus more than £500,000 in an interim costs payment. Update: Here he is: Online hate and abuse ruins lives . . . we need better laws to protect us . A statement following my court case this week . . . and enormous thanks for all your support - it means a lot to myself , Charlotte and Megan . Thank you . Please RT pic.twitter.com/x9kkvzZzsh — Chris Packham (@ChrisGPackham) May 27, 2023 Chris Packham. Photo Garry Knight from London, England  -  People's Walk for Wildlife 2018 - 04 Chris Packham is a well-known British animal advocate. He is high-profile. He fights for animal welfare. He claimed that he was libelled by a hunting publisher and he managed to crowd fund enough money to sue that publisher for defamation. He alleged that the publisher instigated a campaign of online abuse against him. He alleged that Fieldsports Channel created articles that he f