NEWS AND COMMENT: The video tells the harrowing story. They were all terrified. He says his fear was 11 out of 10. They'd been feeding deer before the wild fires. When they returned home after their terrifying escape, they discovered that the fire had killed the deer. She had fawns. I presume they are dead too. Lots of wildlife has been killed by the Greek fires which have forced thousands of holiday-makers to abandon their vacation sometimes at great expense. Euronews reports that many Greeks abandoned their pets when under extreme pressure to leave their homes resulting in many animal deaths. Was this necessary? Couldn't they have prepared earlier knowing the fires were approaching?  Personally, I am critical of pet owners who abandon their animals when a wild fire approaches as there is always plenty of forewarning. Although I don't know the exact circumstances, it could be argued that the British couple featured in the video left their home too late. They were forced to

Rehoming can be the best solution sometimes.  Image by Daga_Roszkowska from Pixabay  Can a university student on campus own a cat successfully when the cat remains at home with their mother and sisters? The actual question on Reddit.com is: Mom is threatening to give cat away because she’s scared of cats and afraid, he’s gonna scratch the furniture. This is part of her post: My cat is a year old and he’s mostly chill but has his moments of just running around. My mom is the type where she stays locked in her room when the cat is out and when she’s out she makes my cat stay in my room. I live on campus but come back every weekend so my sisters take care of him in the meantime.  The following is my answer to the enquiry. Please tell me what you think in the comment. This is another post from Reddit.com which is about people disliking cats. In this instance, a woman who I believe goes to university has to leave her cat at her mother's home when she is on campus. And her mother says th

Ailurophobia. Image: MikeB The question in the title was asked on Reddit.com about two months ago. It's a good question because there must be lots of occasions when young people share a home and have their own rooms and in which there might be a domestic cat belonging to one of the roommates. Not all roommates will be relaxed around a domestic cat. In some instances, a person might be genuinely fearful. It may be an irrational fear of cats which is called ailurophobia. This is the beginning of her post: Hi, I have a 1year old female orange cat. She is quiet and a curious cat. So, my new roommate although she is doesn't like them, but from her behaviour it seems she's afraid. Every time she sees my cat from distance screams, my cat runs towards her to smell her and she keeps jerking or screaming. Ailurophobia can be cured because it is irrational and it probably arises because of a traumatic incident when the person was young involving a cat. Perhaps they were scratched or b

@brittney.georgiana Talkative fat boi #fyp #cat #funny #talkingcat #blackcatsoftiktok ♬ original sound - Brittney Georgiana In the viral video shared by TikToker Brittney Georgiana (@brittany.georgiana), her large black cat, Jinks sits by the open door to their yard, meowing loudly. She thinks that Jinks is calling the family dog. It looks like it as the dog, a German Shepherd, Dax, responds as asked! Well, it's cute and Britteney does a nice job of translating Jinks' meows. She says her cat was feeling talkative. This means Jinks was talkative before he called Dax. This means Jink is not calling Dax! It is possible that Jink was calling Dax to approach. That seems more plausible.

The headline in The Sun newspaper paints an almost utopian picture of cat-human heaven in which a person is employed as a cat sitter in London, UK and they looked after three cats in different locations over Christmas for a period of three weeks at the end of which they have earned £400 in cash.  Cat sitting. Image: supplied. That of course is worth more if you are paying tax because you don't pay tax on the cash you earn! I am not suggesting fraudulent behavior! It is called a side hustle so I presume that you do this in addition to another part-time job. It is designed to help people get over the so-called cost of living crisis which has resulted in people being short of cash. And resulted in cat abuse - click here to read that story . Of course, it might be an enjoyable job if you like cats. However, it is a responsible job because, although it looks easy, I don't think it is. The person who wrote The Sun article, Miranda Knox (the cat sitter), gives the impression that it i

NEWS AND VIEWS - UK: Online news media, today, is blaming the cost-of-living crisis in the UK combined with the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath for "creating an animal welfare crisis with vital services [which] are stretched to the limit". Picture by the RSPCA. Before I go into the details of two reports from different sources about this animal welfare crisis in different parts of the UK, I would like to add immediately that it is a very poor excuse that animal welfare becomes a crisis because people have less money in their pocket or it is after the pandemic . The RSPCA reports that there were 1072 cat cruelty reports in 2022 in Wales, UK and out of these complaints, 600 were calls concerning neglect and 89 regarded intentional harm. The RSPCA received three reports every minute. This, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the pandemic or money. When you adopt a cat - and it does not matter whether you adopt that cat during the pandemic, before it or after it - you do

Most decisions in life whether they be about cat caregiving or anything else rely on compromise of some sort. It is only on matters concerning morality and guilt and innocence in criminal matters that decisions are black-and-white. You don't have to look far in decision-making about cat caregiving to realise that compromise is the best way forward. Example of a garden enclosure. Image: MikeB Providing food Perhaps the best overall diet for a domestic cat is a compromise between wet, dry and treats. You provide wet food during the daytime when your cat asks for it or you provide it at those times that you know your cat wants to eat. You provide some high quality, large-pelleted (normally) dry cat food at night time to allow your cat to graze especially if they are indoor/outdoor cats and therefore are burning energy and need their energy levels topped up, and you give them some treats from time to time. You are not relying on one type of food but a cross-section. The default food is

A woman on Reddit asked for advice about naming her son who is yet to be born 'Toby' when her recently deceased elderly cat was named Toby. She loves the name but doesn't want to upset members of the family as they might dislike the association between her cat's name and the proposed name of her son. She is in a quandary over it. Toby a good name for a cat. Image: MikeB One responder to her request for advice found the solution I believe. Neit_1146 suggested that she name her son the long version of Toby which is Tobias. The Baby Centre website says this about the name Toby: A shortened form of Tobias, from Tobiyah, meaning "God is good" from the Greek towb, meaning "good" and yahweh, the Hebrew name of "God". Pronounced: toh bee. Actor Tobey Maguire is famed for his title role in the "Spiderman" films. She might adopt the longer version of the shortened version! This would be Tobey as in the actor who played Spiderman. That shoul

The news media calls this a 'strange addiction' and it describes a woman uploading videos to Instagram of herself licking her cat like a feline mother. You know what I mean: when a queen (a cat mom who has just given birth) licks her kittens to keep them clean which includes the anal area! RELATED:  Can I get a tapeworm from my cat ? Woman licks her cat like a feline mother but is she ingesting fleas! Image: Instagram screenshot. Only this woman sensibly agrees that she should not lick the anal area of her cat companion because that would be horrible, she said. Also, she does not lick the feet of her cat companion because there may be faeces on the feet after going to the toilet in the litter tray. The woman is in her 50s and she has uploaded videos to My Strange Addiction series. She defiantly says that she will not stop her habit. She said: I know everybody knows I'm a crazy f***ing cat lady. I'm in my fifties. I don't have any children. I never wanted any childre

Doja Cat complains about the behavior of her fans. Screenshot. The creation of her stage name is a short story! But we have it from the woman herself. According to Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, her real name, she made up her stage name, Doja Cat, because she loves cats and cannabis! In her own words: "I was heavily addicted to weed and weed culture, so when I began rapping, I thought of the word ‘doja’ and how it sounds like a girl’s name." At the time she admits that she was "an alcoholic teen". I wonder if she has changed her thoughts about her name bearing in mind what I say below. LinkedIn says: In an interview with Genius, she revealed that "doja" is a slang term that means marijuana. She explained that the name was given to her as a tribute to the weed culture, which is prevalent in Los Angeles, where she grew up. As a teenager, Doja Cat was exposed to the weed culture and became fascinated by it. That's the origin have her name and I have a follo

NEWS AND VIEWS: In the land of so-called animal lovers, Great Britain, the BBC reports that children put a 22-year-old cat in a plastic bag and then dumped her in a wheelie bin. For international visitors, a "wheelie bin" is a rubbish bin where household rubbish is placed to be collected once a week if you are lucky. Frankie. Image: Feline Cat Care Rescue. This is a very unsettling story because if children are treating a domestic cat like this - and this is an elderly cat and therefore all the more vulnerable - it does not bode well for the future of animal welfare in the UK. Has there been a deterioration in society's morals in the UK over the past 20 years? I think there has been. I genuinely mean that. I see that in terms of greatly increased crime especially petty crime which undermines society. The police do not stop minor crimes taking place. They do not catch and arrest small-time criminals. This, as mentioned, undermines the very fabric of society. This slack pol

NEWS AND VIEWS: The Tomohon Extreme Market on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi may be the most hellish place on planet Earth for dogs, cats and other animals. It reminds me of other Asian animal wet markets where the animals are brutally killed. In this instance, there were reports that animals were bludgeoned and blowtorched to death. That is, indeed, extreme. It is extreme violence and cruelty of the most heinous and obscene kind. But I will tell you this: it is not that unusual in some Asian countries such as Vietnam, and China. Members of Humane Society International transport a cage containing dogs from a slaughterhouse in Tomohon, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Friday.   (Mohammad Taufan / Associated Press) I hate saying it but I must say it over and over again: the culture in Asia vis-à-vis companion animals can be utterly uncivilised. I must not generalise because there are some really beautiful people in Asian countries who love animals and care for them and rescue them. But i

NEWS AND VIEWS - NORTHERN IRELAND: A couple left the bathroom tap running nonstop for 13 YEARS to provide fresh, running water for their cats! It sounds unbelievable but it is true. It is reported in the news media today. The couple's neighbour was perturbed by the constant sound of running water and the fact that his garden was becoming flooded! To create that kind of sound the tap must have been running near full blast. For some peculiar reason the tap water was making its way into his garden. That could only happen if the water from the tap was exiting a downpipe outside the house and onto their garden. Normally it would go into the drain. There must have been a leak in the system. The neighbour said that they were dealing with the constant annoyance of running water which they believed came from their neighbour's garden. The water was flooding their back garden. The person described their neighbours as reclusive. They tried to talk to them. They knocked on their door but th

Using Bing, if you search for 'domestic cats Vietnam' you get reams of pages on cat meat all on the first page of search results. It is remarkable and horrible but I am pleased as it puts more pressure on the Vietnamese government to ban the cat meat trade.  There are pages on how the Vietnamese kill and eat people's pets and stray cats. It is utterly uncivilised and the Vietnamese government know it. BUT there are some rays of sunshine in Vietnam in the world of cats as there are bound to be because there are many Vietnamese citizens who love cats and care for them to a high standard.  One of those people is Nguyễn Thúy Hải, nicknamed 'Cat Woman', who has found happiness in her life alongside the cats she cares for as if they were her own children. The caption to the video below is: Meet Hanoi’s catwoman! Nguyễn Thúy Hải is a true hero to abandoned felines. She has rescued and found homes for hundreds of abandoned cats over more than 24 years. Now she is busy takin

OPINION: It is my understanding that the Vietnamese administration want to stop the eating of cat and dog meat in their country. They want the country to be more civilised and for the international community to regard Vietnam as more civilised. They want Hanoi the capital to be a dog and cat meat-free zone. A good starting point for the rest of the country. Dogs transported to dog meat market for slaughter and sale. Horrendous isn't it. Just bloody horrendous. Image: tuoitre.vn Eating dog and cat meat holds back the country as they are eating people's pets and they kill them brutally. It is genuinely uncivilised as these animals are vulnerable and in a civilised society the vulnerable are looked after. The problem is that the older generation firmly believe that eating cat and dog meat is particularly good at helping them to keep healthy. That's the culture and tradition but it is entirely incorrect. Cat and dog meat is no different to any other in terms of health. The youn

How to provide a suitable environment for your cat to live in (9 pointers) as per DEFRA. Image: DEFRA. As per the advice (reproduced verbatim here) of the UK government in following the Animal Welfare Act 2006 which is based on basic principles of cat caregiving, here is how to provide a suitable environment for your cat to live in. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 is an excellent piece of legislation as it also provides guidelines on cat caregiving. It more or less says that doing the opposite to good cat caregiving can amount cat abuse/cruelty and be a crime. This list was prepared by the UK governments Canine and feline sector group. Link to the Animal Welfare Act 2006 - with added notes Provide your cat with a safe, comfortable, dry, draught-free, clean and quiet place where it can rest undisturbed. Ideally, there should be a range of such places available – the cat will choose where it is most comfortable. Take all reasonable steps to protect your cat from hazards indoors and o

NEWS AND VIEWS: This is a warning to UK residents and I would like to point out that a lot of people buy cats online nowadays from social media for example and not infrequently these sellers ask for money upfront perhaps in a deposit. Then the buyer never hears from the seller again. That is the kind of scam that this article refers to. But it covers a whole host of different products and commercial transactions. Upfront fee scams increase in the UK. Image: MikeB The Times reports that, "Scams that ask people to pay an upfront fee for fake goods or services have soared sixfold since Covid-19 but overall fraud has fallen back to pre-pandemic levels". The Office for National Statistics said that there were 391,000 advance fee fraud offences committed in the 12 months to March 2023 which is the equivalent of 1071 every day or 44 per hour! This was a 541% increase on the 60,000 advance fee fraud offences committed in the same period running up to March 2020. This is the time when

NEWS AND VIEWS: Have you read this story? Have you seen the video? When you see the video, you'll see the most appalling quality and you are reliant upon your imagination. That's dangerous. When you have to imagine what an animal is because the image quality is so bad, your mind can run riot and this is what appears to have happened in Berlin, Germany. Suggestion: if this is a genuine sighting it is likely to be a large dog. That's the common-sense assessment. Wait and see. My expectation is that they won't find any animal let alone a lion! In fact, my most recent thought about this video is that it might have been deliberately created to be fuzzy and to try and attract a lot of attention. Clickbait basically. UPDATE: it was a WILD BOAR. It is an area where there are wild boar in their thousands! Same old story. New media exaggerations and scaremongering. The video is above and so is a screenshot below and I think that you will agree that, as usual, the quality is very

Cat quivering their tail meaning? It means the cat is excited; normally because they are pleased to see you. I can provide the answer the answer to this aspect of feline body language with great accuracy I believe as I have seen it firsthand under a very distinct circumstance which I remember extremely well even though it was around 37 years ago. I rescued a cat from the streets of Notting Hill Gate where I was living at the time. My cat who taught me the meaning of the tail quiver decades ago. Image: MikeB I saw this female cat in the basement of a neighbouring house about 100 yards from mine. It looked as if she had been abandoned by her owner who was also the owner of the house. The woman had just left. A classic method of cat abandonment and very cruel. I spoke to the cat and carried on. Soon after she was under a car outside my house. She looked up at me and her tail quivered excitedly. She instinctively knew I was friendly from the tone of my voice and was in effectively asking m

The normal pulse rate of a cat is 150-240 bpm. To take your cat's pulse, grasp the chest just behind the elbows with one hand while supporting the cat with the other. Move your hand until you detect a heartbeat. Count the number of beats in 20 seconds, and multiply that number by three. For example, 50 beats in 20 seconds would be 150 bpm. You can also take a cat's pulse by feeling for the heartbeat on the inside of the back leg where it joins the body. Use the above beat count. Note: I am not a veterinarian but I do have a lot of experience and knowledge about cats and their health. High metabolism - shorter life As you can see, the domestic cat's heart rate is much higher than that of humans which is one reason why they have a shorter lifespan than humans. There is a link between heart rate and survival which is down to metabolic rate which is greater in small animals and which is directly associated with heart rate. Fast beat A high heartbeat rate which would be over 220

Let's say the average lifespan of a domestic cat is around 18 years, perhaps a bit less at 16 years. A recent study by a veterinarian which looked at a sample of over 30,000 dogs who died between January 1, 2016 and July 31, 2020 from 18 different breeds and crossbreeds in the UK produced some astonishing results but there may be some distortion because of Covid-19. French bulldog. Image by Mylene2401 from Pixabay. French bulldog The most astonishing finding was that the average lifespan of the French Bulldog in the UK is 4.53 years. As I say in the title this is about a quarter (25%) of the lifespan of a domestic cat. I think this distortion might come about because during Covid-19 when a lot of people adopted French bulldogs and they were imported from continental Europe. They were bred at puppy mills; disreputable establishments where the animals were bred very badly and their health was often unacceptable. I don't know the details but there was a lot of talk about the probl

NEWS AND VIEWS: For Ms Moss of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, her cat Zebby is her ears and general helper. She is deaf but can hear with a hearing aid. Zebby has been trained to pick up the day-to-day sounds to which a caregiver needs to respond such as the front door bell or the phone ringing. Genevieve Moss said she is ‘so proud of Zebby for showing the world how intuitive and caring cats can be’ (Lucy Ray/PA) He does more than that; he fetches her slippers! And he picks up the post at the front door in the morning and brings it to her. How about that?! Zebby has been named Cats Protection's National Cat of the Year 2023 in recognition of his wonderful support for Genevieve Moss, 66. She said: “Without my hearing aid, I can’t hear anything, but now I have Zebby to help me. He’ll come and tap me when the phone is ringing, and then I can pop my hearing aid and speaker on and take the call." And if there is an unusual noise in the night, he will bat her on the head to wake her up t

Well, for me, it is nice to know that the Wimbledon champion likes cats even if she bought a hairless one - a Sphynx - which is a little controversial as some people think that some cat breeds should not have been created because they are too unnatural and require specialist care as does the Sphynx. It is called torture breeding in Germany. It is nice that Vondrousova's husband stayed behind in the Czech Republic to care for their cat Frankie while she was battling her way to the final. The couple decided that he should come over for the final and arranged for a cat sitter to take his place. It worked out for them. Sphynx cats are normally indoor cats as UVB light can harm them as they have no skin protection from fur.  Also, they need cleaning regularly as the oils from their sebaceous glands sits on their skin and not on the fur where it protects it and makes it feel silky.  When the oil is on exposed skin it attracts grime. The skin becomes dirty and needs regular cleaning. T

I am told that there is a huge discussion on the social network TikTok regarding marriage and divorce. Millions of users are chewing over the concept of "mental load" (the stress of organising a household) and "weaponised incompetence" (the way people - mostly men - avoid house work by purposefully being bad at it). Wife takes on the 'mental load'. Image: MikeB The terminology is being used in divorce proceedings as a contributory factor when applying for divorce. Weaponised incompetence places a greater burden on the other party who is competent! As it happens, women take on more of the mental load as they do more of the house work than men. This has consequences in the relationship. And there are wider consequences such as the quality of their work in the workplace as a lot most wives and partners are also workers. About a quarter of families experience some form of weaponised incompetence. It's a brand-new term and it is not been fully defined yet.