Cat Chit Chat

It is that time of year when websites sometimes discuss the interaction between cats and Christmas trees 😎. And this is where it goes wrong 😢. There's one website from New Zealand called Stuff which has a title as follows: "Watch: 12 times cats tried to ruin Christmas trees". This is a big website with an influence, and I don't like the title (Kiwis don't like cats!). I am being too serious, but this is a title which imports speciesism into the discussion. Domestic cat pulls over Christmas tree. See video below. Domestic cats don't try and ruin Christmas trees. They try and climb them because that is what domestic cats want to do. They need to entertain themselves in the sterile human environment in which they are placed and forced to live. Strong words. @yoilseari please send tips so this won’t happen again #cat #catsoftiktok #christmas #cats #fyp #foryoupage ♬ original sound - Ilse ◡̈ So why criticise them for trying to ruin Christmas trees? Th

Christmas is upon us. Some people will be buying a purebred dog or cat. There are many online adverts for what appear to be charming puppies. The same applies to kittens. Sometimes the prices look good; almost too good to be true. Puppies at Christmas. Image: MikeB These "too good to be true" puppy adverts have probably been placed on social media websites such as Facebook because the overheads of the breeder are particularly low. And the likelihood is that they are low because they been bred in Eastern Europe and smuggled into Britain against the law. The problem is this: often these puppies are the offspring of abused breeding dogs, living in squalor without proper veterinary care. These are puppy mills and there is no place for them and certainly the purchase of a puppy should not be supporting them unwittingly. Over the Covid pandemic many thousands of people did indeed unwittingly support puppy mill owners. They were supporting illegal activity and animal abuse. A proble