Another cat-abusing trend on TikTok which veterinarians have criticised

It seems that TikTok is famous for animal abuse and in this instance a mild or perhaps in some cases quite severe example of domestic cat abuse from which the TikTok channel owners achieve an increase in viewings and revenue and also some celebrity.

It is a simple example of exploiting the domestic cat and abusing the domestic cat in order to achieve some fame on social media and this has been going on for many years. It is very unfortunate. 

In this instance, specifically, TikTok channel owners are carting their domestic cats off to the pub to join the throngs of people there which is all very well if the cat is very outgoing and entirely used to it, socialised to it and acclimatise to it and possibly enjoys it.

But that kind of domestic cat is going to be exceedingly rare. It seems to me - and this is what is being reported - that many of these cats are going to be stressed, anxious and worried about being manhandled by their owners to accompany them into a public house where people are going to be talking noisily, where there will be lots of people and where there will be lots of booze which makes people more noisy and sometimes irresponsible in terms of cat caregiving and cat care.

More: A good example of domestic cat exploitation on TikTok showing a grossly obese cat

I'm not criticising in anyway people going to the pub for a good time because people need some fun nowadays in a stressful and difficult world. But it must be the case that these people are taking a domestic cat companion to the pub to achieve more views on their TikTok account. That's the objective. And that is a misplaced objective if it requires there cat is stressed and upset.

More: TikTok: a hotbed for companion animal cruelty crazes.

It appears, according to the Daily Mail that it is Gen Z cat owners (up to 27) who are doing this. One TikTok user, Lara, from the UK, took her cat to the pub and her video that she made from the exploit went viral.

It is a 16 second video which opens up with the social media user carrying her cat who appeared visibly stressed we are told in a blanket to her car. This is the first picture on this page (above). She has a white cat and a pink blanket.

After enduring a car journey her cat then spent the entire evening being cradled by Lara in a pub garden as she socialised with friends. Her video garnered over 262,000 views and is captioned: "Lola loves a pinot now."

There is a reference to Pinot Noir wine which no doubt Lara loves.

In another TikTok video another owner is seen bringing his pet to the pub fully kitted out in a black harness and a £240 Prada bag stop those the picture below.

You can see that the cat is anxious with her eyes wide open and her ears pinned back against her head. These are signs of anxiety which you must expect in this situation. It is very rare for a cat to accept being carried into a noisy interior full of strangers. Some do as mentioned but I would reckon about 95% of domestic cats would hate this.

There is a picture of a Scottish Fold as well taken into a boozer in London while wearing a harness. The cat rides the underground as well and is called Six Beans. That's the picture with the pint of lager on its head below. The cat looks quite calm actually and I suspect that this cat has been taken up for and has got used to it.

Veterinarians are complaining because it is ultimately likely to be an abuse, and the cats are going to be stressed normally. They argue that some cats can be trained to become more resilient in these busy environments but they need to be introduced to them slowly and positively from a young age they say. Correct.

Battersea Cats & Dogs Home recommend that cat owners take at least five or six weeks to ensure that their cat gets used to the outdoors and this difficult environment giving plenty of treats on the way and at all times using a harness because of a domestic cat becomes anxious and scared and runs away then you've got chaos and the cat becomes endangered.

And if you keep a cat in I harness you got to train the cat to accept a harness so all in all to do this kind of thing with a cat requires a lot of preparation and training and it appears to me that these people are not doing that.

Source: Daily Mail.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

A cat came dancing - Early Years (5) - Nursery Rhymes - Video

This is a departure from my normal sort of article. I want to show you a short video on YouTube and on the BBC website made for children of about the age of five which is the reception year at schools. It's nice to create an article for five year old kids. That does not say that any five year old kids will actually view this article. I don't expect it actually. It would be a near miracle if a five year old child or her mother clicked on a link to come to this page but, there it is, I am writing it nonetheless.

This is a charming video.

Below are the lyrics to the song.

A cat came dancing

A cat came dancing out of the barn,
With a fiddle under her arm.
She could play nothing but fiddle-cum-fee,
The mouse has married the bumble bee.
Play cat, dance mouse,
We'll have a jig in our good house,
Play cat, dance mouse,
We'll have a jig in our good house.

A pig came dancing out of the barn,
With a drum under his arm.
He could play nothing but diddle-dum-dee,
The mouse has married the bumble bee.
Play cat, dance mouse,
We'll have a jig in our good house,
Play cat, dance mouse,
We'll have a jig in our good house.

A cow came dancing out of the barn,
With a horn under her arm.
She could play nothing but tootle-tum-tee,
The mouse has married the bumble bee.
Play cat, dance mouse,
We'll have a jig in our good house,
Play cat, dance mouse,
We'll have a jig in our good house.

Here is a little more on the nursery rhyme:

“A Cat Came Dancing” is a delightful nursery rhyme that features whimsical animals and their musical talents. Here’s the charming verse:

A cat came dancing out of a barn,
With a fiddle under her arm.
She could play nothing but fiddle-cum-fee,
The mouse has married the bumble bee.

The rhyme continues with other animals joining the dance:

• A pig comes dancing out of the barn, carrying a drum under its arm, playing “diddle-dum-dee.”
• A cow joins in, with a horn under her arm, playing “tootle-tum-tee.”

The recurring refrain is:

Play cat, dance mouse,
We’ll have a jig in our good house.

It’s a whimsical and playful rhyme that captures the joy of music and dancing animals. 🎶🐱🎻

If you’d like to listen to an animated version of “A Cat Came Dancing,” you can find it on the BBC Teach website. Enjoy the delightful rhythm and imagery! 😊

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Cat copies his opera-singing young female caregiver (video)

This will make you smile. Or it should do. I think the cat is copying their owner. Cats do this a lot. They learn by observation. Think about cats learning to open doors for instance.

Either that or there is something behind the camera which has caught the cat's attention and provoked her/him to make these sounds. The second theory is probably the better one. You can see the cat looking intently at something off-camera.

>barges in
>sings a solo
>refuses to elaborate
>leaves pic.twitter.com/jCYU2e1VRO

— Punch Cat (@PunchingCat) April 27, 2024

Please remember that embedded videos from social media sometimes fail because they are removed at source i.e. on the social media platform. If this video has stopped working I apologise but I can't control its existence. 😢🙄

P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Cat takes mighty leap to successfully hit a Ring doorbell to be let inside

Determined and athletic cat leaps from parked car at the Ring doorbell to be let in. Where is the cat flap?!

The picture above comes from the video below which won't last long so enjoy it while you can! I can't find the original Ring.com video and I think this one is a rip-off. But it is okay. 

It shows how domestic cats are amazingly resourceful in getting their way particularly to get inside their home. They learn how to attract attention. 

These must be homes where there is no cat flap. The cats get left outside. I wonder about that and ask why owners don't install cat flaps if they intend to let their cats go outside unsupervised.

Here is another video of a resourceful cat employing the same technique to be let in:

There are many examples on the internet. All are a testament to the intelligence and learning ability of the domestic cat plus there athleticism and resourcefulness. Impressive guys aren't they?

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Heartbroken man searches for his cats after earthquake in Japan

The video says it all. He is a cat lover and he wants his cats back. It is all that he cares about. He has lost his work but that's relatively unimportant because he's far more concerned about the living and life than the works that he created. He feeds cats that he hopes survived. He feeds all the cats lost in the quake, if they can find the food.

The 7.6 magnitude quake struck western Japan's Noto peninsula on the afternoon of New Year's Day, flattening homes, triggering a tsunami and cutting off remote communities.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

High-definition video of a cat transmitted 19 million miles through space using a laser

In preparation for Mars missions, NASA has transmitted a 15 second, high definition video of a cat chasing a laser pointer 19 million miles through space via laser. The cat in the video it is owned by one of the staffers at NASA.

Screenshot from video which is courtesy NASA. Nice video actually.

In fact, the cat, 'Taters' lives with one of the employees of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The video was sent from NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications team's Psyche probe back to earth. The probe set off in October and is on a six year mission to visit an asteroid. The video was transmitted back to Earth on December 11.

“One of the goals is to demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles,” Bill Klipstein, the tech demo’s project manager at JPL, told CBS. “Nothing on Psyche generates video data, so we usually send packets of randomly generated test data.

It is appropriate to send a cat video. I think you will agree because for a while, cat videos were dominating the world as were pictures of cats specifically funny pictures of cats. It was all pretty crazy and stupid but now they've managed to transmit this video over millions of miles through deep space, they'll be sure that they can do the same thing when the team travels to Mars.

Here is the Twitter X video (remember that it is embedded here. It might not work one day):

We just streamed the first ultra-HD video brought to you via laser from deep space. And it’s a video of Taters, a tabby cat.

This test will pave the way for high-data-rate communications in support of the next giant leap: sending humans to Mars. https://t.co/tf2hWxaHWO pic.twitter.com/c1FwybYsxA

— NASA (@NASA) December 19, 2023

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Cat direct register gait seen brilliantly in the snow

Direct register cat gait is seen clearly when walking in quite deep snow. Image: MikeB from screenshot taken from video below on Twitter.

The domestic cat walks with direct register which means that cats place their hind paws directly in the same spot where their front paws landed. This creates a narrow track with overlapping pawprints in the snow as you can see. The reasons why cats and in fact many other animals do this is because of the reasons set out below the video.

Stealth and balance. It allows the cat to move silently and precisely. They minimise the amount of noise and of course disturbance that they make while walking. And in the snow, it is probably quite important because walking in the snow can be quite noisy and if the hind paws registered directly with the forepaws they don't go into the snow. They are silent.

It looks like this cat has walked along this snow track before and returned, using the exact same positions for his or her feet.

Cats instinctively walk silently and stealthily because they are one of the world's most skilled hunters. And when hunting they need to go undetected.

Direct register walking also helps in maintaining balance particularly when the cat is walking along a narrow surface or along a branch for instance.

Energy conservation. With a gait in direct register, the cat as a skilled predator can move more efficiently and they can conserve energy. They minimise the distance travelled by their bodies' center of mass between each step. This minimises their movement and reduces unnecessary movements which allows them to retain energy for more important activities such as a surge in speed when hunting or escaping larger predators.

And also, it goes without saying when looking at this video and the still image that walking in direct register provides a kind of camouflage for the cat's presence. The cat leaves a narrower and less conspicuous trail. This makes it more challenging for a predator of cats to detect and attack them.

The direct register gait of cats applies to walking. Cats do not maintain a direct register gait when they are running. They transition to a form of movement called the "rotary gallop". This form of movement allows them to move much faster while the direct register method of walking is mainly used for slower, stealthy movements. The rotary gallop is used for quick bursts of speed when hunting over a short distance after the stealthy approach.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Woman who does TNR wrestles with a smart feral cat and it looks horrible

Woman who does TNR wrestles with a smart feral cat and it looks horrible. Screenshot.

This woman must be kind as she is a TNR volunteer. She feeds, traps and neuters feral cats where she lives - not sure where she lives! No matter. The video is a bit shocking as she takes a risk in trying to pick up a smart feral cat and place her in what appears to be a sack of some sort to take her to a vet to get her spayed. 

Me deciding to take a chance to grab the extremely smart feral cat I've been feeding so I can get her fixed. No cats were harmed! Only me!"

She makes a fool of herself looking stupid as she fights with the cat getting scratched. We don't see the injuries she suffered but she must have been harmed perhaps quite seriously. As I say, it looks horrible.

To be honest, she is brave in allowing the video to be uploaded to social media as she is not shown at her best of you know what I am getting at.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Cat café has cats in cages in the restroom

Cats in cages in the restroom of a cat cafe. Screenshot.

This is a slightly amusing video but it was not mean to be like that. This a cat café somewhere, we don't know where. In the restroom there are four stacked cat cages some with cats inside. Is this deliberate to give the user an audience of cats?! A bit disconcerting perhaps although cats like to be with their owner when they go to the loo. So, it is okay for the cats.

I suspect the reason why the cats are in the restroom is because there is nowhere else to put them. As simple as that.

The video comes from the TikTok account of Hadeelo915. She is a Muslim and wears a headscarf which made me think that this was in the Middle East but I don't think it is. I think it is in the US (perhaps) as she calls the toilet a 'restroom'. Only Americans do that. In Britain we call them 'loos'. Very quaint.

This stray cat brings his feline friends to a Metro station in Istanbul

Ginger tabby owns the Istanbul Metro. Screenshot.

This video, for me, is a reflection of the relationship that Turkish people living in Turkey have with their stray cats. They have community cats in Turkey and Turkey has an ancient tradition going back thousands of years to be kind to street cats. That's the way I see it. There are two cat breeds which originated in Turkey namely the Turkish Van and the Turkish Angora. Although, in my view, they are one and the same cat breed. What happened was this: the cat fancy took one Turkish non-purebred community cat and turned it (selective breeding) into two different cat breeds. But that's my theory and I can't really support it.

The real Turkish Vat.

But the real Turkish Angora is entirely different to the American cat fancy version of the Turkish Angora. And something similar can be said about the Turkish Van.

The real Turkish Angora.

But to get back to the video, initially we see a ginger tabby enjoying sitting on the barrier to Istanbul's Metro. The reason why this cat is there is because it is warm. They enjoy the warmth coming out of the machine. 

And then people stroke him because he is adorable (the vast majority of ginger tabby cats are male cats). And when they stroke him, he might follow them down the escalator by sliding down the side of it as if he is on one of those ski slopes about to do a job at the end.

And at the end of the video, you will see that feline mates of his join him in Istanbul's Metro where they do exactly the same thing; sitting on the warm ticket barrier waiting to be petted. It is here that they get access to company and some interaction with humans. That's what they like.

They should be in someone's home. It looks cute and lovely in many ways but it is very sad in another way. They don't have a genuine home and a cat caregiver to look after them properly. That is the failure of community cats. People do look after them in an ad hoc way but they don't really get the kind of care they need such as veterinary care.

Woman allows her cat to repeatedly knead her face with claws out (video)

Woman allows her cat to repeatedly knead her face with claws out. The claws must have been trimmed beforehand. Image: Screenshot.

Would you allow your cat to do this to make a high-hitting TikTok video. She did and I'll tell you why she is not being scratched to blazes! She trimmed her cat's claws before she started videoing! Simple. That's the only reason why the cat is not drawing blood because untrimmed front claws are often very sharp especially immediately after the cat has sloughed off the outer sheath of the claw on a scratching post. 

The woman is smart because (1) she knew it would make a high-hitting TikTok video and it has at 83m and (2) she knew that doing a careful job of trimming her cat's claws would save her from pain!

This is clearly a close relationship. Normally domestic cats knead their caregiver's lap. The motivation for doing so is exactly the same. The cat, in their mind, is a kitten because the owner keeps them in that mental state and they are at their mother's nipple drinking colostrum. 

Obviously, what you see in the video is nothing like that description but in the mind of the cat this is exactly what is happening. The typical human-to-adult cat relationship is one of surrogate mother to kitten because the owner keeps their cat in a constant state of belief that they are a kitten as they are cared for so comprehensively.

The reason why images of big cat sightings are always fuzzy

Every single video of a big cat sightings in locations where the cats are not meant to be are fuzzy. They are unclear. The people operating their smart phone do not zoom in to enlarge the image of the cat. Note: 'big cat sightings' of pumas walking down the road in some American town is entirely different as you can expect mountain lions to be in the urban environment sometimes as these settlements are on mountain lion land.

It seems to me that people deliberately create bad quality videos or still images of big cats and then send them off to the news media in the hope and expectation to make a few hundred dollars or pounds. It would be so easy to create a decent quality video but the problem is that you would create a video of a domestic cat!

The reason why cat sighting videos are always fuzzy

If people created a decent quality video or image of a so-called big cat sighting, they would create a video of a domestic cat wandering through someone's backyard or in the countryside where they are meant to be. This most often happens in places such as the UK were there are no wild cats (except feral cats!).

Big cat sightings have to be fuzzy images. This makes them mysterious. It creates a discussion about what the animal is. The reason why there are no sharp images and high-quality videos of mysterious big cats captured by the general public is because there are no mysterious big cats in places where they're not meant to be.

It must be quite difficult for the television presenters to talk about these cat sightings. It is quite embarrassing to do it because the video is so obviously a video of a domestic cat. As usual it must have been a very bad news day. News media outlets like any other content producer can sometimes struggle to find reasonable content to fill their programs and this is a good example.

Poor quality images and poor-quality videos are synonymous with big cat sightings. The two go together like apple pie and custard. On this page is yet another version of the so-called big cat sighting and as ever it is a domestic cat minding his own business. 

If the video maker had zoomed in a little or taken a still image when zooming in the smart phone camera (and all smartphones these days have a facility to zoom in) they would have seen quickly that the cat is a domestic cat. And that would have been that. 

They would not have been able to send the video to a news media outlet because it would be a straightforward video of a domestic cat wandering around someone's backyard or on the edge of the countryside.

As you can see, there has to be an element of mystery about it and you get that by creating a poor-quality image or video. I have said enough about this.

Enjoy this video of an irate man who describes his neighbour as a 'cat pervert'

I suppose I should make a few comments about this amusing video. This middle-aged man is irate about his neighbour's behaviour. This is because his cat (female called 'Mercury') goes on to his neighbour's property and this middle-aged man thinks that his neighbour is keeping his cat. He think that he is possessing his cat and feeding his cat to tease his cat away from him. And he describes his neighbour as a "cat pervert" as a consequence. 

Screenshot.

It looks like he's lost his marbles because the young man he is accusing appears to have done nothing untoward. He does say that his cat goes onto his property but that happens and he is not doing anything to entice the cat onto his property. 

His dutiful wife is with him, supporting, but looks a little bemused by the whole episode. I don't think she wants it to happen. She's just there to be with him and provide some support. But the point is that the whole altercation should not have happened in the first place. Far better to have dealt with this in an amicable way; to have discussed the matter with his neighbour and then if this middle-aged man was concerned about this cat being lost to his neighbour, they could have decided amongst themselves how best to deal with it. This is not the way to go about dealing with the "problem".

I guess it shows how a neighbour dispute can be started over nothing but often it concerns a domestic cat! Poor cats. They end up being in the middle of a neighbour dispute because of their innocent behaviour.

 

Shocking video footage shows a male teenager hurling a cat off a quarry ledge to water hundreds of feet below

NEWS AND VIEWS: This is another one of those sick videos. Made doubly sick by the fact that the young man who throws the domestic cat off a cliff into water hundreds of feet below allowed himself to be videoed by his friend and then they upload the video to the Internet. These are young people who simply do not have a moral compass. Nobody has taught them the difference between right and wrong. Nobody has taught them about criminal behaviour, about animal sentience, about pain and distress that can be suffered by animals under the circumstances that they have created.

UPDATE 17th July 2023: The police say that the event took place some time ago and the cat was dead when the man threw it off the cliff. No crime was committed.

18-year-old male throws cat off the edge of a cliff to water hundreds of feet below in a quarry. Image is a video screenshot.

They are entirely ignorant and it is a shocking reflection, in my view, of broken Britain which includes broken parenting. This is an abject failure in parenting. And so often the victim of this miscreant, criminal behaviour is the domestic cat because they happen to be there. They are available as victims. It's just pure bad luck. The cat is no doubt trusting of this person. They allowed themselves to be picked up (or the man killed the cat beforehand).

Domestic cats should not trust people that they don't know because they can be untrustworthy. The story is all over the Internet and there is a video which I will not put on this webpage. The pictures at the beginning of the article are screenshots from the video. They are adequate to tell the story.

The young man appears to be holding a black-and-white cat in one hand before hurling it over the ledge and watching the cat as it falls into the water far below. He says "I'm sorry" before throwing the animal. Another bizarre aspect of this video and of his behaviour. If he is sorry for what he is about to do why do it? Mixed up kid, right?

A second young person is watching in the background. A third person recorded the video and we can hear him laughing while he records it. That, too, is very typical of this form of highly ignorant behaviour.

As expected, there has been a huge backlash online from decent-minded people who simply scratch their heads and ask how could the person do it. One person remarked that it was "absolutely disgusting [and that it] makes me feel sick".

Lancashire police (the North of England) responded to the video clip and posted: "Thanks for flagging. We are aware and we are looking into the incident and where it happened."

A spokesperson for the police force said: "We are aware of a video which has been posted on social media which appears to show an act of cruelty to a cat in the Carnforth area. This is a matter which we are investigating. We are establishing the exact circumstances and where it happened. Anyone with information is asked to call 101, quoting log 1803 of July 10, 2023."

No one knows whether the animal survived while others speculated that the animal may have been dead before he threw him/her over the edge of the cliff.

Later, the police confirmed that they had made an arrest. They said: "Further to our earlier post about a video of a cat appearing to be thrown from a cliff into water, we can confirm a man has been arrested. An 18-year-old man from Carnforth has been arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty and is in custody."

Novel and amusing way to categorise domestic cats by their body shape

Category 1: Fine boi. Screenshot from video below.

I love this amusing video. The vet clinic who made it are, I believe, trying to get a message across to cat owners but doing it in a funny way. It's probably the best way to tell cat owners to 'please watch your cat's weight'. You must have heard about the 'cat obesity epidemic'. Yep, it exists. When humans become obese there is a tendency for their cats to follow. It's about normalisation. Although my neighbours are obese and their cats aren't! 

So many health problems start with obesity both in humans and our feline friends. We really have to be self-disciplined. It can be tough but the rewards are high. My philosophy is that we owe it to ourselves to be as happy as possible. That's our target while respecting others and society. 

It is near impossible to be happy when unhealthy. Poor health causes distress at least and pain at worst. The same applies to cats. Obesity causes ill-health. QED. Keep cats healthy!

Link to the Alicia Pet Care Center TikTok page.

I do not want to be a spoiler; spoiling the fun of this video but a serious point has been made in the video. An estimated 40% of all domestic cats are obese. I suspect that that figure relates to the West i.e. developed countries.

Obesity contributes to arthritis, a fourfold increase in type II diabetes among domestic cats, poor hair coat, and hepatic lipidosis; a potentially life-threatening health problem.

A frequent error is feeding dog food to cats. Never do this! Cats require twice as much protein and B vitamins as do dogs. And they can't convert certain dietary precursors into necessary amino acids and water-soluble vitamins. A cat given dog food over a long period can develop taurine deficiency. They can also develop vitamin A deficiency, niacin deficiency, retinal degeneration and other serious or fatal issues.

Blind cat charges down gangplank and falls into the sea

I have only just discovered that this cat is blind. His name is 'Bear'. He is a bit overweight too. At first, I thought that the cat was uncoordinated because they walked off the edge of the gangplank. But no, he is blind which explains things.

The big question is why Bear was allowed to charge down the gangplank without being on a lead and harness to keep them safe. The owner is very laid back when her cat dives into the water. Not sure I'd be that laid back. The woman thinks that 'he's gonna make it'. He didn't! There could have been something sharp down there on the water which would have hurt him.

He gets out okay by himself but moans bitterly. He has a raucous, loud complaining voice which is not particularly feline. He obviously hates water like the majority of domestic cats (but not all cats as some actively enjoy messing around in bathtubs).

Cute apartment cat races to the front door to greet their human

This is what it means to an apartment cat when their owner comes home. In this case there are 2 owners - a couple. I can say that with certainty as one of them (I believe the female partner) videoed their cat racing to the front door when the guy returns home from what appears to be a day at work.

It is very cute to see a cat race to greet their human companion after separation for 10 hours or so. I am guessing as he might be working part-time.

The video is from the TikTok account of Big Alfred.

It reminds us that if an apartment cat - a full-time indoor cat - is home alone all day it is tough for them. There are two forces at play: it is hard to make apartment life mentally stimulating for a domestic cat because it is hard to 'catify' (Jackson Galaxy language) the home i.e., make is highly suitable for a domestic cat.

You can't build a catio (normally). Or a window box. All they've got is cat television (looking out the window). And that's not going to be any good in a high rise building as there are very few birds and no ground dwelling animals outside to gawp at and think about hunting.

It is a cultural desert for the cat.  They are bound to become bored. This is one reason why this cute, moustached cat races to greet the man. He is seeking entertainment, some sort of mental stimulation.

And of course, to be close to their human companion/caregiver as they obviously have a nice bond. The other problem is that the owner has to earn a living! That means not being there if they are not permitted to work from home.

This in turn means separation anxiety on a daily basis. How long can you leave a cat alone? A good question. 

There is an article on the internet today written by a vet and dog expert. Link to my article on this aspect of dog ownership. He says that dogs should not be left alone at home for more than four hours at a time! How many owners break that rule?!

Cats are not that different, really. Yes, they are not pack animals and inherently solitary but they are domesticated and form close ties to their caregiver. 

When you temporarily break that tie to go to work it's going to be stressful for the cat. It depends on the cat's personality as to how stressful. But it'll be there.

Millions of people leave their cat alone every day for more than 4 hours! Some cat owners are unsuited to caring for a cat because their lifestyle simply prevents it being done properly.

People need to be tough on themselves when deciding to adopt a cat. Can you do it to a high standard? Any doubts don't do it.

7-second, shallow cat video gets 3.8 million hits. The world is becoming lazy and frivolous.

7-second, shallow cat video gets 3.8 million hits. The world is becoming lazy and frivolous.

I know that I am a grumpy old man and nobody wants to listen to me. I know that nobody will read this. But I will say it anyway. This is a seven second video which has received 3.8 million hits on TikTok. It surely reminds us that the world has become lazy and frivolous. Covid-19 made the world lazy. The Millennium or Gen X generation are lazier than we were when I was a kid.

It is just that the kids are lazier - and I'm talking here of comprehensive school kids - they are becoming rowdier, more apathetic and more aggressive in the classroom. They are becoming more disrespectful of their teachers. They walk out of classes. There is an increase in bad behaviour in comprehensive schools in the UK and it is causing teachers to seriously consider leaving the profession.

A total of 78% of secondary teachers said that they would leave teaching if they were offered a job in a different sector which offered a better work-life balance.

The head teacher of a girls' secondary school in Barnet, north London, said that "We never had that level of defiance from students, for example, walking out of classrooms, and the level of apathy that we are facing now. We didn't have that before Covid, and I think other school leaders are saying the same."

Self-discipline is missing at school children level. I'm generalising. Clearly there are many schoolkids who are self-discipline and to our achievers. But there are far too many who are apathetic and don't give a damn. 

One reason is because the adults of this world, the grown-ups, have created and continue to create a world that children find unpalatable. This is a reference to, for example, global warming. Children just don't see a future. And couples are no longer deciding to have a family because I believe the same problem. The future looks too uncomfortable to bring a child into it.

There is also a gradual dying of that old-fashioned idea of self-discipline. Self-indulgence is on the increase. I believe that self-discipline is being replaced by self-indulgence and I think we can thank the Internet for that. Particularly social media which is populated by navel gazing young people.

YouTube is also populated by young people making rude and stupid comments. TikTok is pretty much the same. Just tons and tons of frivolous fluffy nonsensical videos which don't, for me, move forward the world. It doesn't progress anything. It is just idle entertainment. Not all of it of course but if you just surf through TikTok, in general, you see this fluffy nonsense.

I think that it is a symptom of the world gradually going off the rails. We are not moving in the right direction. And I do not see a lot of hope in today's youth. I don't think that they are going to change the world for the better. Quite the contrary: it's going to get worse. Sorry to be so disillusioned by today's young people but that's how I see it.

How can this 7-second video attract so many viewers? It's a nothing video.

K-pop edit archive - cat steals false eyelash from band member when doing make-up

No idea who this K-pop 'starlet' is if indeed he/she is a starlet. I can't tell if the person is male of female which I think is a GOOD thing. Yes, I am 74 years old but I am very sensitive about the need to respect inclusivity and the LGBTQIA+ community. 

K-pop edit archive - cat steals false eyelash from band member when doing make-up. Screenshot.

No matter what your gender alignment is, you have equal rights to all others. They should and do nowadays demand those rights. This is good. It is an old-fashioned idea that humankind is made up of male and female - a black-and-white situation.

It is not like that. Humankind is grey when it comes to gender. There is a spectrum of sexes but I am not going to get into the biological sex argument. That's a little toxic I feel.

The video

A sort of cute video. The cat sees something interesting in the false eyelash. The fact that this is a false eyelash does not mean that the person is automatically a woman or girl as the 'boys' or young men of K-pop bands wear lots of make-up as part of their production methods.

I wonder what the cat did with the eyelash!? Stashed it away to play with it as a toy. That's my bet. It'll make a nice toy. One danger: the cat might see it as something to eat!

Yes, cats like to play with small objects and then put them into their mouths. A lot of cats have swallowed stuff that they should not have ingested. Lesson: keep small objects off the floor if you live with a cat companion.

I am being too serious.

Video of cat's point of view as he traverses an 8-foot-high chain-linked fence

This is a video of a cat's point of view as he/she traverses an 8-foot-high chain-linked fence. This is a pretty cool little video. Nothing startlingly amazing but it is always nice to see life from the cat's point of view. This is an indoor/outdoor cat living in a perfect place for a cat. Well, it looks like that.

It seems that the great backyard is enclosed by this high fence. Fortunately for the cat there are trees in the garden and some of them are near the fence.

This makes traversing the fence quite straightforward. The big question is how does he get back. We don't see well placed trees on the other side to climb.

That said a lot of cats could climb that fence. Mine certainly could. There may be a tree out of view which is suitable positioned for the return journey.

As you can see, he jumped down into the other side. The soft landing would have made it more acceptable.

Tom's Guide EIC Mike Prospero decided to strap an Insta360 Go 2 camera, which is "smaller than [his] thumb," to his cat Mervin. It makes think about doing this to my cat as it would tell me what he does when he is outside. A good way to learn about your cat's outdoor behavior and check if it dangerous.