Children waiting for an inheritance from their rich mom should support her if her cats and dogs do!

Children who are waiting for a large inheritance from their rich mother who loves her cats and dogs should be cautious. They should read this story and learn a lesson.

In this instance, an elderly woman in China with the surname Liu has left $2.8 million fortune to her cats and dogs in her will because she felt that they have supported her in her old age whereas her children have not.

She said that her children have never visited her. She is still alive but the change in her will has been reported in online news media including the Independent newspaper.

She is taking it out on her kids. She feels neglected. The problem is that in China, I'm told, you can't bequeath money to animals in your will. 😢

If that is correct, Liu's will, as it is currently drafted, will be ineffective. I suspect she's been told about that now.

She appointed a veterinary clinic to be the administrators of her will.

What she should do now if she wants to stick with the terms of her will is to appoint a person who she can entirely trust and bequeath the money to him or her on the instructions that they hold the money in trust for her pets to take care of them for the remainder of their lives and of any money left over to be given to her children.

That would probably be a fairer and more workable way to do this.

She has clearly made her point anyway and I suspect that her children, who are not named, will have picked up on this story and decided to try and convince their mother to change her mind.

I don't know whether in China beneficiaries under a will can challenge it. In the West they certainly can and it happens quite often. It happens, for instance, when the deceased makes a will when they did not have the mental capacity to do it. They didn't understand what they were doing and therefore it can be overturned on an application to court.

And therefore, a will which is unusual and which cuts out close family members especially the kids, might be overturned by the kids in court which should be considered carefully by Liu. There is no guarantee that a judge would overturn a will but it is a possibility and in any case you don't want litigation over a will. That said I don't know how things operate in China in this respect.

There's an argument that children should look after their parents but not to the point where it looks as if they are maximising their chances to get some money off their mother when she dies! That can lead to arguments between siblings if the sibling who cares for their mother gets the lion's share of the estate!

RELATED: Lagerfeld’s pampered cat Choupette to get paws on £150 million fortune.

It is not that unusual for wealthy single people to give a lot of money to pets. The most famous recent case concerns Choupette the Birman cat whose caregiver was the German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. He was besotted with Choupette and left her millions!

-----------

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.

University students with the right attitude benefit from cats on campus

Although I don't think this study is particularly useful or enlightening, I believe that it is worth reporting it so here goes. The scientists decided that most studies about the benefits of companion animals to university students concerned dogs (83%) so they wanted to do some work on cats to see how university students responded. Could they respond positively to the presence of domestic cats on campus? Could cats benefit university students?

Yes, is the answer if they have a sufficient degree of emotionality and the right attitude! 👍✔️💓.

Student benefiting from a ginger tabby cat. Image: Pixabay.

They found in simple terms that the student has to have the right attitude to benefit. In short, if a university student has the following attributes they respond positively to a visitation from a cat on campus at university:

• The student is female.
• The student is open to a dog visitation program.
• The student is a cat owner.

In other words, we are talking about students who already like companion animals, in this case cats and dogs. They like dogs because they are open to a dog visitation program.

In addition, it appears that they decided that females have the right emotionality to respond to the presence of cats on campus.

Patricia Pendry, the co-author of the study report, said:

"Anecdotally, we've always been told that cat people are different from dog people, and that most students are not interested in interacting with cats. Our results revealed that students are interested in interacting with cats and that this interest may be driven by personality traits."

Further:

"Some people came in and made an immediate beeline for cats and others for dogs. I was pleasantly surprised by how many people were interested in interacting with cats, which made me interested in learning more about why they made those choices."

And:

"Our study shows that we may be able to reach a larger audience by offering interventions that include dogs and cats. People who are on the higher end of the emotionality trait may be more likely to participate and benefit from these interactions. We're looking for ways to help more people reduce their stress levels. Adding cats may be another way to reach a broader audience."

Conversely, students who have the following attributes did not respond positively to the presence of cats and campus:

• Those with a cat allergy.
• Those with a cat phobia.
• Those who are dog owners.
• And those who thought that interacting with a cat was risky.

I don't think that tells us much! 😎.

Differences Between Cat And Dog People

This is another study on the differences between dog and cat lovers. The researcher was Denise Guastello, an associate professor of psychology at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin, USA.

This study reinforces what we already know from previous studies, but there's some additional information which is interesting.

Dog photo: USAG-Humphreys
Cat photo: Eirik Newth

In this study the researcher surveyed 600 college students. About 60% of the students surveyed said they would dog people compare to a much lower 11% who said they were cat people. The remaining 29% said they like both animals or did not like animals.

Those who said they were dog people tended to be more outgoing, lively and energetic while cat lovers were more open-minded, more sensitive and introverted than dog lovers. Importantly, cat people tend to be nonconformist. They appear to be more free thinking and more able to form their own ideas rather than follow the rules which appears to apply more to dog people.

Dog people won't like this but the study concluded that cat lovers were more intelligent than dog lovers.

A possible reason why dog lovers were assessed as being more energetic is because they have to be when taking care of a dog whereas the domestic cat being more independent and more able to take care of himself requires less in the way of energetic input. Most cats don't go outside on a leash for a walk with their owner whereas it has to happen once or twice a day for a dog.

For dog lovers the most attractive aspect of caring for a dog was companionship while for cat people it appears that affection was more important.

We know how dog owners sometimes look like their dog, well it also seems that people select their cat or dog on the basis that their personalities are similar. If cats are independent then so are their owners. There's a good match.