Domestic cat destroys a chair and sleeps in the ruins 'The Artist and his Art'

This is a great picture of domestic cat chair destruction. Although I can tell that the person who owns this cat gave up on protecting the chair a long time ago and continued to allow his/her cat to scratch it to destruction.

There are ways to protect furniture as you know one of which is to provide a great (super large) cat scratching post and place it near the said chair at least initially.

Anyway it makes a good pic. It is described as "The Artists and his Art". I like that as it does look like a work of art with the tabby cat embedded into the chair. 

It almost looks like a painting or a sculpture of sorts. A piece of contemporary art. Real art not feline destruction 'art'.

Image: Facebook.

You know that cats must be allowed to scratch something suitable like an armchair. Sorry, I mean a scratching post. It is integral to their natural, instinctive behaviour. Essential to their behaviour in fact. It does so much good for them.

Read this for the reasons (60 second read): Infographic on the reasons why cats scratch armchairs.

The lesson taken from this image that cat caregivers should really give up on trying to keep their furniture pristine and 'as new'. You won't achieve it but there are some fabrics that are favoured by cats for scratching and those that are unpopular.

Click this for furniture that cats are less likely to scratch: Is there any furniture that domestic cats won’t scratch?

And some furniture is also less popular with cats as cat a scratching posts: Cats like to scratch chenille but dislike synthetic leather or waterproof grosgrain

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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.

Artificial intelligence ultimate kitten and flowers picture

The ultimate cute, fuzzy, colourful, saccharin-sweet, kitten-and-flowers picture which would make a nice Christmas card for people into this sort of image. It was created by AI and is on the AI Art and Cat Instagram webpage. Link: https://www.instagram.com/ai.artandcat/

Click on the image for a larger version:

This is by the creator of the image. This message is on Instagram:

"Here's a bit about me (and giant crochet cats). My name is Lydia, and I'm from Ukraine 🇺🇦. A couple of months ago, to distract myself from the horrors of war, I immersed myself in the imaginative world of AI. Before that, I was a cat photographer and had always loved cats and animals in general, so it was only natural to start with them.

At first, I incorporated cats into paintings by famous artists, hence the word "art" in my page name. However, I soon realized that almost everyone had already drawn the Mona Lisa with a cat or as a cat. Then, I attempted to draw hybrids of cats and other animals, but AI struggled to achieve that.

When my parents, family, and friends in Ukraine were under bombing, I thought posting random stuff on my Facebook account was inappropriate, so I created a new page and Instagram account.

And now, let's talk about these giant crocheted cats! I used to do lots of various crafts, from crocheting and knitting to sewing soft toys. Now, I draw whatever comes to my mind first. During my vacation in early July, these crocheted cats were born. In AI groups, it's considered a bad form to use watermarks. It was very late at night, and I couldn't access a computer, so I posted them on my page and in the Midjourney Cat group without a caption. By morning, I found that the images had spread across various pages and groups. People from Europe, Asia, Australia, and even South Africa write to me saying they find these cats in crochet groups. 

I never posted them as actual crochet, and unfortunately, I can't do anything about it. Every day, I come across posts with titles like "My 80-year-old grandma finally finished her cat," and so on. Someone even posted it on National Geographic. When I tried to message them, 90% didn't reply, and a couple of times, I received rude responses, claiming that since it's AI, I have no rights to these images. But a few pages did credit me in their posts, though still with headlines not of my creation. Lesson learned. Now, I'll always add captions."

An 80-year-old grandmother and her large crocheted cat

Here are three photographs of an 80-year-old grandma and her extra-large crocheted cat! The credit for the unusual images is the Facebook page: Feedy. They look incredibly real and a lot of people - perhaps the majority of people - think that they are real, but are they?! They are impressive pictures of cats.

My personal view is that they are excellent examples of photo-editing created with the assistance of artificial intelligence to improve them. It would be exceptional for them to be created solely by human hand.

I say this for 2 reasons. The crochet cats are so big as to be unbelievable. I don't see that is it possible to crochet cats this size without an extraordinary amount of expense, effort and skill. 

It is much easier to make them a normal size and then 'enlarge them' digitally. Think about the circumference of the wool.  Who makes wool that thick. It would have to be like rope.

Secondly in the third photo down the lady's left hand is overly-long, abnormally so. Something went wrong there.

That said and as mentioned these are great images in terms of photo-editing skills. There is no information about the creator on the FB page. I think that the creator is a Chinese man! That's about it and I am probably wrong. He makes strange videos too and they feature Chinese people. That's the basis of my assessment.

Update: I am wrong!! The creator is a woman from Ukraine whose name is LYDIA. I found her story on Instagram. You can read it by clicking on this link which takes you to another of her impressive creations. The crochet is by her and I believe so is the AI photo-editing.

The images have also been posted on Russian and Chinese websites. And on other social media platforms. Everywhere pretty well but it is the first time I've seen them! And I am on the internet daily.

The link to the Facebook page is below:

https://www.facebook.com/feedyrecip

14-year-old cat head butts 1.5-year-old child

This charming photograph is on the quora.com website on a page which discusses the photo-editing of pictures of cats. And the person who started off the discussion said that pictures of cats should never be photoshopped because cats are charming enough as it is, and they don't need to be photo edited. 

And you should never add human teeth to cats which, incidentally, is something we see a lot of on the Internet.

Anyway, one person who joined the conversation added a screenshot of a photograph of a 14-year-old cat head-butting an 18-month-old child and that is the photograph that you see on this page.

It is charming and it is to be expected to be honest. The ginger tabby obviously has a nice connection with this child. And he is doing what he would do with an adult person which is to scent exchange. That means he deposits his scent from the glands around his head onto the child and in doing that he receives the child's scent onto his head.

There is a metaphorical merging of minds and beings which is reassuring for him. It's a bit like saying that the child is part of his family. And as the child now smells more like him, he is part of the family.

If you click on this link blow you can read more about scent exchange.

Based on what I have read and seen on the Internet, domestic cats are curious about babies, and they often form good relationships with babies. I don't see any real danger to babies from domestic cats. There is a fear probably by some mothers that a baby might be harmed but it doesn't happen.

And there's quite a lot of work on whether a baby benefits from being in a home with a cat and indeed being close to a cat such as when sleeping with a cat on their bed at night. This is still work in progress but my reading of the science on this is that it can strengthen a child's defences against allergens. 

In effect, when a baby is in a relationship with a domestic cat it desensitises them to allergens in the air for the rest of their life. But, as mentioned, the science is not entirely conclusive on this.

The feline allergen, Fel D1, is carried around the entirety of the home on cat dander, which is a kind of dandruff, but it is in fact small skin particles and bits of hair on which is dried saliva and the dried oils of sebaceous glands in the skin both of which deposit the feline allergen onto these tiny particles which are 5 µm across.

Is cat dander bad for babies?

They are so small that they can float in the air very easily and they land on bits of furniture and so on which is why a person who is allergic to cats can feel the effects of the allergy even when they are a good distance from the cat in a home where a cat resides.

EV charging point sign looks like a cat charging point sign!

EV stands for electric vehicle as you probably know. Charging points are springing up around various countries where the sales of EVs are sometimes outstripping diesel-engine cars. And so, we have charging points in public places. And in this instance, we have a car charging point sign which looks like a cat charging point sign because the sign is tipped up vertically. If you flip the sign through 90 degrees to the right (turn the picture on its side), you will recognise the outline of a vehicle.

Image: Nigel Stewart

The person who spotted it said:

"Woah, didn't know you could get electric cats. Can finally get rid of my petrol one."

Here it is flipped through 90 degrees to the right.

Image as above.

The sign is outside a supermarket chain in the UK called Morrisons. Nigel Stewart had nipped down to his local Morrisons in Kirkham, Lancashire to get some bits and bobs for his dog, a nine-year-old Cavachon Fozzie when he spotted the interesting sign.

I wonder if the draughtsman who drew the image thought the same thing. I don't think he or she did because if they did realise, they probably would have altered the orientation of the image and kept it horizontal.

Agrocat - love of boxes

An amusing cat photograph which once again shows us the domestic cat's love of boxes. However, this photograph was set up as the cat is wearing a hat 😊. And therefore he/she was placed in the box. It doesn't matter because it's a nice picture and cats love boxes (for security and reassurance). I believe that these are tangerines and I also believe that the photograph was taken in Brazil.

Agrocat - love of boxes. Image: Twitter.

Picture of a Ukrainian soldier with a calico cat tucked into his jacket

This is one of quite a few pictures that I have seen of Ukrainian soldiers and their cat or dog companions. This young Ukrainian soldier (or is he a civilian volunteer in a camouflage jacket?) has a calico cat tucked inside his jacket. A calico cat is a tortoiseshell-and-white cat. They are almost invariably female as are tortoiseshell cats. The man is genuinely enamoured of his cat companion.

Picture of a Ukrainian soldier with a calico cat tucked into his jacket. Photo: Reddit.

The cats keep them company and entertain them. The dogs help them do their job. I remember one story of a Ukrainian soldier in the trenches on the front line in the north of the country at the border between Ukraine and Russia who relied upon his stray dog companion to help spot the enemy because his sense of smell and awareness was superior to his. He believed that they made a good team together.

RELATED: Stray animals boost morale on Ukraine’s front lines as Russian troops invade.

It's great to see a stray dog becoming useful and for his human caregiver benefiting from the relationship as is the dog. It becomes a symbiotic relationship in which both parties mutually benefit. This is a silver lining to this ridiculous war which should never have happened but which is the project of a madman, Putin.

Quite a lot of people think that he has lost his mind because he has been in isolation for two years or more, partly because of Covid about which he is paranoid and partly anyway because he has apparently become somewhat reclusive with a coterie of buddies from his KGB days who advise him. These men have very distorted views of the West as has Putin. He has called Ukrainians neo-Nazis or even plain Nazis when ironically, he is behaving just like Hitler.

Picture of a man evacuating Kyiv, Ukraine with rifle, aquarium, cat carrier and wearing a helmet

This is a strange picture of a man who I would consider to be heroic. He was apparently evacuating his home in Kiev, Ukraine to get away from the fighting. He has a rifle which I'm going to presume was given to him by the state to defend the city as a lot of volunteers are doing this, and he is carrying a mini-aquarium and a cat carrier with I believe a cat inside. 

He is wearing a helmet to protect his head. Although I would think that he would be too preoccupied in not splashing the water out of the mini-aquarium to be that concerned about whizzing bullets. He has a lot to carry and be concerned about and I don't foresee a great outcome especially for the aquarium.

Picture of a man evacuating in Kiev, Ukraine with rifle, aquarium, cat carrier and wearing a helmet. Photo: social media.

I don't know how he is going to make it out of there with all his worldly possessions. I'm being facetious because I have to presume that he has left a not behind. The number of refugees travelling west primarily into Poland and other bordering countries has reached about 400,000 according to the last report.

On the BBC, I saw a young woman interviewed by a BBC reporter on the border with Poland I think it was. She had a young cat on her lap. There was no cat carrier and she had apparently carried this cat all the way to the boarder from perhaps Kiev. It must have been a nightmare. 

The cat looked content but anxious because of all the noise and commotion around her. It makes you think. I don't see much chance of that cat getting to where she is going because there will be so many hazards between where she is and finding some sort of shelter when she gets into Poland. 

She needs a cat carrier and some cat food. She also needs a lead. It is a very fraught situation for companion animals. She told the reporter that the cat had already escaped once and gone into the engine compartment of a car to hide. I believe that she had struggled to rescue the cat on that occasion. You can see something similar happening in the not-too-distant future.

Kitten plans to be Microsoft certified by next summer

Ambitious kitten plans to be Microsoft certified by next summer. There are one or two barriers. The keyboard is a little bit too big. If he wants to depressed the "Q" key he walks on the space bar. It gets a bit complicated. He is determined to complete the course.

Kitten plans to be Microsoft certified by next summer. Image: MikeB

White shag pile cat coat on white shag pile bath mat

There's not much to say because the photograph is self-explanatory. It comes from Indonesia, by the way. The person who uploaded it to Twitter called it 'cosplay' which means costume play. This is when people dress up in costumes which represent a specific character. It's a role-play form of entertainment. I'm not sure of the relevance of that to the photograph. I tried to figure it out but at the moment I'm unsure. Actually I'm nonplussed 🤔. I think the reference to 'cosplay' is an in-joke in Indonesia which is why I can't link it to this photograph.

White shag pile cat coat on white shag pile bath mat. Photo: Twitter.

What cosplay has to do with the image is irrelevant really. This is an example of camouflage; domestic cat camouflage. Perhaps the domestic cat has evolved over 10,000 years of domestication to find a way of camouflaging themselves within the human home 😊.

I'm just messing about because as I said at the beginning there is nothing to say but I have to say something as just a photograph on the page doesn't really hack it for SEO purposes.

Feline version of the Catalonian human tower (fail)

Immediately on seeing this picture I thought of the Catalonian festivals when they build amazing human towers. They look incredibly dangerous but eyecatching. The feline version is eyecatching too but for a different reason: the guy on the ground almost lost his eye 👋 😀

The feline version:

Photo in the public domain.

The human version:

Picture also in the public domain.

These are cats of a stray cat colony, it seems to me. It is hard to know how this happened. Perhaps the person who took the photograph was feeding the cats and one, the dominant one (a female as she is a calico), decided to leap up and grab the food and use other cats as a platform to get there. If that is what happened I can fully understand. I have feeling that I am correct and that the photographer was feeding them to entice them over so that he/she could get a good pic.

Hairless cat poses like a celebrity starlet at the Cannes Film Festival

A hairless cat, probably a Sphynx, poses like a celebrity starlet at the Cannes Film Festival. A very strange photograph. Was it posed by the photographer by positioning his/her cat and rapidly taking the photo or was it photo-edited? I have no idea. I'd go for the former because it seems highly unlikely that a cat would take up this pose without human intervention and it sure looks odd. Hairless cats are prime candidates for odd but interesting photos. Of course, this hairless cat is entirely nude. So, it is rude if I say it looks like a film starlet. This adds to the strangeness of the image.

CLICK FOR PAGES ON HAIRLESS CATS

Hairless cat poses like a celebrity starlet at the Cannes Film Festival

Calico cat in front of a cushion

Nothing to add. It is kinda neat but trivial. Trivial stuff has a place in the world. The cat is a moggy tortoiseshell-and-white (calico) and therefore female. The cushion has a picture of a stag on it, I guess. The photographer called it 'the perfect picture'. Well, it is not exactly that, but it is quite nice. A four eared cat with horns. I have a page on a four eared cat - the genuine article. Click here to see it.

Calico cat in front of a cushion. Photo: u/Paw-Revere on Reddit.

Picture of working cats detecting dangerous microbes in baggage of visitors to Britain 1935

This is probably a fiction but it is a cute thought: working cats sniffing for dangerous microbes in baggage belonging to travellers entering Britain in 1935. True working cats but impractical. But dogs are made for this work and they do it most impressively today all over the world, detecting a range of illegal imports from money to drugs.

CLICK FOR PAGES ON WORKING CATS

Poster of working cats detecting dangerous microbes in baggage of visitors to Britain 1935. Image believed to be in the public domain.

Picture of a googly-eyed Persian cat

This picture caught my eye and when that happens, I like to republish them on this website if permissible. There is one small downside about this picture which I am unsure about. The person who made it stuck the false eyes over the eyes of the cat. I don't like it, but other than that it's a picture which does albeit briefly catch one's attention. It is quite a clever concept. A funny cat picture. It makes the cat look like an alien.

Googly-eyed cat

CLICK FOR PAGES ON THE PERSIAN CAT

The cat appears to be a doll-face Persian, i.e. traditional Persian cat. They are far more attractive than the ridiculous peke-faced Persian or what the Indians call 'punch-face Persian'.

Cats sleeping on a toy train set

Is this real or a very good example of photo-editing? Answer: it's photo-editing but it's good enough to look real. It is a variation on the giant killer kitty theme when monster cats roam around the city smashing building to bits and squashing pedestrians as they scream in terror. B-movie stuff but in the home using a train set!

It is a nice picture deserving of publishing here. I've taken the liberty in presuming that it is in the public domain i.e. free of intellectual property rights but if I am wrong, please tell me in a comment.

Cats sleeping on a toy train set. Picture from Reddit.com and uploaded by r/photoshopbattles, which tells me that it is unreal but it is a close call as it is done so well.

Photo-editing images of cats has become slightly problematic as sometimes you can't tell if an outstanding cat is genuine or fake. The most outstanding example of photoshopping cats occurred around 14 years ago when I think it was a woman in New Zealand or Australia used Photoshop to give the appearance that domestic cats had been painted. They were called 'pained cats' and they were all over the internet.

I have just recalled who was involved. Heather Bush, was the named co-author (the illustrator) of the best-selling book (the photographer and illustrator) titled: Why Painted Cat. The other author was Burton Silver.  The trouble with the book is that it misleads people into believing that the cats really were painted. That was upsetting to some people.

Cute clowder of Ragdoll kittens

Cute clowder of Ragdoll kittens. Photo in public domain.

The Ragdoll is already cute but kittens makes the breed cuter and a group of them leads to cuteness overload. You can read about the Ragdoll by clicking on this link.

Picture of a Toyger cat is actually a photo-edited photograph

This interesting photograph could, to the uninitiated, be of a Toyger purebred cat but it is not. It is far too much like a tiger to be a Toyger. You may have heard about this rare cat breed called a Toyger. If you haven't you might like to click here to read about it. Essentially, it is a breed of cat which is meant to look like a miniature tiger in your home. The idea is to bring the tiger into your home. However, it's proved very difficult to replicate the anatomy of a tiger in a domestic cats through selective breeding as you can imagine.

Toyger purebred cat? No, photo-editing of tiger cub + domestic cat. Photo in public domain.

You can only go so far with selective breeding but, that said, some cat breeders go too far and breed cats to extreme. Perhaps the Toyger breeders could have done a better job. Perhaps they gave up because the breed cannot, in honesty, be described as a success.

There was a discussion on the Internet about whether this photograph is of a Toyger. It is a very nice piece of photo-editing which has merged the face of a domestic cat with the face and body of what appears to me to be a young tiger or tiger cub. Photo-editing can do wonders in the right hands.

The photograph was first used to illustrate a cat food, Newman's Own Organic. I think it is part of Paul Newman's business of making salad dressings and cookies et cetera. With the picture went the slogan "They Once Ate Organic". This must be a reference to the fact that tigers eat natural foods and this company is hinting that most pet food is unnatural and they are correct. It is a shame then that the picture is unnatural!

However, the picture may have been added to Newman's Own Organic logo by somebody else other than the company. We don't know the history.

Toyger cat breeders would give their right arm to produce a cat like this. The picture first emerged on a social media network used by artists to showcase their work called Behance. It was posted to Silev's page.

This little story is interesting in terms of cat breeding. The Toyger was started in the 1980s, a time when there were a lot more new breeds. It was a time, too, when there was a big interest in creating cats that hinted at being wild cats. I'm referring to the wildcat hybrids mainly. But there are some domestic cats without any wild cat blood in them which were selectively bred to look like wild cats too. The intention was to encourage cat owners to think about wild cat conservation. To transport those beautiful wild cats in far-flung countries into their urban houses.

This may be a week justification rather than an idealised high moral ground attempt at conservation. The mid-1950s was a time when the most cat breeds were developed in the cat fancy.

Toyger cat. Photo: copyright Helmi Flick

Above is a photograph of a genuine Toyger. You can see the far more angelic and delicate appearance of this breed. There's one thing you can't replicate of the Tiger in a domestic cat and that is the way the tiger walks. It is an arrogant gait, imbued with confidence and cockiness. The domestic cat gait is far more fragile and delicate.

Before and after pictures of a cat who lost a lot of weight

Here is a nice montage of a couple of side-by-side, before and after photographs of a cat who lost a lot of weight. His owner praised his cat. I praised his owner! It takes persistence to get this effect and it should be a slow process to avoid the possibility of feline hepatitic lipidosis (fatty liver disease). Slow cat dieting is the order of the day if it has to be done.

Before and after pictures of a cat who lost a lot of weight. Photo: Reddit.

Senior cats should be on a reduced calorie diet. Before dieting a cat it may be wise to consult your veterinarian in case there are no medical reasons for the obesity. An estimated 40% of cats are obese. As many cats turn carbohydrates into fat, a low carb, high protein and high fat diet will help her lose weight. This sort of diet may be more effective than a low calorie, high fibre diet. A high protein diet takes a domestic cat back to her natural diet.

Food should be provided in a measured way 2 or 3 times per day and no more. No gourmet foods, human scraps and treats. Perhaps a limited amount of treats! Make sure she is not scrumping food elsewhere such as from a neighbour. Chart the weight loss. She should lose one percent of body weight per week and no quicker to avoid hepatic lipidosis.

Provide some exercise daily. Try and make the food harder to access by moving it around. Lean body mass may be enhanced with a supplement called L-carnitine. Seek your vet's advice on feeding it at 250-500 mg per day.

The diet should be complete after about eight weeks. Then maintain the correct weight using the tools and methods that you have learned in getting her weight down.

Cat print in the snow tells the story

Cat print in the snow tells the story. I don't really need to add words. The photo (from reddit.com with the title 'A short story') does make me wonder a bit as to what happened? It looks like it might have been set up. Could a domestic cat have made this single, neat paw print. Possible I guess. 

But I sense looking at that photo that the photographer cleverly carried his cat to the snow and placed a forepaw in it to create the impression that his cat had ventured out with one step only and then decided to stay inside the warm home.

Cat paw print in the snow tells the story. Photo: Reddit.com

I had to make sure that this was a domestic cat print. I am sure that it is. Dog paw prints almost invariably produce claw prints at the tip of the paw pads as their claws are not retractable whereas a cat's claws are. Actually they are better described as protrusible. Read about the difference if you are interested by clicking here.

This is a perfectly formed cat paw print in the snow. Placed carefully by cat or person?! This is a sliding patio door. A lot of cats like to mess around in the snow. Perhaps this cat is an indoor cat. She may have been interested in the snow as it is novel but reticent to venture out as she is used to being indoors. I'm speculating.

Here is an image of a cat's retracted claw:

Diagram of cat's claw and distal phalange or phalanx. Image: MikeB

This explains why the snow paw print is that of a cat.