Wednesday, 10 July 2013

Chinese Cat Show of Sorts

Bengal cat at a cat show Harbin China
Bengal cat at a cat show Harbin China - Photo: NEWS.CN


9th July 2013: CHINA - Good news from China (as far as I am concerned). I sense a shift of attitude towards animals. Without wishing to be harsh there seems to be a tendency to treat animals as creatures to use rather than enjoy as companions, in parts of China. That is the impression I get from my travels throughout the internet. I have also been to China. Beijing, the capital of China has a poor history of treating stray animals. The cats of Beijing are sad.

However, following in the footsteps of India's first cat show, the cat lovers of China have arranged the national cat tour competition. One of the events takes place in Harbin. Harbin is the capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

The cat tour competition was organised by the Association of Small Animal Protection in China's capital Beijing. This has all the signs and sounds of a cat show run by a cat association and it looks like it to but the organizers are not a cat club or association, in name at least. They might be something better, a group of people who are concerned with small animal protection. They seem to be promoting their worthy and much needed cause through a cat show. There are almost no laws in China that protects animals never mind companion animals.

The Harbin event is one of many similar regional cat show events. There will be a final competition in December 2013. Cat shows and competitions can do good. They can raise awareness of the beauty of the cat and companion animals generally. They can get people to relate to cats and small animals in a different and more sensitive way. This must be a big plus for animal welfare. Perhaps the cat will lead the way to changes in animal welfare in China?



Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Cat Sunburn

CAT SUNBURN -- News 8th July 2013: Murray has won Wimbledon under hot sunny conditions than extend across the UK. The forecast is for more sun and heat. Great but strange ;). Cats can get sunburned, even in Scotland! This is what happened to Luna. Scotland is not known for its hot weather but it does have its moments. Ruth aka Kattaddorra, a regular and valued visitor to PoC recently wrote about cats in hot weather. There are things we should be aware of and should do.
luna
Luna


White cats are particularly vulnerable to sunburn because their fur has no pigmentation (melanin) which is why it is white. The lack of pigmentation reduces the protective properties of the fur. The parts of the cat's anatomy where the fur is particularly thin are the ear flaps. They are also in the direct glare of the sun at a 90° angle to it. This ensures the sun's rays have maximum burning effect.

Cats are not aware that their ears are getting sunburned. The problem can become very severe to the point where the only option is for the ears to be amputated. Removal of badly sunburned ears removes the risk of skin cancer. Cats Protection in North Ayrshire is now looking after her. She looks a bit odd. I like that. It makes her special. She deserves a nice home and some shaded resting places.

Monday, 8 July 2013

Groundswell of feeling against cops' attitude towards animals

Latest news 7th July 2013: I am impressed by the groundswell of feeling and passion by the American people generated by the unnecessary and callous shooting of Max the rottweiler dog that belonged to a bystander who was videoing the police doing their work. The police took exception to him, arrested him and in the melee, his dog was shot as he approached the police.

protests against police shooting of Max a dog
Protests against police shooting of Max a dog

This has stirred up feelings about the police and their handling of companion animals. The Causes website has gathered almost 90,000 signatures in its petition to fire the officer who shot Max. Their target is 100,000. An impressive figure indicating that a lot of people have strong feelings about how individual policemen can sometimes overreact and treat companions animals in an unsympathetic way. Enough is enough. There are quite a few cases of dogs being hurt by police. Elisa regularly writes about them. Cats are abused by police too on occasion.

I hope the police take note of public opinion. I guess they won't. I don't believe online petitions achieve much but they do indicate a depth of opinion and this shooting shines a light on the feelings of American citizens about the less than satisfactory attitude of some police officers towards dogs and cats, in my opinion.

There are many other options when dealing with cats and dogs other than simply and crudely shooting them, which is often in truth a crime. Not that the police ever get prosecuted for criminal behavior.

Saturday, 25 May 2013

Rethink the Domestic Cat?

I believe it is time to take stock and work out if we are actually making progress in our relationship with the domestic cat. Are things getting better for the domestic cat? My feeling is that some things are getting better while somethings are getting worse and somethings are the same but we are not progressing the relationship and a lot needs to be done to improve it.

There is and always will be a body of domestic cats that are ill-treated and become stray. As there are more people in the world and therefore more domestic cats, there are inevitably more stray cats. These are cats that have wandered away from inadequate cat owners who have failed to neuter their cats and failed to microchip them.

If there are more and more domestic cats becoming stray and more cats turned in to shelters to be killed (aka euthanised), is it not time to reassess our relationship with cats?

I have long believed that the whole concept of the domestication of the cat needs to be reassessed from the standpoint of asking the question: "is it a success?"

The smart people in the West have decided not to bring children into the world because the world sucks. It is wrong and getting worse. The unthinking ones are just breeding children and letting their cats breed as well.

We are going backwards aren't we? It seems we need to recapture some of what was good about 50 year ago for the domestic cat when there was more freedom and less traffic. Less cats. Less killing of cats at "shelters". The naturalness of the domestic cat's life in years gone by must be better than being imprisoned inside a someone's home all their life because it is safer.

For cats in the West life is becoming too artificial and in the East it is too brutal, too harsh. The more I know about the lives of domestic cats across the planet the more I see room for improvement and a total rethink.

The problem is we, the humans, have our hands full trying to solve our own problems. The ones we have created. The domestic cat is a victim and we tend to use the domestic cat as a comforter, a source of emotion support, which leads to abuse and which is not respectful of the cat.

I might be painting too black a picture but remember I have studied the cat for a long time and the more you do it the more you see room for improvement at a fundamental level.

Finally, there is one thing that is well documented: the demise of the wild cat species living in the wild. Their days are numbered.


Sunday, 17 February 2013

I predicted a Google shop a year ago

About a year ago, a bit less, I suggested that Google should open a shop.  At that time I hadn't read a single bit of information about the possibility of a Google shop. Well, this is the purpose of this short post: to boast that I got it right. I don't know if I was the first to suggest a shop, but I believe I was.

The new Google shops were announced in the Sunday Times today. The Times says that Google is "taking the fight to Apple" and plan to open a chain a shops across America. It is just a matter of time before they come to the UK.

At one time Apple had no shops but was still a highly successful company. Their shops are now iconic and always packed out. It you see one on a British high street or in a shopping mall,  it is humming while all the other shops have dribs and drabs of customers meandering through. The contrast is stark.

I presume that Google want a piece of that action. Google has become far more aggressive over the past year or so after they got rid of their sensible chief exec. Or was he the Chairman? Doesn't matter. Google are very aggressively competitive these days - too much actually. Sorry Google but you are going a bit too far in abusing (using I guess is a better word) small websites (for example the new image search).

Google have gradually built up some products, an inventory, to sell. Real hardware. This was always going to be a slow process. I guess they think they have enough items to sell in a shop now such as Chrombooks and Nexus tablets etc.

Did anyone else outperform my prediction? Did Google follow my suggestion?

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