Cat Found in Charity Sofa

This little feline story is an amusing warning to others and a lesson in cat behavior and how they can hide in places and be difficult to find and see. A couple bought a sofa from a charity shop. The three-seater sofa had been donated to the charity shop run by St Luke's Hospice, Grays, Essex.

Emanating from this desirable piece of furniture was a meow, a soft and muted meow. The meowing came from a cat whose name is Crockett. The purchasers investigated and noticed two claws poking through the fabric of the couch. They had purchased a sofa with a cat inside it, an added, little bonus!

Crockett's owners, Pauline and Bill said that there had been very upset to lose him. Apparently, Crockett has slipped into the sofa as it was being taken apart before being moved.

Talking about cats and furniture, I have another warning concerning loungers. These are pieces of furniture which change shape and in doing so the machinery underneath the chair can crush a small cat or kitten who happens to have crawled into that space.

I do not think that furniture which changes shape such as loungers or chairs that are suitable for senior people are in fact suitable for homes where there is a domestic cat. It is too dangerous for the cat. It's as simple as that. Unless the owners do something about the chair and modify it slightly to make sure that it is safe and that it prevents the cat from crawling into the space below the seat, then personally I would not recommend that a cat owner buys one.

Feline Excess Urination

A person visiting a major website about the domestic cat said that he was on a fixed retirement income, had not taken his domestic cat to the veterinary surgeon and that his cat was urinating much more than normal and he wondered why. He said that he was going through about 90 lbs of cat litter every month compared to 35 pounds normally and he wanted some advice.

The obvious answer is to take the cat to the vet but it is amazing how often people don't want to do that and they ask questions on the Internet and hope to get a good answer and fix the problem which is highly unlikely, meanwhile his cat is suffering.

One of the feline diseases that causes this is diabetes. The cat does not produce enough insulin. This results in an elevated blood sugar level. In turn, excess glucose is eliminated by the kidneys resulting in frequent urination. As a result, the cat drink more water.

Another disease that causes a cat to drink more water and urinate more often is kidney disease. Both diabetes and kidney disease are fairly commonplace amongst the domestic cat population. And both of these diseases cannot be cured by a cat caretaker. They both require careful handling and a proper diagnosis.

Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease can result in frequent urination and passing blood. The cat may urinate outside of the litter box.

Increased drinking and urination with very dilute urine may indicate that a cat has Cushing's disease. About 75% of cats with Cushing's disease also have diabetes mellitus. This is not a complete list.

There's no doubt that when a cat is consistently peeing more than normal, as a matter of urgency, the cat's owner should take her/his cat to the vet.

Early Humans Defended Themselves against Sabre-toothed Tigers With Spears

About 300,000 years ago sabre-toothed tigers were roaming around North Central Germany near Hanover. We know this because the remains of a sabre-toothed tiger were preserved in rock strata 300,000 years ago. I think it is worth stating at the outset that the sabre-toothed tiger is not actually a tiger as we know today. It was a different species of wild cat. It is probably more sensible to describe the cat as a “sabre-toothed cat".

The estimates are that this large wild cat weighed nearly 440 pounds. It had razor-sharp claws and canine teeth that were more than 4 inches in length. Clearly, this was a formidable predator for early humans.

Humans would have defended themselves using a 6 foot to 7 and 1/2 foot long spear. The spears were used as hunting weapons. It has been speculated that the early humans of this era hunted hores and in the area in question they camped along a 300 foot stretch of a shallow lake.

Source: a report by the Lower Saxony Heritage Authority.

Cat Facial Expressions

I would expect that a lot of people would say that cats do not make facial expressions. People who live with cats and who love their cats and therefore know them will understand that cats do make facial expressions. They are more subtle than the facial expressions of people. Is that because there are less facial muscles and/or because the feline face is covered in hair? Or perhaps a cat has less emotions that a person and therefore does not need to express them so much through his or her face. I'm not sure, but I am sure that cats do make facial expressions and here's a very good example:

This photograph has been praised, in fact, for showing both the human and the feline expression. This white cat with a very charming face has a very concerned and anxious expression. There is also a slight indication that she is relieved and that she feels secure being held by this fireman who himself has an expression which conveys to me that he is genuinely concerned about this cat's welfare and that he is pleased to have saved her from a fire.

It is a good photograph because, for me, it shows both human and cat in a similar light; both under some stress, both showing expressions that reflect the circumstances under which they have come together. It's a photograph of equality. I like that.

Cat Food Wars - Dominance and Subservience

This is not exactly a war over cat food but you can see how stresses can be built up in multi-cat households in areas where there are food bowls and where there is the cat litter. Cats will or might compete for either. These are areas where a hierarchy between cats is shown up and where a dominant cat will push out a more subservient cat.

I think this is quite an interesting animated GIF, which are a series of still images strung together to make a video that repeats itself. Each image is in the GIF format.

Clearly in this instance the ginger tabby is dominant over the bicolour ginger and white who is overweight so perhaps being pushed out of the food bowl is a good thing. I wonder if the slight overweight problem that the bicolour cat has is linked in any way to his or her subservience to the ginger cat? Perhaps he's pushed out and therefore he is keen to get at the food when there is a chance and hence he eats too much as a precaution against not being able to get to a food bowl when they are put down.

The experts would say that it is important to make sure that a subservient cat has a place to hide and then each cat gets its own food bowl and as best as possible is allowed to get to it. Cat litter trays should also be considered carefully in multi-cat households because you can get competition around a cat litter tray. All this means is that the subservient cat is liable to become stressed and it is a cat owner's duty to make sure that all her cats are content!

This does, though, seemed to be a setup situation. Although, it does not detract from what can go on in multi-cat households.