Disgusting, Abusive And Medically Useless Experiments On Cats

Reports are coming in on January 1, 2014, on the radio and in the online press, that at University College London (UCL), animal experiments on cats have taken place which have been described as a from of torture. It is not clear when they were carried out but the scientific papers were published last year.

This is for illustrative purposes only.
This is not one of the cats

At least 11 cats had parts of their skulls removed.  The cats were paralysed, had their skulls broken and electrodes were stuck into their brains, spines and ribs in what appears to be the most disgusting and abusive of animal experiments.  These are certainly the most abusive that I have come across and for me all animal experiments of any kind are unjustified. But these animal experiments are beyond reason.  This is madness and it makes me mad.

The cats were being tested so that science can better understand the human body we are told.  It makes you sick doesn't it?

The director of Animal Aid, Andrew Tyler, heavily criticised the experiments and rightly so.  He described the experiments as torture. He stresses once again that there are plenty of alternative methods and scientists do not have too grossly abuse domestic cats in this way and for what?  What kind of advantages does it give to people?  In any case, if people want to learn about their bodies, I say do experiments on yourselves.

In other tests a plate was screwed onto the skulls of kittens!  The kittens were placed facedown with clamps on our backs.  Incisions were made around the spine and rib cage to allow the insertion of electrodes.  A part of the spinal-cord was exposed.  It makes me sick to report that a part of the skull was removed so that an electrode could be inserted into the brain to measure brain activity.

We're told that all the cats were anaesthetised during these experiments.  Half of the cats were killed at the end of the experimentations.

A spokesperson, Wendy Higgins, of Humane Society International UK, says that the cats would have undoubtedly suffered considerably.  I suppose that is common sense.

This really must stop.  These cats are being used as a disposable research asset: used and abused and then thrown away.  This is uncivilised.

Wendy states:

 “inserting electrodes into kittens' brains does not represent advanced 21st-century science and it's time we consign this type of cruel and outdated research to the history books.  This is science at its worst."

I'll write more on this story later today. Source: Mirror and radio.

Cat Scratching Behaviour Is Not Destructive

A lot of cat owners think that cat scratching behaviour is destructive.  Scratching can destroy furniture, damaged carpets; cats even scratch walls and destroy wallpaper and so on and so forth.

Scratching behaviour is highly destructive of the home if the cat caretaker fails to deflect scratching away from furniture to a scratching post and fails to realise that from the cat's perspective scratching is a highly constructive and beneficial form of behaviour because it's sloughs off the outer layer of claws, it allows the cat to stretch, it deposits scent on the area scratched so the cat feels more comfortable and it allows the domestic cat to do what comes naturally and when a cat is able to exercise and express natural drives and emotions he or she feels more content.

Photo by Jennifer C

Cat scratching is constructive from the cat's point of view and it is only destructive from the person's point of view if that person has the wrong attitude and fails to take steps to accommodate domestic cat behaviour.  It's as simple as that at the end of the day.

I realise that it can be difficult for a cat owner to adjust their mentality and attitude away from what they want, to what the domestic cat needs, but when a person takes on the responsibility of caring for a domestic cat then I'm afraid they have to adjust.

Why 80% of Britons Let Their Cats Go Outside

It is well known that in Britain nearly everyone lets their cat go outside unsupervised.  Nearly all the cats in the UK are indoor/outdoor cats.  By contrast, in the USA about half the cats are indoor/outdoor cats.

Perhaps the main reason why many more cats in America of full-time indoors is because there are more predators in America who would kill a cat.  But it goes beyond that and because there are so many indoor cats in America it is one reason why there is declawing in America because the argument goes that cats don't need their claws if they're indoors all the time.

Using that argument, some Americans might believe that British people don't declaw their cats because they let their cats go outside unsupervised and therefore they realise that they need their claws to defend themselves.  This is incorrect.

Cat on UK road. I don't like to see this because I have experienced cats being killed on roads.

The reason why British people let their cats go outdoors and why nearly all cats in the UK are indoor/outdoor cats is because British cat owners want their cats to live as natural a life as possible and they are prepared to let their cats take the risk of being injured.  The biggest risk of being injured in the UK is by a vehicle on the roads.

In the UK, many people don't know what declawing is because they had never heard about it and it does not enter their minds.  It is not part of the equation.  It's not part of cat caretaking in the UK. Therefore, the declawing of cats has no impact whatsoever on decision-making about any aspect of cat ownership in the UK.

It could be argued that many British people are too sloppy and laissez-faire about letting their cats go outside.  I could accept that argument because I believe that if cats in Britain are allowed to go outside they should be supervised or the area where the cat lives should be safe from potential road traffic accidents.  That is not always the case.

Whereas a British person might criticise an American person for keeping her cat inside all the time, an American person could be justified in criticising a British person for letting her cat go outside unsupervised where it might be unsafe to do so because a road traffic nearby. Sometimes, a middle ground is probably the best balance between safety and a natural life.

Some Brits have never experienced the loss of a cat on the roads. If they did they would not be so relaxed about letting their cats roam.

There may come a time in Britain when more people follow the American lead and keep their cats inside full-time as the population of the UK increases resulting in more traffic and therefore more risk of injury for a cat.

If you are a Brit you may have a different viewpoint. If so please leave a comment.

Domestic Cat Silent Meow

Cat Opens Mouth But No Sound

Your cat companion may well do it: the silent meow.  Your cat opens her mouth but no sound comes out of it.  When I visited Helmi Flick and her husband in Fort Worth, Dallas, Texas I met, for the first time her two British Shorthair cats and also for the first time I saw the silent meow in action a lot of the time because the British Shorthair is well-known for the silent meow.

Sometimes you'll hear the faintest of noises emanating from the mouth. I have found a video of it on YouTube.

It's completely normal but when you first see it it looks a bit abnormal.  You might even think something is wrong but no.  It is said that the adult domestic cat only meows at us - people, but never with another cat.  I'm not sure that is a strictly true behaviour pattern but it might be.

Assuming that it is correct then I wonder whether the silent meow is only ever directed at people.  If it is then it is a learned behaviour from thousands of years of living with people.  I wonder how they learnt it ;). It seems that some individual domestic cats realise that they can communicate with us without making a sound and they are correct.

Ritual Sacrificing Of Tigers In India

Ritual Sacrificing Of Tigers In India

No doubt this practice is rare and is probably carried out by some members of some tribe somewhere in India (Tamil Nadu?) but it must be inside a tiger reserve because these are pretty much the only places where tigers live in India and even then their lives can be precarious due to poaching and other human threats.

It appears that another rather rare human threat exists namely the ritual sacrifice of tigers.  These are of course Bengal tigers.  There was one case reported in the Hindustan Times, in 2012, in which the remains of an animal were found at a site in the Corbett National Park, in the north of India.

Corbett National Park is one of the best tiger reserves in India, although it is being overrun with tourists.  It is hard to patrol due to perhaps a lack of funding and its size and its geography.

Animal advocates said that the remains of the animal were those of a tiger and that there was clear evidence of a ritual before the killing.  In India they call these rituals "puja".  This is a Hindu prayer ritual to honour one or more deities. They appear to be quite commonplace but I hope extremely rare when a tiger is concerned. The forestry department denied that the animal was a tiger.

I don't wish to be cynical but a government department which is interested in promoting Indian Bengal tiger reserves and the efficiency in which they are run is not going to admit that one of their tigers has been ritually slaughtered in the worship of a deity.  It doesn't look good does it?

I also received a comment from a gentleman living in India referring to in article in Gulf News.com about what appears have been a private ritual sacrificing of a tiger:

at the altar of a Goddess for a Chief minister's well being

The comment was on a page about some people eating domestic cat in India.  Once again it appears to be tribal people living in remote areas in Tamil Nadu.  They eat the domestic cat for some unintelligible, ancient and mystical reason linked to a person's health.  Sorry but I don't believe it.

Although I totally respect other people's cultures and beliefs if an animal is at the brunt of those beliefs and is hurt or killed as a consequence then I will always vehemently disagree with such a culture and proclaim that the culture is wrong and disrespectful of animals.