Almost a quarter of British men talk to their cat on the phone

Almost a quarter of British men talk to their cat on the phone

A snippet of information which is quite interesting.  You can click on the link above if you want to read more and see more statistics about the Brits and their cats.

An interesting extra bit of information is that not only a quarter of British men talk to their cat on the phone, more men than women talk to their cat on the phone.  That seems to go against the trend. And this slightly odd statistic begs the question as to how this happens.

After all, a cat does not put a phone to his ear.  Perhaps, therefore, the man's partner who is at home puts a phone to the family cat's ear allowing the man who is at work to talk to his cat.  That is the obvious solution.

However, there are devices that you can buy these days which not only deliver food remotely via your iPad but also allow you to talk to your cat.  The whole process is done wirelessly via the Internet.  This means that a single man can feed his cat, keep an eye on his cat provided his cat is within range of the camera and talk to his cat in a reassuring way.  That's modern life.

Another interesting statistic is that almost 40% of British men have tried to teach their cat a trick or stunt which tells me that, quite possibly, they are trying to train their cat to perform an interesting stunt for their camcorder in an attempt to make a viral video published to YouTube with the intention of making vast sums of money through advertising!  There will be hundreds of thousands of failures but even one major success can earn pots of money for the cat caretaker provided the video gets tens of millions of hits.

Source: Hallmark survey

Heath Robinson's Multi-Movement Tabby Silencer

A museum is to be built to house the work of William Heath Robinson (1872-1944).  The work will start this autumn (2014).

The name of Heath Robinson is part of the English language.  “That's a bit Heath Robinson-like isn't it?!"  I've used that myself a number of times.

His bizarre contraptions always consisted of wheels, pulleys, weights etc.  They always looked very fragile and totally impractical but fascinating nonetheless.

One of his contraptions possibly gives us an insight into his thoughts about the domestic cat: the Multi-Movement Tabby Silencer.

This is a device to spray water over noisy cats to silence them.  It is the classic way of stopping a cat doing something.  It is not recommended by me because it is a form of punishment and punishing cats is ill-advised as it tends to simply alienate the person's cat.

The Heath Robinson Multi-Movement Tabby Silencer consists of an extendable arm and a long stick.  There is a wheel and numerous ropes which are tied together in places.  There are 2 candles and a mirror together with a patterned china job containing water!  Two people operated while hanging out of open windows.

Trespassing Cats: A Neighbourly Battle Of Biblical Proportions

Lady releases trapped cat

It happens everywhere especially, as far as I can tell, in the United States of America.  A neighbour likes cats and looks after lots of them. She can't help it. She just loves cats too much and can't stop herself from helping them.

Her next door neighbour either dislikes cats or is neutral about them.  His young boy is allergic to cats. His neighbour's cats wander into his yard. They urinate in his yard and occasionally defecate there as well. He puts up with it but after a while he decided to put down traps then take the cats that are trapped to the local rescue centre.

The cat loving neighbour finds out that she is missing some cats and then discovers what is happening so at 4 in the morning she sneaks out of her property onto her neighbour's property and releases the trapped cats. The person who trapped the cats figures out something is going on because he knows the cats were in the traps at one stage.

We have the makings of a war between neighbours which is something to be avoided at all costs.

Anyway the guy who set the traps sets up surveillance cameras to record what happens at 4 in the morning when his neighbour comes onto this property to release the cats he has trapped. He uses the video material to tell the police what has happened and she ends up facing what in America is called a “criminal trespass charge" for walking onto her neighbour's property.

Trespass is normally a tort meaning a civil wrong and not a crime. In addition, I do know what crime she has committed. Opening traps? Perhaps she damaged the traps.

This must be an American law.  Anyway she will probably end up with a criminal record and the guy who got her prosecuted will end up with an extremely angry neighbour who will carry on doing exactly the same thing as you did before.

No one's a winner, everyone's a loser.  The answer has to be a common sense answer which is that the lady who'd like to look after cats continues to do so but at the same time respects her neighbour's rights and wishes in order to keep the peace with her neighbour. I say that being a cat lover but even cat lovers need to respect other people's rights.

Being a cat lover does not trump everything: the behaviour of a cat lover has to fit in with society just like the behaviour of everybody else.

This is not a made up story but a real one. The lady who looked after the cat is Jean Kerdock-Locke and her neighbor is Ben Sanchez. The live in southeast Albuquerque, USA.

North Carolina Cat Sanctuary Fights Shooting Range Neighbor

GOATHOUSE REFUGE

June 14th 2014: I am astonished by this story. There appears to be a clear breach of planning regulations. However, I do not know the planning regulations for this area of the United States.

The Goathouse Refuge near Pittsboro have been in existence in the area for about 7 years and they currently care for about 200 cats including some other animals such as goats and dogs. This is a cat sanctuary and the pictures of it indicate that this is a well managed organisation

A business opened up next door.  The business is a shooting range, which is referred to as "Range 2A".  The range uses about 15 acres of a 71 acre plot owned by the business. They have plans to expand so even more noise seems likely!

You can guess what I am going to say next, I hope. The shooting range creates an awful lot of noise.

The domestic cat is very sensitive to noise and particularly the sort of noise that firearms make when they are fired. These are exactly the sorts of noises that domestic cats detest. They scare cats and create stress.

The cat sanctuary is appealing to Chatham County Board of Commissioners to close the shooting range. They have started a petition online. This is all very worthy stuff.

However, the question that I have is how did this shooting range business obtain planning permission to open up their business next door to a cat sanctuary that has been in existence on this site for 7 years?

It seems grossly unfair to me. Perhaps the business did not need planning permission at all but I would doubt that because every organisation or individual in any environment in the West requires some sort of planning permission when opening a business.

Did the cat sanctuary have sight of the planning application?  And if so did they have an opportunity to contest it?  Did they object to it? Was their voice heard and did they have a hearing at the local authority pursuant to the rules to put their case forward formally? These are the questions that need to be answered and if I was the owner of the cat sanctuary I would be making enquiries along these lines unless of course I am barking up the wrong tree because either there are no planning regulations in place, or there are regulations and there been complied with.

If the latter has happened I would appeal the decision of the local councillors. An appeal could take place in a local court for judicial review.

My gut feeling is that the best course of action is a legal one because petitions and requesting something from councillors has little chance of success in my opinion.

The shooting range business has issued a bland statement justifying their existence, unsurprisingly. But it does not address the central issue which is why they're there in the first place.  They have not responded to a request by the reporters of the Daily News to comment on the matter.

The Goathouse Refuge may have to close unless something is done about this shooting range.

Three-quarters of NZ Cat Owners Don't Exercise Their Cat

Owners contribute to cat obesity - 16-Jun-2014 - NZ Living & Travel news

Surprised? No, of course not. New Zealanders are not alone. I should think that anywhere in the world about 75% of cat owners totally ignore the need to ensure that their cat gets some sort of exercise. A bit of exercise is like a good walk for a human; it is good for you both physically and psychologically and the same applies to the domestic cat. Exercise is the opposite side of the coin to feeding.

The trouble is that the majority of New Zealand cat owners don't really exercise any control over the amount their cat eats. That, too, is not unusual. According to a Royal Canin survey of 315 cat caretakers 75% leave food out all day - free feeding relying on the cat to eat the right amount.

You should be able to rely on your cat to eat the right amount but you can't if she does not exercise at all and if the food is high in carbohydrates and far from ideal. Boredom can lead to overfeeding and addictive food can too.

I fully understand the difficulties some cat owners have in finding the time and space to ensure their cat exercises but....ultimately there is no excuse.

What do I do? Well I am typing this outside in the garden using my wireless router (or my iPhone as a router) while Charlie my cat messes around in the garden within my eyesight. Not bad. Not great, but he is doing something other than snoozing.