Can cats eat cheese?

People ask Google: can cats eat cheese? Most people by now know the answer which, in short, is YES in small amounts because (a) cats like it for the fat content so it can be a treat and (b) in general, and to varying degrees, cats are lactose intolerant. Eating cheese or drinking milk can cause diarrhoea.

I use lactose free milk for my breakfast. I give my cat some. I suppose if there is lactose free cheese it should solve the problem mentioned above at (b).

All cat treats of human food are generally okay in small doses but check foodstuffs that are toxic to cats.

The law should protect wild and domestic animals equally

The law should protect wild and domestic animals equally and by-and-large it does in the UK under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

I think that a lot of people might see wild animals are deserving less protection and less respect than pets for instance. This is not the case and it should not be the case.

Of course it depends on where you live and the biggest factor which undermines equality between wild and domestic animals (other than livestock) is hunting. Even in the UK people are allowed to hunt certain species under certain restrictions and conditions. Hunting, almost automatically causes uneccessary suffering to the animal. The sport is an anomaly in the 21st century, I submit.

But the primary law which protects animals, the Animal Welfare Act 2006, does not distinguish between wild and domestic. Two cases highlight this.

In one case a man drowned a neighbour's cat who came onto his property. He caught the cat and put him into a plastic bag with a stone and then threw the bag into a river. He was convicted of causing an animal uneccessary suffering and his punishment included an eight week jail term.

As for wild animals, a couple of brothers kicked a hedgehog like a football and killed him. They were convicted and punished under the same clause of the same UK statute. They had tortured the wee animal before he died. Their punishment included six weeks in jail. They were also fined.

We should regard all animals as equal in the eyes of the law. Some animals are described as "pests". Sometimes this label is, perhaps, justified (rats for example). On other ocassions it is not. Foxes and pigeons are seen as pests by many or as vermin. This makes killing them legitimate. Personally I regard this as wrong. Humans can often be pests if one steps back and honestly observes their behavior.

What are Bodega Cats?

Bodega cats are store cats. They live in and around a corner store or deli or Hispanic/Spanish/Latin mini-mart in New York. They will normally be rescue cats; either rescued from the street where the store is or from a rescue centre. The term "bodega" appears to be exclusively used in New York City.

These are typical corner stores. Run independently and selling all manner of products from wine to delicatessen products. These are the sorts of shops we see all over the world. Not all of them have a live-in cat. That's obvious. The bodega cat is a very nice addition to the store. They go together nicely. It looks natural to me. And they serve a function beyond keeping the shop owner company. They keep the mice away.

In less well developed countries you could argue that the default situation regarding the domestic cat is the store cat or community cat. This is closer to the original relationship between man and cat: the barn cat keeping down rodents.

The term "bodega" comes from Spanish to mean a wine shop. The meaning has been expanded to include a mini-mart although in these stores wine, beers and spirits are an important part of the stock.

The cat in the picture is Snowball. A beautiful white bodega cat in NYC.

Delivery driver runs over kitten in driveway of property. Who is at fault?

A woman is in the process of receiving a delivery of groceries having ordered them online. The supermarket vehicle is parked up in the driveway and the goods are being offloaded. The woman lets her cats go outside. This is the UK. One of her cats is a 7-month-old kitten. She does not know where he is.

As she knows he could be outside she asks the delivery driver to move off slowly after the delivery has been fully offloaded. The idea is to give the kitten warning that the vehicle is moving. The driver does not carry out her instructions and drives off quickly. The kitten is crushed by one of the wheels. The kitten must have been very near the wheel when the vehicle moved off.

The woman is naturally distraught. The supermarket apologised, gave her flowers and £100. The woman is still upset and feels aggrieved. She is complaining to the company.



Who is at fault? It is not all on one side. I'd say the woman is equally at fault as the driver. She may have to bear the burden of most of the fault in my view. She knew the van was there. She knew her kitten could have been there. A tragic accident was forseable. She did not do enough to prevent it. The better solution would have been to either keep her cats inside when the delivery was being made or to inspect under the vehicle before it was driven off.

How do cats know when we are coming home?

This page has been moved and added to because I believe that Google will end Blogger in the not too distant future.

PLEASE THEREFORE CLICK ON THIS LINK TO READ MY OPINION ON WHY CATS KNOW WHEN YOU ARE COMING HOME.