Thirsty cat adopts bizarre posture to drink from water basin - NO!

The title to this post is the title given to the video on YouTube but it is inaccurate. This is not a bizarre posture but a very clever and natural posture which allows the cat to stretch over to this large receptacle of water and drink from it. 

Skinny tabby cat uses his athleticism to drink from a large receptacle. Screenshot.

I love the athleticism that this skinny little tabby stray cat demonstrates. It is another example on video of the extraordinary athleticism of the domestic and feral cat. 

You probably know that domestic cats prefer to drink from what appears to us to be dirty puddles and polluted water but which in fact is pure from the cat's perspective than tap water. Tap water contains chemicals to keep it pure and to protect the health of people but domestic cats can smell this, they can smell the chlorine and fluoride that is in it and prefer rainwater although it might have collected some pollutants in the air as it falls to the ground. 

They don't mind these perhaps because they can't smell them. I believe that cats pick up the unnatural smells of tap water which puts them off. They overcome it because they often drink tap water but sometimes they shun it for muddy puddles.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it. I actually expect this video to disappear within quite a short space of time because I do not think that the person uploading it is genuine. I have a suspicion that he or she is downloading the videos of other people and then uploading them to his YouTube channel. I could be wrong and if I am I apologise.

Mini-catio gives indoor cats a breath of fresh air

Here is a mini-catio and I like it. It is a compromise between a proper catio - a cat enclosure attached to the side of a house one side of which is open to the elements behind a protective mesh to stop the cats getting out - and access to the outside which can often be unsafe. 

And this little mini-catio, as I have described it, is cheap to purchase and quick to put up. That will appeal to many people. I would expect that it could be erected in as little as an hour. The only difficulty will be providing a cutout panel for the window through which the cats have access to the tiny enclosure. But these sorts of tiny enclosures can be attractive to domestic cats who are confined to the indoors. 

Photo: Reddit.com

We know how cats like to rest in their favourite place (which they tend to change on a daily basis) and therefore a little enclosure like this can add to their menu. It would be an extra place where they can go to. It would add a little bit to their lives and make it more colourful and interesting. In short, it would be a way of enriching their environment inexpensively. For that reason, I would heartily recommend it. 

Anything that can make the life of a full-time indoor cat were enjoyable must be welcome. It won't suit everybody because a lot of people are too houseproud to have this sort of construction sticking out of it. It doesn't look great but it is effective.

On a separate subject, I note that the person is jacking up the tunnel with Tidy Cats litter boxes or that is what it appears. The lightweight version of this cat litter is problematic as allegedly there have been some deaths from it because it creates too much dust. You might like to read about that by clicking on this link.

Dual use cat and human furniture is a cool idea

 

There are not many items of furniture that we can share with our domestic cat companion but this is one of them. What I particularly like about it is that it provides a hideaway for a timid cat. I would suggest that this item of furniture, which you can buy on Amazon in America but not the UK is ideal for a timid cat. And I think it is nice to be able to share furniture with cats. It helps to promote the concept that the human home is not only for humans but companion animals as well. Human homes should be 'catified' to use the language of Jackson Galaxy. I know that it can be difficult to do that because people are often houseproud and they want their home to look good from a human perspective but I think we need to put aside those limitations if we live with a cat or dog. Cats are particularly in need of a modified house because they enjoy vertical spaces. Any interior designs created for a cat loving family should include objects which allow vertical movements.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Naming and shaming: Mark Anthony Scott and his brother Stephen Scott who starved their cats are banned from keeping animals

This is just a little vignette, as I call it, of life in the home of a couple of idiot and cruel brothers in England who starved their cats and left a dog with an untreated skin condition. RSPCA inspectors made several visits to their home between September 2019 in February 2020. The cats looked thin and when they were palpated the bones of their hips and spine could be felt. They showed extreme hunger when taken to a veterinarian. When food was put down, they ate immediately and the veterinarian reported severe hunger.

Naming and shaming: Mark Anthony Scott and his brother Stephen Scott who starved their cats are banned from keeping animals. Two of the animals. Pic: RSPCA.

When an RSPCA inspector, Rachael Hurst, visited she saw a ginger shorthaired cat frantically eating something off the bathroom floor next to the toilet. One cat, a-year-old tortoiseshell was found to be emaciated and a veterinarian reported that she would have been suffering for many days before taken to a veterinarian.

Sadly, two cats had to be euthanised because they were in such bad condition. They had been taken to the PDSA for treatment.

The Scott brothers live at Vine Street, South Shields, UK. They were sentenced at South Tyneside Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, 19 May 2021 after being found guilty in their absence. In other words, they did not attend the hearing. The probably failed to turn up.

These two need to be named and shamed for their cruelty. These cats could have starved to death and it appears that they were not far from it. Such cruelty. We don't know how the RSPCA got involved. Perhaps somebody reported them. That is the usual way these acts of cruelty are exposed.

It seems that they semi-abandoned the cats and a dog who was in a bad way. The court found that Mark Scott "permitted the failure of another person to provide adequate nutrition to the cats and failed to supervise his brother in caring for them". It looks to me like a case of acute neglect, simply shutting one's mind to the fact that they were starving cats to death. Incredible irresponsibility. A complete lack of sensitivity towards animal welfare. I don't know why they weren't fined heavily or even sentenced to serve time in prison. That's what I would have given them if I were the judge. We don't have photographs of them, sadly. They will look like uneducated idiots.

Mother hen 'incubates' three tabby kittens

And extraordinary little video of a mother hen 'incubating' her three kittens! They crawl out from under her protective care in what appears to be a barn in Iraq. That is all we know. Except that it is not uncommon for mothers of one species of animal to raise the offspring of another animal. It is nice, isn't it? It is good to see. It restores our faith in the world or at least a little bit! Mothers do it naturally and humans do it too, all the time. These are interspecies relationships. I hope they make us more aware of the sentience of animals. An awareness of animal sentience improves animal welfare. Click on this link (opens new window) to see a cat protecting chickens! The exact opposite.

Mother hen protects and incubates three tabby kittens.

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@goran.surchi

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Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.