'Sneaky' stray cat tries to 'steal' dog's food. Sad video.

This, for me, is a sad video. It appears to be in a country other than in the West but I could be mistaken. The dog is tied up with a chain and clearly lives outside the home in his dog kennel and provides security to the family. An incredibly unfulfilling life of great restrictions and limitations. It is cruel in my book. This sort of human-animal relationship is over. Humans can do better. It requires education. Ignorance is a huge ball-and-chain on humanity's progress.

Stray cat tries to steal dog's food. Screenshot.

The cat is a stray and hungry and so tries to "steal" the dog's food without success because the dog wakes up and chases the cat away, which may be a good outcome because dog food is not good for cats. It's okay on a one-off basis but eaten regularly it would lack sufficient nutrients for a cat. The cat would become ill eventually.

I hate to see dogs tied up like this. It is banned in some countries because it is inherently cruel. It is the product of human ignorance and insensitivity towards animal welfare. Further, stray cats are also a product of human failure. 

There should be no stray cats in an ideal world. In a better world this dog would be living in the home he is meant to protect and the cat would be living with him, cuddling up and enjoying his life. What we see in this video is a symptom of human failure.

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.

Cat sits on owner's lap and reacts 'weirdly' every time he spins a coin

The title to this Daily Motion video is in fact: Cat Sits in Owner's Lap and Reacts Weirdly Every Time he Spins Coin on Table. And although the grammar is poor that is not the point. The word "weirdly" is the problem for me because I do not think that this cat is acting weirdly. I think we can explain what he or she is doing. 

Cat prepares to pounce on spinning coin. Screenshot.

You can see the cat placing their right foreleg over their eye and partly over their head when their owner spins a coin on the table. I think this feline behaviour is misleading because all the cat is doing is preparing to pounce onto the coin. 

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.

The position of the foreleg is incidental. It looks rather strange and as if the cat is deliberately making this action for some 'weird' reason but he is not. He's simply holding his paw and leg in this position so that it is ready to grab the coin. The cat perceives the coin as a prey animal. It is moving in an interesting way which catches his attention and to all intents and purposes it is prey to be attacked and in the last segment of the video he does just that.

So, this is predictable feline behaviour and it's a game. All cat play is based around hunting and attacking. That's why it is said that the best cat toys are those that can be destroyed by the cat because the toy better replicates or mimics an animal to be hunted, destroyed and eaten. When domestic cats become bored with toys that have been brought with great care by their owner, it is because they can't be destroyed as they are made of plastic. The argument is that cat toys should be made of some other destructible material.

One of the best toys is a ball of scrunched up waste paper. That can be chucked around by a cat and partially destroyed by raking the hind legs over it as it is grasped in the forelegs. Home-made toys are often better than the commercial variety.

Read this if you are old and you might die and have full-time indoor cats

There is a story emerging from Spain which is a bit of troubling because I can see other households suffering the same outcome. In this instance an elderly Colombian lady, Clara Ines Tobon, who had lived in the northern Madrid neighbourhood of Fuencarral since 1996, died. She had some pet cats. We don't know how many. It is believed that she died three months ago. 

Some think that she died of Covid-19. The cause of death is unimportant. The important aspect of the story is that nobody knew about her death and she had some pet cats who appear to have been full-time indoor cats with no way of exiting her property. That is the way I have interpreted the story which I think is reasonable because the cats ate her in order to survive.

For illustration purposes only. Photo: Pixabay (modified)

The upper part of her body was partially eaten by her pet cats. They say that there were two surviving cats that were taken to an animal rescue centre. That statement implies that some of the cats did not survive but detail is missing in the story with respect to her domestic cats which is the part that interests me.

She obviously lived alone and appears to have done so for a very long time. So, under these circumstances it seems to me that a cat owner needs to have at least one friend who should be given instructions to come into the property if they do not receive a response to their phone call on a daily basis. Or perhaps it might be every couple of days. But there needs to be some method to notify a next-of-kin or friend that a cat owner has died in their home. And if not died, is injured and cannot move and therefore cannot feed the cats.

We don't know how commonplace this sort of story is but I would expect it to happen not to infrequently and it is a genuine risk because there are an increasing number of full-time indoor cats who don't necessarily have access to the outside. They are basically prisoners in their owner's home and therefore they rely upon the owner to be in a position to look after them. That is a position of responsibility and therefore they have a responsibility to think through what would happen if they should die. It takes proactive action.

Super pretty female all-white British Longhair kitten born March 2021

The video, photograph and the breeding is by Альбина Шконда, Moscow, Russia. A wonderfully pretty kitten. The British Longhair is less well-known than the shorthaired variant but more beautiful. I am surprised the breed is not more popular. Read more on this breed by clicking on this link.

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.

Cat refuses to drink water except from cupped hands. Why?

This is about a feline drinking problem and a cat whose owner posted a request for help on the Reddit.com website. He said that his cat would not drink water except when he cupped the water in his hands and presented it to him. He's tried everything possible including changing the water receptacle and using different kinds of water including bottled water. He could not go on doing this because he wasn't at home all the time and his cat was becoming dehydrated. 

I'm not sure how the story ended because it's about six years old but he received some good answers mainly about changing the receptacle. One person thought that the cat could not recognise the water and suggested that he put a ping-pong ball in it.

Cupped hands holding water. Photo: Pixabay.

I would suggest that the problem might be to do with the odour of the water. When it is cupped in the hands of the cat's owner the water would smell of the body odour of the person. Cats are very much into the scent of their owner. They recognise their owner by their scent. It is possible that this cat is very anxious and timid and needs the reassurance of his 'surrogate mother' (owner) to drink and he achieves this by drinking from the hands of his owner. He will even lick fragments of water from his owner's hands rather than drink in the normal way.

If I am correct and it is about the smell of the water through the person's hands then the problem may be resolved by using a water which is as near as possible without smell, such as bottled water, pouring it into a receptacle, ideally a glass receptacle, and dipping his hands into that receptacle and aerating the water with his hands for about 20 seconds. 

That should deposit some of his scent into the water to make it smell a bit like his hands. That is quite a big guess but I have a feeling that the problem is not about recognising the water but about the bond between the cat and the person which in this instance is very strong. The cat needs to feel that he is being nursed by his owner. I think it's an act of nursing, a throwback to when he was a newborn kitten.

In fact, this cat may have been weaned too early and this may be an example of behavioural problems due to early weaning - not uncommon. That's my best guess and I think it is worth a try. Unfortunately, the problem was discussed about six years ago, as mentioned, and therefore my thoughts cannot be relayed to him in comments on the Reddit.com website because comments have been archived.