Woman terrified of spiders relies on her cats

Most people, male or female, don't like spiders and some are terrified of them. Cats love 'em! They are prey animals to cats. They instinctively chase and trap spiders. They end up dead due to all the smacking and poking. Although cats can be poisoned by spiders.

RELATED: Cats are not frightened of spiders but humans are. Why?

My theory for spider fear is because spiders move rapidly and can be dangerous because some are poisonous. There seems to be an inherent fear of spiders for this reason. It is almost as if the fear of spiders is inherited in the human psyche. It is handed down in the DNA. 

RELATED: Can cats get bitten by brown recluse spiders?

Weak attempt at catching a large spider. She wisely relies on her 2 cats who succeed quickly. Screenshot.

And logically spiders can present a danger in places like Australia (where the video was made) as there are some dangerous arachnids there. The rapid unpredictable movement is a problem too. You don't know where they are going and they could climb up your leg. They never do but the fear is present. Sometimes kids have a traumatic spider experience which affects them for many years resulting in a deeply embedded fear of the creatures. This is probably rare.

Welsh administration say that a Ukrainian refugee cannot have her cats with her

NEWS AND COMMENT - Montgomery, Powys, Wales: You may have heard about the Homes for Ukrainians programme in the UK in which UK citizens put up Ukrainian refugees in a spare bedroom or a second home that they might have. There have been some wonderful stories such as one family ending up with a billionaire living in a beautiful home next to his mansion! But there have been some bad stories too of breakdowns in relationships between the host and the refugee resulting in the refugee leaving the home and becoming homeless. But by-and-large it is working well it seems to me.

Ukrainian family separated from their pets by Welsh quarantine rules.  Family photo.

But in this instance, there has been another breakdown and it concerns domestic cats and a pet squirrel. I have read that half the refugees coming into the UK from Ukraine have a pet of some sort, normally a cat or dog. Therefore, the arrangements as to how to deal with companion animals is vital to the success of the scheme.

As I understand it, the UK rules in general with respect to refugee pets are that the government will pay for any quarantine, vaccination and microchip costs. Once the companion animal has been vaccinated against rabies and had a blood test to confirm that they have developed antibodies they can then be released from quarantine and go into the home where the family is staying. 

This means that they can be reunited at the earliest possible opportunity while protecting the UK from a possible rabies infection. Rabies was eliminated from the UK many, many years ago. But it is fairly prevalent, as I recall, in Ukraine. This is a major problem in respect of importing pets from Ukraine into the UK.

The trouble is that the Welsh administration have devolved powers in this respect and they have decided that even if rabies antibodies have been detected in the companion animal they cannot be reunited with their owner and therefore they remain in a quarantine facility many miles away.

And this is what has happened in this case. A family escaped Ukraine in a Volkswagen Polo. They travelled across Europe with three cats and a pet squirrel. The mother has a daughter who is eight-years-old who is special-needs. There are three other children. They had barely settled into their new home when they considered leaving because their pet cats are being kept in a cattery 170 miles across the border in England.

Lena, 53, the mother is distraught about the Welch rules which bans pets from staying with Ukrainian refugee families. Apparently, she has lost faith in the system and would prefer to go back to Ukraine than be without her pets. Her daughter relies on the animals for her well-being. I guess they are therapy animals for her.

The UK government website does not state that the Welsh have different rules to the English. A spokesperson for the Welsh government said: "We have concerns about how the current home isolation process can be monitored and enforced effectively. It is for this reason that we have taken the decision to uphold quarantine in authorised facilities as the safest option to protect both animal and public health."

On my experience, the Welsh are more cautious than the English which accounts for this more cautious approach. I think it is unfair and unreasonable. I think it is over-cautious and I think they should have discretion as to what to do and make an exception in this case. It is incredibly sad that a woman who has escaped Ukraine is considering going back because of this rule that the Welsh are adamant in keeping.

Lena's husband is in Ukraine fighting to defend his country. She has an app which notifies her every time an air raid siren goes off in her home city. It is heartbreaking for her. The Welsh are intransigent and have prioritised the protection and health and welfare of all animals in Wales by reducing their risk of exposure of rabies over the health and welfare of this family and perhaps other families. It's understandable but I think if the UK generally consider the rules to be acceptable, the Welsh administration should follow them.

Man punishes his cat for stealing fish by lacing cat food with alcohol

This is obviously completely wrong. The man is ignorant, foolish and his behaviour is immoral. I'm surprised the young cat ate fish laced with alcohol but no doubt the cat was hungry and apparently didn't mind the fact that it was dripping with alcohol. The man didn't know how the alcohol would affect the cat other than that it would put them to sleep.  He is effectively poisoning his cat and he thinks that he is being clever and making a hit video! The man is mad. According to his video the cat slept for two days. We do not know what has happened after that. 

Man soaks his cat's food with alcohol to punish them. Screenshot

A cat's metabolism is different to that of humans. Sometimes small quantities of a drug of any kind can have severe effects on a domestic cat. Apparently one teaspoonful of alcohol can seriously harm a domestic cat. So, this man was also reckless as to the outcome. And you should never punish your cat. His cat stole his fish and he thinks they deserve to be punished. This was not bad cat behaviour but bad human behaviour in so many ways. He knows that his cat likes fish and he allowed access to the fish. This was his problem not a cat problem. But he doesn't recognise it. Because, as mentioned, he's ignorant.

RELATED: PUNISHING CATS IS WRONG.

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A post shared by Atinkanews.net (@atinkanews)

Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which stops it working here. I have no control over this. I expect the video to disappear as he is rightly receiving lots of criticism.

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Of course, the video, on Instagram, has received comments of objection to his behaviour. It just shows how ignorant a lot of people are when it comes to cat caregiving. There are millions of examples similar to this one which happen across the planet on a daily basis. Sometimes I think that humankind should not have domestic cat companions at all. There's just too much failure. Although we have to recognise that there are hundreds of millions of people who provide great cat caregiving. I just see too much failure however.

To compound the error of his ways he decides to video his cat abuse, cat cruelty, and upload the video to Instagram, which is the source of the video you see on this page. He is one of those people who thinks it clever to make videos of cat cruelty. I don't know where it has occurred. I think it is Ghana. He even adds nice music to the video as if he is entertaining viewers. We bloody hate the video and your crass behavior.

If it had happened in America, he might have been prosecuted for animal cruelty under the relevant state laws. But it's probably happened in a country where they either don't have effective animal welfare laws or they are unenforced. Another reason to be exasperated by humankind's failure in the domestic cat-to-human relationship.

Quick research indicates that alcohol is positively not a drug that a cat should be allowed to drink. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is adamant that this should not be allowed. It can cause ethanol poisoning. Symptoms can be vomiting, lethargy, ataxia, depression, diarrhoea, trouble breathing, seizures and in the worst cases, and death. In this cat is a small, young cat. As I stated and I will state it again, this man is an idiot.

Two disabled cats make each other happy

Through their friendship in this household these two disabled cats make each other happy. And the relationship has a nice balance. I called it symbiotic on Reddit.com but apparently the word "symbiotic" refers to animals of two different species and here we have two domestic cats with different coats. One of them is a tabby-and-white coat and the other has a calico or tortoiseshell-and-white coat. So, technically, this is not a symbiotic relationship but a mutually beneficial one.

In order to get the video to work you should click on the start button in the middle of the video initially and then move down to the bottom-left and push the start button bottom-left afterwards!! The video will then play. Sorry for the complication. 😎. I think I'd turn the music off too! And it is sentimental. I like the friendship they have.

The tortoiseshell-and-white coated cat has dead hindlegs because they're paralysed. This may have been caused by an injury to the spine or it is a congenital disability. Her close friend and companion, the tabby-and-white cat has no forelegs. As I understand it, they had to be amputated because she was electrocuted.

Super mutually beneficial friendship between two disabled cats is great to see. This is a screenshot from the video also on this page.

The backstories to both these injuries are very sad but the friendship is very warm and beautiful. Perhaps they need each other and they found each other. Luckily, they got on and it must have made such a big difference to their lives.

Disabled cats can have very good lives and one way to achieve this is to have a cat companion. Another way is for the cat caregiver to be particularly committed in providing a lot of entertainment and interaction. Provided their lives are enriched in a safe environment they will live a life as good as any other.

I am sure that you know that cats don't feel sorry for themselves if they are disabled. They just accept it and get on with it. It is one of the charms of the personality of the domestic cat. They are very stoic, enduring and great survivors.

It seems that this person is attracted to caring for injured or disabled domestic cats and in doing so she has made a number of videos on TikTok which have attracted quite a high number of viewers. If I am being overly critical it could be argued that it is not wise or clever to make videos of disabled cats in order to attract a lot of viewers. It looks like that to me. I don't think videos of disabled cats should be made because, at heart, they are abusing the disability for commercial gain. Perhaps that is way over the top in terms of criticism but it does come to my mind.

Here is another video of the two:

7-year-old boy saves bird from attacks by family cat and dog

The boy had been given a couple of birds as a birthday present. They seem to have got out of their cage and as the family had a cat and dog already, these two companion animals were intrigued, particularly the cat, and we have the incident that you see in the video. The nice thing about the video is that the seven-year-old boy, who clearly loves animals, intervenes and does his best to push away the family cat who has apparently grabbed the bird in their jaws. Please note that these videos sometimes stop working because the original version on another website is removed.