Cat reunited after 10 years and from 260 miles away

Chubbs is an elderly, male, tabby cat missing all his teeth. His owner lives in Weymouth, Dorset, UK. That's where Chubbs lived and lives normally but he went missing about 10 years ago. He was seen by a kind person, Kelly, wondering along a main road with traffic in Greater Manchester. He was soaking wet and bedraggled. 

Kelly said that: "The day that I picked him up he was slowly walking across the main road in random directions, weaving between moving cars and narrowly being missed. He was so friendly and lovely but extremely skinny, covered in fleas, soaking wet-it had been raining heavily the night before-and generally looking like a stray.

Donna Gallagher and Chubbs. Image: The Times.

His owner, Donna Gallagher, had been distraught for a long time after he disappeared. They carried out the usual neighbourhood search and erected posters. She said: "I couldn't sleep and I couldn't stop crying". Her children were distraught.

Kelly took Chubbs to a veterinarian where they found that he was missing his teeth, covered in mats and struggling to walk. Fortunately, he had a microchip implant and the information that it contained was up to date. The chip revealed Donna's details and the veterinarian emailed her to say that he had been found.

Donna said: "When I saw Chubbs's name my heart skipped a beat". They don't know how Chubbs ended up 260 miles away but suspect that he was stolen by a tourist or tourists. He is now recovering and here is the clincher: he recognises his name when Donna calls it. I have always said that domestic cats have good long-term memories and this supports that assessment.

She said: "And he remembers his name-when I call him, his head comes straight up. He is happy now and I'm going to let him live out his older years. Until then he's going to be a very spoiled old man."

2 ways to encourage your cat to eat if they are picky

Sometimes domestic cats can be picky about what they eat. Perhaps they are fed too much or they are just picky like some people. I know of two ways and there might be more of encouraging a domestic cat to eat. 

The first is to gently stroke your cat on their back when the food bowl is presented to them. If they didn't eat before, in my experience they will begin to eat if you do that. Why does this happen? It probably has something to do with newborns being licked by their mother and nursing. It is a throwback to those early weeks.

Stroking a cat can encourage eating. Image: Pixabay.

The second method is well known which is to gently heat the food in a microwave. It should be a matter of seconds only, perhaps about four seconds. Heated food will smell more strongly and as domestic cats rely on smell to identify food and its palatability, this should help.

My cat likes prawns which I keep in the fridge. If I want to make them particularly attractive to him, I break them open which helps the smell to come out more and I warm them with a 3-4 second microwave session at 100%. 

His behaviour indicates to me that this makes him more interested in the food. A counter argument to the above is that if your cat rejects the food that you give him, he is not hungry enough. On that basis you should do nothing and not try and encourage him to eat it. If a cat is genuinely hungry, they will eat what is placed before them.

I sense that there is a pattern of behaviour in some homes in which the cat, out of routine and to a certain extent boredom, meows for food but is not hungry. This is similar behaviour to people who eat out of habit at certain times of the day even if they aren't hungry.

Or when they settle down to watch some television, they like to eat at the same time. It's a double pleasure which is better than a single pleasure.

Domestic cats should only eat when they are hungry and the same goes for people! The feline obesity epidemic is partly due to eating were not hungry and for pleasure just as humans do.

Please read Sandi's comment below about adding warm water or broth to cat food to make it more palatable in lieu of warming it up in a microwave.

Look at the gorgeous cat cubicles at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. Screenshot from their video.

This short promotional video from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home shows us how pleasant it is for the cats. See the vertical space that they have provided at the back of the cubicle. This is essential to enrich their confined space. And it looks reasonably spacious compared to some I have seen in other shelters.

I have visited the place. It is very large. It has the oldest boarding cattery in the world at the center of the shelter. This shelter has an amazing pedigree (excuse the pun). The facilities are exceptional and their reputation extends to the entire world. It is probably the best-known dog and cat shelter on the planet. It is right in the middle of London. It is south of the river Thames.

 

Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which would stop it working here. I have no control over this.

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I have some pages on Battersea as it is called for short: 

RELATED: Handsome cat overlooked at rescue center for 125 days because he has FIV. The average stay for a rescue cat or dog at Battersea is 23 days. 

RELATED: Pets rescued from the Grenfell Tower blaze to be temporarily housed by Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.

Yes, it does keep cats of things like kitchen counters but it also scares the f**k**g living daylights out of them at the same time 😎. Good idea? I think NOT because there are less scary ways of keeping your cat off certain areas if you are so inclined. Do you really want to terrify your cat even for a moment because you have a fad about your cat carrying diseases or something like that?

People don't know why tin foil scares domestic cats so much. It is the sound of it. It sounds like a snake in my view and cats are instinctively wary of snakes. Or the sound it makes when they walk on it massively triggers a warning in their brain that the stuff is dangerous. I let my cat jump up on the kitchen counter. It does not bother me in the slightest. I feed him on the counter while I eat breakfast. 

Yes, aluminum foil does wonders for keeping cats away from things.

Are cats more prone to spreading disease than humans? I think not. In fact, a lot less as nearly all diseases are not zoonotic. What is there to be scared off when you allow your cat to jump onto the kitchen counter? I am more concerned about cats as there are hot objects up there such as hobs. Enough said. Don't use kitchen foil as a cat deterrent as there are better ways. That's my personal view. Please share yours.

  

Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which would stop it working here. I have no control over this.

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Domestic cat is on the loose in the cabin of an aircraft as it ascends after takeoff

When I saw this video, I found it slightly charming but I also found it slightly disturbing because I don't think a domestic cat should be on the loose in the cabin of an aircraft. Is it allowed? Is the owner being sensible? The cat is certainly entertaining the other passengers but depending upon how the cat reacts, this could end up in disaster. What if the cat becomes scared and runs down the cabin and hides somewhere hard to get at? 

There would have to be a search and I just think it could end up in a bad way. Perhaps I'm being too negative and pessimistic but there may be a rule in any case with this airline which states that cats should be kept in a carrier under the seat when they are allowed in the cabin. Other than that, they should go in the hold.

I would really like to see some comments on this video because I am sure that some of the readers will have taken their cat on a flight in the cabin in America for instance and therefore, they have first-hand information about the pluses and minuses.

Cats on a plane. pic.twitter.com/3tSauOqIOn

— If Your Pet Talked 🗣 (@IfYourPetTalked) June 12, 2022

Note: This is an embedded tweet. 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.