Ben the Vet promotes the humble moggy

Ben the Vet likes to tell the world through social media (TikTok) the breeds of dog that he would not adopt and the 4 cat breeds that he would avoid. He has now moved onto the next logical step which is to tell the world the kind of cat that he would adopt, and I am pleased to announce that he prefers moggies to any other type of cat. Every cat caregiver concerned about cat health would agree with Ben.

My cat. A humble tabby non-purebred. Image: MikeB

And the reason is that random bred cats are, just that, random bred. There is no selective breeding. There is no artificial selection. Random bred cats are created through natural selection or as natural as it can get in an artificial human environment!

And therefore, they are healthier than purebred cats due to genetic diversity which leads to the inevitable conclusion that they live longer on average. I say 'on average for the obvious reason that sometimes, individual purebred cats can have long life spans.

He mentions four cat breeds that he would not adopt but he could have mentioned more. He has selected these breeds because they have inherited genetic health problems. You can read about them by clicking on this link.

And the same goes for the dog breeds. The point is that Ben is concerned about selective breeding which perpetuates the introduction of recessive genetic mutations into cats and dogs.

I realise that it is unpopular to discuss this topic. There are many die hard pedigree cat and dog afficionados who refuse to see the health aspects of the breeds. I understand their opinion, but it is essentially wrong. 

Breeders select foundation cats and dogs that are very handsome, and which are in line with the breed standard. They don't tend to select cats and dogs from which to breed which are inherently healthy. They don't prioritise health when they should be doing this.

Breeders should be prioritising health first, personality second and appearance third. But they prioritise these three elements in the reverse order because they have to stick to the breed standard and that document demands inbred animals often with extreme features.

Ben is a celebrity veterinarian who has a big presence on the social media site TikTok. His full name is Ben Simpson-Vernon. He gets lots of hate online because of his attempts to promote health in companion animals.

He says that: "I would just get a domestic shorthair, otherwise known as a moggy-just your regular, standard, garden variety cat. They're the cat equivalent of a mutt, or a mongrel, so on average they are going to be less inbred than your average pedigreed cat. And they're just lovely."

The problem with humankind in respect of cat and dog companions and selecting one is that people are obsessed with appearance. People like to possess beautiful objects. And when it comes to companion animals, they tend to be more interested in the appearance of the animal than their character. This feeds into selective breeding by breeders for appearance.

In my view, it is a human weakness to be obsessed by appearance and there is a moral duty (I'm preaching - sorry) to create purebred cat companions that are as healthy as possible. This does not happen.

The cat associations do not help because they write breed standards which leads to unhealthy cats e.g., the contemporary Persian with the flat face which distorts the anatomy.

There are other breeds which are bred to extreme which in turn affects their health. And there are many breeds based upon genetic mutations resulting in an abnormal but interesting appearance. These mutations have an impact upon the anatomy of the cat which is detrimental to their health and I'm referring in this instance to the well-known Scottish Fold. There are other breeds.

I am pleased that Ben is promoting the humble moggy. That is the way it should be.

How do I become a professional pet sitter?

Professional pet sitters on TikTok. Screenshot.

To answer the question in the title, what I would do is go to the TikTok website and search for "pet sitting" or "pet sitter" and look at one or two of the videos and from that you will find all you need to know to start off on a career as a pet sitter. These people have done it. They've got the t-shirt! They should know and it is a very simply starting point. But makes sure that you are the right kind of person.

In essence, there are quite a few organisations which act as an agent between a professional pet sitter who wants to provide the service and the customer who has a cat or dog that requires pet sitting. But I would strongly recommend looking at these TikTok videos because it really does get you going and one of them is below. There are many others.

@frogmommyyy Reply to @magic.melk here you go folks #petsitting #SmellLikeIrishSpring #petsitter #rover #UnsealTheMeal ♬ original sound - riley

One couple do it professionally and they travel wherever their work takes them which often means travelling abroad and sometimes staying in really nice homes while they look after a couple of cats.

It obviously cuts down the cost of travelling and enjoying the experience of visiting new countries tremendously. And of course, there is time during one's day at the customer's apartment or house to take a quick tour around the location and become a tourist briefly.

@nomadsandpawpads Our first of many sits in Europe is going to hard to top! We had so much fun with these two and we miss them already. 🥰 We’re so excited to share where we are now! More updates coming soon, and If you want to learn more about travel by pet sitting follow our page of check out our website!🙌🏼 #fyp #fypage #europetravel #travelhack #abroad #travelingpetsitter #travel ♬ Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - Mozart

If you like travel and animals and are conscientious, self-disciplined and well behaved then I would suggest that a professional pet sitter is a good job because they are in demand. And the work is internationally based.

Link to rovers.co.uk

In the UK, there is a cost-of-living crisis and I suspect that quite a lot of people are supplementing their income through pet sitting. I have recently read a story of a young woman who earns over £3000 annually pet sitting to help her make ends meet. It is a way of earning money on a freelance basis as a self-employed person. This is always welcome because it allows some flexibility. But also, it carries extra responsibilities.

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You can ignore this section if you simply want to know how to get started on pet sitting and you are convinced that you have all the right attributes.

Attributes

Nonetheless, I think that it is useful to at least touch on the attributes of a good pet sitter. Not everybody can do the job. You've got to really like cats and dogs if you pet sit cats and dogs and often there will be a cat and a dog in the same home, so you got to like both of them.

Oh, and it pays to have no family obligations like kids and pets of your own! Common sense, I guess.

It doesn't really work if you are allergic to cats and dogs!

You really must have some knowledge of cat and dog behaviour. And indeed, some cat/dog health knowledge would certainly help so that you can pick up health issues quickly and be observant about them and be able to distinguish between health issues which you can wait and watch and those that require veterinary treatment urgently.

Above all else you need to respect domestic cats and dogs. You need to respect their behavioural traits, demands and requirements.

Vis-à-vis a domestic cat, you really must not let them escape and there is a potential for a full-time indoor cat to try and escape.

There is no other breach of contract greater for a pet sitter than to have to tell the cat's owner that you have lost their cat during the time that you were a pet sitter for them.

To avoid the possibility of losing a cat you have to be diligent, cautious and aware of the potential problems that might exist and shut them off in a timely manner.

It probably pays for a professional pet sitter to have with them their own first-aid box and other professional health accessories and medication to use as and when required.

On a personal level, pet sitters will have to be insured against liabilities in relation to damage to the pet's owner's property and against, for example, losing a cat as described above. Any accident should be insured against.

Pet sitting is a responsible job. Image: Pixabay.

The corollary to that is that the homeowner and pet owner should also take out insurance to protect themselves. What if a pet sitter is injured while in their home and it is because the home is defective? That would be an instance where the owner would be personally liable. There are countless other possibilities. It's about what is called 'occupiers' liability' and protecting against it.

Clearly, a professional pet sitter needs to be a good communicator both with humans and pets! They need to reassure the cat and dog owners that they can trust them. The greatest problem or the greatest barrier to a cat or dog owner permitting a pet sitter to live in their home and look after their companion animals is believing that the pet sitter will respect their home and their animals. 

It is in believing that when they come home after their holiday or whatever they come back to a home in exactly the same state that they left it.

Companion animal owners need to feel completely relaxed with pet sitters looking after cats and dogs. Otherwise, is going to be difficult for them if, for example, they are on holiday.

I don't think that a pet sitter can do a good job if they think it's easy. If they think it's easy, they might be lazy, and laziness can lead to unforeseen catastrophes. It is absolutely essential that the cats and dogs are kept safe in their charge. That's the first requirement.

If things go wrong, they should contact the owners and talk through what is going on. There needs to be excellent communication as it will help to reassure the owners that all is well.

I think a pet sitter takes on a very responsible job because they are taking charge of a family member or family members for a period of time, and these are very important individuals to the owners.

Male cat has 'sex' with bed clothes

This is actually pretty normal and certainly not very unusual although the owner was nonplussed. My cat does something similar on my arm when I am wearing an old fleece dressing gown. I let him do it and this owner should let his cat do it. Why? Because it pleases him, and it does no harm and it's not really an inconvenience for the human caregiver in my view. Human caregivers should do all they can to please their cat. This often means allowing them to express natural behaviour.

Male cat has 'sex' with bed clothes. Screenshot.

It is entirely instinctive. You can see that he wants to hump his owner because he has grabbed the fictional female by the scruff of our neck in his jaws. He is clearly confused because he thinks that the bedsheet is a female cat.

It sort of proves that cats are very instinctive in their behaviour, and they don't rationalise what they're doing. If they did this cat would understand that he has a bedsheet in his mouth that he is trying to hump.

To me, it doesn't signify any mental health problem. It's just, as I said, instinctive and an outlet for his natural drives and motivators. Dogs like to hump their owner's leg sometimes for the same sort of reason. Our pets need an outlet for their sexual urges and there's not much of an outlet for them.

And notably, domestic cats can still have an urge to procreate even when they are neutered i.e., their balls have been removed. I think that it is a very cruel operation but a very necessary one at the same time. Losing the production of testosterone does not sometimes prevent their urge to procreate.

On that basis, it seems that the origin of the urge to procreate does not come from testosterone but survival of the species, I guess. Testosterone probably heightens the urge and drives male cats harder to pass on their genes.

 

Note: sometimes embedded videos stop working or malfunction, something I cannot, regrettably control.

14-year-old cat head butts 1.5-year-old child

This charming photograph is on the quora.com website on a page which discusses the photo-editing of pictures of cats. And the person who started off the discussion said that pictures of cats should never be photoshopped because cats are charming enough as it is, and they don't need to be photo edited. 

And you should never add human teeth to cats which, incidentally, is something we see a lot of on the Internet.

Anyway, one person who joined the conversation added a screenshot of a photograph of a 14-year-old cat head-butting an 18-month-old child and that is the photograph that you see on this page.

It is charming and it is to be expected to be honest. The ginger tabby obviously has a nice connection with this child. And he is doing what he would do with an adult person which is to scent exchange. That means he deposits his scent from the glands around his head onto the child and in doing that he receives the child's scent onto his head.

There is a metaphorical merging of minds and beings which is reassuring for him. It's a bit like saying that the child is part of his family. And as the child now smells more like him, he is part of the family.

If you click on this link blow you can read more about scent exchange.

Based on what I have read and seen on the Internet, domestic cats are curious about babies, and they often form good relationships with babies. I don't see any real danger to babies from domestic cats. There is a fear probably by some mothers that a baby might be harmed but it doesn't happen.

And there's quite a lot of work on whether a baby benefits from being in a home with a cat and indeed being close to a cat such as when sleeping with a cat on their bed at night. This is still work in progress but my reading of the science on this is that it can strengthen a child's defences against allergens. 

In effect, when a baby is in a relationship with a domestic cat it desensitises them to allergens in the air for the rest of their life. But, as mentioned, the science is not entirely conclusive on this.

The feline allergen, Fel D1, is carried around the entirety of the home on cat dander, which is a kind of dandruff, but it is in fact small skin particles and bits of hair on which is dried saliva and the dried oils of sebaceous glands in the skin both of which deposit the feline allergen onto these tiny particles which are 5 µm across.

Is cat dander bad for babies?

They are so small that they can float in the air very easily and they land on bits of furniture and so on which is why a person who is allergic to cats can feel the effects of the allergy even when they are a good distance from the cat in a home where a cat resides.

Anger in the community as alleged multiple cat killer appears in court

Accused cat killer in court. Screenshot from video below.

The video explains the story. It is pretty horrible, but the guy is innocent until proven guilty as we all know. The protesting ladies are sure that he is the cat killer because he was captured by a security camera abducting one of the cats and the footage is sufficiently clear to identify the individual.

The guy is 18-years-of-age. He looks much older.

 

Please remember I can't guarantee that the video above will remain functional as it is embedded here and served up by a computer beyond my control.

The video caption is "Orangevale alleged cat killer appears in court. Madisen Keavy was outside the Sacramento County Main Jail where she questioned the accused cat killer and spoke with neighbors in Orangevale".

There are many cat killers in many countries. In fact, all countries have cat killers because the domestic, stray and feral cat polarises opinion and there are many disturbed people, almost always men or boys, who need to express their anger by killing innocent and available animals. 

The outside domestic cat is a very convenient target sadly.