This home’s garage floor has a hollow-core concrete slab underneath it, with compartments like a honey-comb. The cat had apparently made its way into one of the segments before the garage floor was poured, 12 days earlier.
When workers realized where the cat was, they made plans to rescue the cat, because the alternative was just too grim.
Despite the cost of damages the rescue would cost, into the garage floor they went. As soon as the hole was big enough, the cat dashed away.
But there was another surprise waiting for them; several other sets of glowing eyes shined out of the darkness. It hadn’t been just one cat, but a mother and her litter of three kittens. The kittens were extremely malnourished, and the 12-day darkness left little Crete blind.
Read the entire story. There is also a video that I cannot copy here. Bravo to the workers for rescuing them! Purrs to them!
Today I’d like to talk about our humans. I noticed on a couple of blogs – and on mine ahem [ checking behind my human’s hands what she is typing exactly], that humans have been making dumb mistakes like forgetting to post pictures we wanted them to post, or forgetting to answer fan mail, or forgetting to tweet on our page, or… misspelling or making typing mistakes.
And you my furriends, although I’m sure you noticed, didn’t say anything, that was so nice of you.
Ahem. This is embarrassing. For my human I mean, of course. Can’t she pay attention? And I don’t want to hear that she is tired. Of course she is! She’s only sleeping 6 to 7 hours a day!
I’m telling you no treats for my human today: no cuddling accepted, no purring on lap. No nothing. No. No need to peg me.
Ah! I’m so not happy with that. I might even bite.
My human explained to me how important it is to remember the military humans who gave their lives so that other humans can be free. I’m not sure I understand everything but I trust her. So here is a little flag for the US military and US veterans.
I also asked my human if any furriends were part of the military (she had to explained what military was). And apparently, there are dogs in the military. So we looked for articles and here are a couple you might find of interest:
Since World War I, military working dogs have been in existence, and during the Vietnam War, the use of military working dogs increased, and German Shepherds were usually the breed of choice, along with Labrador Retrievers. Capacities that the dogs (and their handlers) served in were usually as scout dogs, combat tracker teams and mine tunnel dog teams.
In saving countless lives, those canines have also become casualties.
In fact, former commander of United States forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus had noted in 2010 that “…the capability they bring to the fight cannot be replicated by man or machine.”
Dogs have been used in war and for other military uses since ancient Egypt. They were used to deliver messages between units behind the lines in World War I. The use of military working dogs increased during the Vietnam War with over 5000 dogs serving in Vietnam. There were also a large number of dogs that served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Cairo, a Belgian Malinois, a dog we heard a lot about not too long ago, accompanied the Navy SEAL Team Six in the attack which killed Osama bin Laden.
Wow. Here’s a video about the dogs working for the Navy Seals:
Supporting our Military, Veterans, and their beloved Pets to ensure the pets are reunited with their owners following a deployment (combat or peace-keeping mission) in harm’s way to fight the global war on terrorism or unforseen emergency hardship impacting their ability to retain their pet’s ownership rights.
We haven’t heard of this organization but my human promised to investigate for we think it’s a wonderful mission.
Finally, our human found this page some time ago, and I really wanted to share these beautiful pictures with you, in honor of military men and women. From my human and myself Texas.
Oh my. What a week! First I got the Sunshine Award. Twice. Now tonight, when my human came back home from the groceries, she told me all excited that All That JazzCat nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award! And she didn’t even think to celebrate by bringing back home some nip! Ah, humans!
But that’s okay, because I am very honored to have been nominated + that gives me the opportunity to be introduced to yet another cool, jazzy furriend: Jazz Cat Jay. Hey furriend!
Frankly, I am positively purringly honored and happy to know all of you furriends. And I hope I can keep you entertained anytime you want to visit (Grouik is taking care of the food ;-) Nah just kidding! Oh my Ceiling Cat! I’m so excited! And I just can’t hide it! I know, I know, I know…)
Soooo… to acknowledge the Liebster Blog Award, I must:
My first award, from a blogger peer. It means so much to me I can’t stop purring.
Sally the Cat Protectress and Slash, from CatPurrology, brightened my day by bestowing me, Texas, with a Sunshine Award!
purring… purring… purring…
My blog is not very old but I’ve already made plenty of new friends and Sally and Slash are among them. Thank you so much for everything you do. Many purrs to you!
The instructions for the award are as follows:
1. Link the award to the person who gave it to you.
2. Answer the questions that come with it.
3. Pass it along to 10 people and let them know they have received it.
Here are the questions & my answers:
Favorite number: 7 Favorite Non-alcoholic drink: water from my human’s glass Facebook or Twitter: both although I prefer Facebook My Passion: Naps Favorite pattern: cat hair Favorite Day of the Week: Caturday Favorite Flower: Carnation
In no particular order my nominations for The Sunshine Award are:
On the Internet, I came across many horror stories about humans dressing their cats as if they were humans or worse, some kind of dolls. The trend seems to be to put so-called hats on the heads of furry friends, stuff like that:
That’s enough! We are not dolls!
My human never tried that. She knows better and cares about her hands and arms! But I also know that she understand I am not her toy.
If my human ever tries to put a “hat” on me, that’s not her arm she is going to lose.
I have to ask the question: do you really think your furriend enjoys and feels comfortable wearing this? Or is it the human who really likes it and who wants some funny photo shoots?
Then I saw this. At first, I was happy for Iemon and thought he could be proud:
Meet Iemon (Ee-eh-mon), Japan’s first police cat, an abandoned stray who unofficially joined the force at the tender age of two weeks. He now spends much of his time atop the service counter at Yoro Station, adding a kinder, gentler, dare we say “human” touch to the local cop shop.
And then…
For the most part, Iemon’s function appears to be skewed more towards public relations than private detectives. He enjoys visits from children and looks reasonably impressive in his custom-made policeman’s uniform topped with a cap bearing a paw-print badge. Those with felonious intent should not take this feline lightly, though, as he hasn’t been de-clawed and has a low tolerance for jailbirds.
How do you want Iemon to be taken seriously while looking like that?
Hopefully the humans won’t come complaining that we bite and scratch after they do this to us. Next time maybe they’ll think before trying to dress us. We will get our revenge, anyway.
When I left France, I left some furry and human friends behind.
Here is Fripouille (which means something like “little monkey” in French), a neighbor. I wonder if she misses me. I do miss her sometimes, but then I remember I live with Grouik and Milou now, and I have to make sure neither Grouik nor Milou are eating my food, so I forget about Fripouille…
Thanks to my human friend Janina for the pics and purrs to Fripouille! And to Janina!
My human received a big box from France the other day. Turns out there was something for us cats in it. Balls. Brand new balls. Yep. You don’t believe me? Check it here.
Monty’s heroics began with behaviour that Peter described as uncharacteristic.
Monty woke Peter up by nibbling on her left hand late one night. Peter said that this behaviour was strange as Monty never bites. But it was also strange because Peter’s left hand is the only hand that she uses to test for diabetes.
Initially, Peter tried to “shoo” her cat away, but Monty was persistent in keeping Peter awake.
Eventually Peter gave in to the demands of her cat and got out of bed.
Upon standing, Peter realized that something was wrong.
“I felt dizzy, disoriented, shaky. I couldn’t focus, I was nauseous,” Peter said.
By the time Peter made it to the kitchen, her blood sugar had reached a dangerously low 2.7. Even after Peter treated her sugar levels with medication, Monty would not leave her alone.
Monty stayed by her side until her levels normalized.
The story, she said, should delight not just kids, but foodies, cat lovers, Child fans and Francophiles.
“Minette’s Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and her Cat,” was released May 1 by Abrams and tells the story of Child’s first cat she adopted when she lived in Paris in 1948 with her husband, Paul. At the time, Child was learning to cook and the couple lived in an old apartment near the Seine.
I have lived in Paris too! Oui Madame !
Reich explained that as Child was learning to cook, she would often give Minette the leftovers. Her apartment, she added, also had mice in the walls.
“The crux of the story is about the cat preferring the mice to anything Julia Child cooks,” Reich said.
I have to say that I was very not happy when my human got an iPad about 2 years ago. More time I got stolen.
Anyway, about a year ago, she came to me and Milou, all happy to show us what she calls an app (?!), as if it was some kind of toy for us. But that was not funny. Yes, there was something moving on the little black screen. Was it real? No. Was it funny? No. Did it smell catnip? No.
[My human cannot find the pics of me and Milou in front of this silly thing. I really have to start monitoring my human’s work!]
In 2011, he decided to add to his creative portfolio by devising a Friskies app for the Apple iPad featuring simple video games that humans could play with their cats. True, most cats walk by the iPad and pay no bother. But some of the more curious ones find the floating fish on the iPad screen interesting enough to paw. Nestle Purina’s experiment has garnered 500,000 downloads so far.
Ok. Just because this app is not sophisticated enough doesn’t mean we are not curious. Milou and I are very curious cats. And yes I know about Karl Lagerfeld’s cat but Choupette is just a kid!
Now if you would excuse me, I have more important things to do than to play with a silly human toy. I need a nap.
Happy Mother’s Day! Especially for furry and human Moms, and of course, Oreo: the story of Bushytail:
Box decided to try placing the squirrel with her cat, Oreo, who had recently given birth to a litter of five kittens. They put the squirrel, which Bailee has christened “Bushytail,” in the “cat house,” a straw-lined wooden house on stilts where Oreo was nursing her kittens. When they checked on the squirrel the next day, they saw him nursing side-by-side with his feline step-siblings. The Boxes have also seen Oreo licking the squirrel like she does the kittens.
“We are devastated,” said Mary Martin, the Santa Fe shelter’s executive director. “We were in a race against time to get the weight off Meow before he developed complications from his morbid obesity and we lost.”
Meow started developing symptoms, but shelter vets didn’t jump to conclusions.
“When we first heard Meow wheezing, we attributed it to possible allergies or the fact that he was moving around more in his foster home but treated it with further tests and medications,” Jennifer Steketee, shelter vet and Meow’s doctor said. “Many obese people and animals wheeze when they walk, but we didn’t want to assume anything.”
Buh-bye furriend. I know you’re in a better place now.
Sound is important because the men make e-cards, email greetings in the form of short animations. Their core franchise stars an excitable pink cat named Hoops and his little green rabbit sidekick, YoYo, their voices high-pitched to an almost chipmunk-like shrillness. Hallmark said Hoops & YoYo, which have almost 200 cards online, account for about one-third of its total e-cards sent. The cartoon duo now have their own line of paper cards, coffee mugs, plush dolls, bumper stickers and a holiday TV special.
Sometimes, humans just don’t have a sense of priorities. I have already mentioned how you can get your human’s attention when your human is busy with a laptop.
Well, my human, on top of reading cooking blogs, reads a lot of books. Below is a simple technique to remind your human that you exist and you are more important than any book.
See? Easy as 1, 2, 3, as humans say.
Make sure to cover the book as much as possible. Et voilà !
My human likes to cook (although it’s not always to our taste – ahem). And she likes to read cooking blogs. In fact, she spends way too much time reading cooking blogs while she could be playing with me instead. Anyway.
Nevertheless, I noticed a nice post today that might be of interest to my readers. It comes from Sprinkle Bakes, one of my human’s favorite cooking blogs, and it’s about making peanut-honey cupcakes for dogs. Check it out!
I also happen to completely agree with the human who wrote it:
His history is somewhat of a mystery to us, but we were told that he came from a pretty bad situation. You’d never know that from his demeanor. He’s the sweetest real-life teddy bear you’ll ever meet! And he instantly fit right in with Biscuit-the-pug and our three kitty-cats. Words cannot express how gentle and loving he is. It breaks my heart that there are so many animals of similar docility that get taken to the shelter. I don’t like to think about that too much, but I felt that I must mention it.
My human has the same reaction. And so do I. I often pray Ceiling Cat that he may keep them safe and find them a forever home.
Let’s go back to something more fun! Let’s wish Churro a Happy Birthday! Many purrs to you, Churro!
We’re glad Simon and his cat are very successful and well-known. It is nice from Simon to recognize that this success is mainly due to his cat though ;-)
We are very much a fan of Simon’s cat in this house, furry friends and humans alike. That’s why after the videos, we’re going to ask our humans to check the book:
I think I’m hungry. Let me get my human to give me some food ;-)
We had heard about cat cafes in Japan. Now we learn that one has just opened in Vienna.
Five cats roam freely in “Cafe Neko,” ready to be stroked and cuddled — and when they are tired of all the attention, they can disappear into their own space or climb high above the tables, out of reach of the guests.
“Cafe Neko” opened Thursday. Owner Alexander Thuer tells the Austria Press Agency that the idea to combine coffee with cats comes from his Japanese wife, Takako Ishimitsu, who says such establishments are common in Asia — but rare in Europe.
But not all guests are welcome. Dogs, which have entry to most Viennese coffee houses, have to stay outside.
Of course just not anyone enters the home of cats!
Those cat cafes have been a bit controversial but I really think this is like making a scene about just a small hairball. Like the article mentioned above states, cats are not really the kind of furriends that will let humans play with them if they don’t feel like being cuddled. As long as they have a place of their own where they can go to nap, away from humans, that is fine.
Furry friends like being cuddled by friendly human friends and they will decide how much of it they want. It’s a win-win situation (Wow! Am I the econo-cat or what?!)
Besides it’s still better than to be in a shelter, isn’t it furriends?
purring… purring… purring…
Texas, a cat in New York 