Posted in bad things happen to good cats, tagged brooklyn, rent stabilization, stench on September 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Landlord sued over dead cat stench, bag of cat carcasses left to rot.
The best paragraph is the first one:
“Tenants of a Brooklyn building said their landlord came up with a new idea for how to push them out: Let the smell of the cats out of the bag–dead cats, that is.”
In all seriousness, this is totally fucked up.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat sayings, curiosity killed the cat, jack, pet sayings, tails of the city on September 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Tails of the City, a Bay Area pet blog, has a great post about the origin of the phrase “curiosity killed the cat.” Turns out it was originally “care killed the cat,” with care meaning worry or sorrow. This could definitely apply to my cat, Jack, who has his fair share of neuroses, including what can only be described as a kitty panic attack that occurs when he can’t find his girlfriend, a fuzzy blue blanket that he humps several times a day.
Posted in bad things happen to good cats, tagged genetic deformities, hemingway cats, inbreeding, radial hypoplasia, snowball, squitten on September 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
If you follow cat news, you may have heard that last week the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum announced that it had reached an agreement with various government agencies that would allow the famous Hemingway cats to continue to live there. Hemingway cats are cats with six toes descended from Snowball, a cat given to Hemingway in 1935. They look like this:
(photo by Rob O’Neal/AP)
But in researching Hemingway cats, I came across mention of another type of genetic mutation that can produce an animal referred to as . . . the squitten. No, it’s not a half squirrel/half kitten, but it is a cat with stunted forelegs that give it a slightly squirrel-like appearance.
The real name of the condition is radial hypoplasia, and it’s more commonly found in inbred cats (another reason that cat inbreeding is very very bad.)
Posted in cat of the week, strays, tagged cat of the week, lara, urchin on September 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Meet Urchin.
Gender: F
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Current Place of Residence: Greensboro, NC
Age/Coloring: Tortoiseshell, About four years old
Mom: My friend Lara
Means of Survival Before Finding Mama: McDonald’s trash, the kindness of strangers
Likes: Laying on Mama’s feet, shedding hair on her vintage furniture, Grandma’s old dollhouse, dudes.
Dislikes: When you do not pay attention to her.
Posted in strays, tagged cat incest, chicago, inbreeding, strays, yoda on September 25, 2008 | 3 Comments »
In the midst of an article about a lovely Chicago family who takes in strays was this photo. What on earth could make a cat look like that? According to the article, it’s inbreeding, which makes looking at her almost more bizarre. If there was ever a reason to prevent cat incest . . .
(Photo by Gus Stuertze for the Courier News).
Posted in bad things happen to good cats, tagged adoption, hurricane ike, texas on September 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Houston SPCA has started up a program to find foster homes for Galveston animals that are refugees from Hurricane Ike. This article in the Houston Chronicle details a day in the life of one shelter where animals are both temporarily rescued as well as reunited with their owners. Little kitty and puppy orphans! I get teary-eyed just thinking about it.
Posted in RIP, tagged england, facebook, fonzworthy, heather, RIP on September 24, 2008 | 2 Comments »
He was a cat with many names. But Atkinson/ Fonzworthy/ Dave/ Ginger was also a cat that made his way into many hearts. A group of neighbors in Bath, England, “adopted” the stray years ago, and he roamed from house to house, spreading his love. To me, this is such an awesome story not just because it’s about an amazing cat but also because it’s about how he brought together his own little community, now complete with a Facebook memorial group.
Big thanks to my friend Heather for telling me about him. In her honor I chose to post the photo of him with a Doctor Who figurine.
Posted in Uncategorized on September 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Big cat stalking Sydney may be no urban myth
Some say they’ve seen wild black panthers in the Sydney suburbs, but others claim it’s just feral cats with really, really thick coats.
Ghost cat sightings give residents pause
A similar story in Virginia (strangely reported only in a newspaper from Alberta). In this case, it’s cougars, and the doubters say they’re just bobcats or large dogs.
Big cats find sanctuary in Tampa
Whatever those animals are, they’re very different from the animals at Big Cat Rescue in Florida, all of whom were born in captivity and rescued from roadside zoos, basements, and backyards.
(That photo at the top is by Taryn Simon, and it’s a favorite of mine. It’s of Kenny, a retarded white tiger. White tigers don’t naturally occur in the wild, and must be bred. Years and years of inbreeding led to Kenny’s retardation. Check out Kenny and Taryn’s other photographs here.)
Posted in Uncategorized on September 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Carnegie, once an official employee of the city of Rochester, charged with keeping the mouse and bat population of the Rochester Public Library under control, died last week.
Library secretary Gail Pearson remembered him fondly, “from falling asleep in a patron’s brief case, to lying head to head with a small child on the floor, with the pair gazing into each others’ eyes. Pearson also recalls a regular patron with an ample bosom, who would read for a while and then fall back asleep, providing Carnegie with a comfortable location on which to nap also.”
A cat who loved books AND ample bosoms. May he get his heart’s fill of both in kitty heaven.
Posted in bad things happen to good cats, tagged cat cruelty, gross, switzerland on September 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
thank god.
Apparently, cat fur and skin is believed to relieve rheumatism in Switzerland. According to this article, many tanners are willing to make blankets out of cats for just a couple hundred euros. But luckily, now that most other countries in Europe are officially banning this sort of thing, Switzerland is too.
The thought of a blanket made from sweet fluffy kitties makes me want to throw up.
