Reader Linda Grilli, who has upwards of six cats, informs me that today is World Cat Day. And damn if she’s not right! Today is indeed the one day of the year that is officially designated for appreciating cats, though of course on this site every day is World Cat Day. I’m only sad that Google didn’t see fit to make a Doodle; that would have been fantastic.
I even thought of limiting posting to those who have are owned by cats, but that would be unfair. Feel free, however, to offer a short tribute to your cat in the comments.
To celebrate, Hili (I hope) will get an extra sachet of Chicken Whiskas, and you can see some celebrations over at International Business Times (“15 Reasons Why Cats are Better than Dogs“), which includes these reasons:
Did I ever tell you how Abbie Smith’s pit bull, Arnie, distressed her by repeatedly trying to hump my leg when I visited her? Yes, I did tell you that, but I just wanted to rub it in, since it made her scream with embarrassment.
UPDATE: In comment #9, reader Tubby claims that he had a cat that would hump another cat—its BROTHER. I asked for photographic proof and got the following note and photo.
Attached is a smaller version of the photo of Orson humping Bogie. Both cats are male, and according to the shelter they came from they’re littermates. This was taken the night I got them back from the vet after having them fixed, so the hormones were still raging. Unfortunately I never managed to catch a photo of either one of them in the act with a stuffed animal. Mostly because I was laughing too hard to grab the camera. Their favorite targets were the large Catbus I mentioned in my reply, as well as a large blue dragon and a large Totoro.
I don’t know: I can’t see much proof of cat-humping from this blurry photo. Skeptical readers, what do you think? I can barely make out two cats!
And, the Cheezburger site, responsible for much of this business, is celebrating by collecting the best internet images of cats that look like other things. You can submit your own. Here are two of the four that are up:
And from over the Big Pond, the Sydney Morning Herald proclaims the Day (they have 15 more photos; be sure to see #7):
In all my life, I’ve never seen an expression like that on a cat.
To the rulers of the world:
No wonder my neighbour’s large ginger tom was looking pleased with himself this morning!
When isn’t it World Cat Day at WEIT?
And why isn’t it World Cat Day everywhere, EVERY day?
“those who have cats” – come on Prof Ceiling Cat – we all know it is cats who have people, not people who have cats!
Fixed, thanks!
A cat adopted us when I was a teenager in Norwich. She was a former farm cat, Tabitha, & officially lived with a neighbour, but would wander in the back door. She used to sit by the river Wensum watching anglers. A very happy cat. I still have a couple of photos of her that my parents had with pictures of the rest of the family!
These are the cats that have shared my adult life (the dates are the times that they lived with me, not total lifespan):
Astrid (1981-1986) – a sweet black longhair who traveled with me from Wisconsin to Connecticut to Minnesota to Chicago. She died of cancer.
Thorbjorn (1986-1999) – a gentleman cat in all respects. The first time we met, he climbed up into my armes and licked me on the nose. I couldn’t turn him down. Also died of cancer.
Freti (1991-2008) – a former street cat, adopted as a companion for Thorbjorn. It took a year for him to adjust to being a house cat, but once he did, he became a real sweetie. He caught an infection and died aged nineteen.
Kveldulf (1995-2012) – a stray black shorthair taken in my my wife, and a real troublemaker. I thought of naming him Loki, but my wife said that naming a cat after a god of mischief was asking for trouble (Kveldulf means Evening Wolf). He outlived my wife by thirteen years, and losing him was like losing her all over again.
Isa (2009 – Present) – a Maine Coon mix, and she’s turned out to be a real sweetie. She follows me around, sleeps next to me, and has a musical purr.
Samone (2012 – present) – a shorthair tabby. Since Isa is so clingy, I adopted a second cat who was more independent (to avoid jealousy issues) and went too far. For the first six months, she seemed indifferent to people and affection, but has slowly been coming to accept that cuddles are nice things. The first cat of mine to have a non-Viking name.
🙁 & 🙂 at the same time, if you see what I mean…
“Viking name”, I like that! Quite an egalitarian society (in the Greek sense) too, before misogynist abrahamism infected the area.
And thanks for the good/bad tales.
I studied Old Norse for five years, including a summer of study in Iceland.
I did as well! But not in Iceland…
My cat (Calico), also known as “Princess”, wishes to celebrate World Cat Day by giving all the cat lovers out there a big MEOW !
P.S. She just jumped on my lap while I’m trying to type out this message. She’s extremely jealous of my laptop. Oh, now she wants a treat just for making physical contact with me. Gotta go get her treat! Hey, who’s the owner here?
After a recent trip, I realized another reason why cats are far better than dogs: Your cats, cats on the streets, neighbor’s cats, and basically cats in general don’t keep you awake at night by barking constantly at every passerby or at every little noise.
True, but have you ever lived someplace where there is a sizable feral cat population? It can get very noisy at night. Crazy, outlandish vocalizations that can go on for a long time. Impossible to sleep with that going on.
And you should hear the cats too!
Ba-Zinga!
I heard a really funny episode of a CBC show yesterday. The show is an open mic event held in various locations across Canada where adults read things they wrote as kids. Episode 7 had two women reading what they wrote about cats. The last one is pretty funny because it’s a poem. The link is here – make sure you go to Episode 7 & to get to the cat content you can start it at ~1300.
That soudns terrifying, I have trouble enough reading my graduate theses (last of which from 2003) and they were written when I was an adult. 😉
One guy read his comic (which is actually pretty good) that was inspired from the Ninja Turtles. He wanted to make a Canadian equivalent so it was called “Boomerang Beavers”. It was hilarious when he read it out and described the pictures. You can see the actual comic on the Web site.
The cats in our household are Pietje and Druil, approx. 1.5 years old, and Guercino and Jan, approx. 1 year old. Unfortunately, Jan took off two weeks ago and we are still looking for him (by the way, any tips?); It would be nice to have him back by August 13, which is his birthday.
In the meantime, we will give the three an extra treat today, and will think and search extra hard of/for Jan.
Sadly, I must say that intact male cats will hump people, other cats and things. Orson came with his nubs attached which granted him a fat, round head and an unrequited love for a large stuffed Catbus toy that had to be put away until that was all taken care of. I might still photographic evidence.
Photos or it didn’t happen!
Lemme check the old camera. The photo in question involves Orson and his littermate Bogie, both post fixing and adorned in Elizabethan collars.
Orson still has a relationship with the large blue dragon toy, although it’s much more platonic now- it’s strictly limited to cuddles and sleeping with it.
Tubby is correct.
It’s not just intact male cats (although in this case, there were extenuating circumstances).
I once had a friend who had two female cats and one male kitten. They were indoor cats, and she decided she didn’t have to worry about getting them spayed/neutered until the male kitten was older. So of course she wound up with two litters of kittens, born a week or two apart. I adopted one kitten from each litter.
I took the two half-brothers to be neutered on the same day. When I brought them home that evening, the usually-less-dominant kitten started following his brother around and trying to hump him. He persisted in this behavior for what seemed like a really long time, but only that one evening. I think it must have been some weird after-effect of the anesthesia.
Our current persnickety, pilous potentate is a 2 year old Mandalay named Coco Chanel. She is a curious mixture of super bad ass and scaredy cat.
She is very bold when playing. And smart. The people at the vet that we board her at call her tiger, and they love when we bring her in. In situations where all other cats I have known would run or otherwise back down, she charges directly at you. But, if you put something on your head, a helmet, a hat, a stuffed animal, whatever, she freaks out as if you were her personal boogeyman.
She is not always cuddly. That “don’t tell me what to do” attitude so common in cats has been squared in her case. But at certain times she is very affectionate, and she always sleeps in bed with us, usually arranging herself so she is touching both the wife and I.
I don’t think she could survive without people at this point. In order to eat she has to get someone to follow her to her food bowl and scratch & pat her butt so she can eat. In order to go to the bathroom she has to get someone to follow her to the toilet to watch and tell her how awesome she is for doing her business.
I was out of town when my wife and kids found her at the Humane Society. We had been looking for a cat for a while. I received a brief text, “We found the PERFECT kitty!” I got home at night a couple of days later, sat down on the couch, and this little chocolate kitty slithered off my wife’s lap over to me and promptly sprawled across my legs.
I tend to three cats; Chairman Meow, who is a fluffy tabby, very affectionate and happy for you to rub his belly for hours, Heidi aka The Floofy, a Ragdoll who loathes everyone except me and my eldest son, and Misty, an Austrlian Mist I inherited when my mother had to go into care, who is a lovely friendly animal with uncertain health and big worried eyes. They are are all wonderful in their own way.
Diana — named after the Roman goddess of the hunt — was a tabby who loved being warm; she would cram herself under the rattling and gurgling radiator in our NYC apartment.
One morning, after I served an omelette from the fry pan, I put the still hot pan back on the stove. While my back was turned she managed quietly to jump into the pan, curl herself into its rather small, round shape, and began to purr. 🙂
Sometime during the first week or two that I dated the woman that later became my wife, I called her Diana. I intended it as a compliment in reference to the Roman goddess of the hunt. She backed me up against a wall with her finger to my chest, got in my face and said, with much menace, “My name is not Diana. It’s not Di or Diana, it’s Diane.”
Never made that mistake again. Plenty of others though.
I have had 2 friends named Diane. One I used to work with so we always got each other’s mail and she once gave away my meeting room, thinking she must’ve booked it when someone else asked her for it.
My other friend has since changed her name. She is bi-sexual but when I new her she identified as gay. People would mix us up and I’d often announce that “I was not the gay one”. We both found that funny.
Well, I hope you weren’t the sad one! No fun in that.
Ha ha! It was funny because all the guys were looking at me in a way I knew that they were wondering if I was the gay one. They were embarrassed when I addressed the elephant in the room.
If you Google ‘cat humping stuffed toy’ you will get a lot of hits. That may be the strangest phrase I have ever typed for a web search.
uuuuhh huh.
Just imagine walking in on it!
Ha ha delete your browser history!! It’s too late though, it’s on your firewall and the NSA have already archived it.
But, but, it was just research! Honest!
I am now up to seven cats, with the arrival yesterday morning of Jose Felidiano and Billy the Kit, aged six and a half weeks.
Happy to report that they are settling in fine.
Pictures to follow if I can get my husband to take a few (I am a rotten photographer). L
I can’t wait!
Baihu is celebrating by sleeping in….
b&
Fred is purring by my head.
Perhaps in honor of Cat Day, the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest August 11 & 18 issue, last page, should pique your interest, Mr. Coyne. Hope you win!
The one here? (At least at the moment.)
http://contest.newyorker.com/
(This url, if that one changes toons):
http://legacy.newyorker.com/images/2014/08/11/p465/140811_contest_p465.jpg
All I can think of is:
“And don’t forget to pick up the cat food on your way home.”
A second and belated birthday celebration for Theo; whose birthday was yesterday! Of course no one needed tell you = ))
One other reason cats are better than dogs–cats don’t kill people. In 2012, there were 38 people killed by dogs in the USA, usually the young or elderly and 65% were by pit bulls. Thus, the domestic dog is by far the most dangerous mammal in our country
What if our domestic cats weighed 80 – 120 pounds?
Cats probably don’t save as many people as d*gs do, either.
Tomcat and Weasel. Both black cats with a small white patch on the breast. Tomcat (aka Plato) used to be an outdoor cat, he ruled the place with an iron paw. He could often be seen lying on the bank of the pond, sunning himself like a black panther, and surveying his kingdom. He has been retired from the great outdoors much to the satisfaction of the wild critters.
Weasel was born to a litter of one of my sons friends. The friend came over to spend the night several years ago, they brought the kitten with them to supposedly visit. By weaseling his way into our hearts he is still visiting. He has never been outside except for the few times he has managed to squeak his way by while someone is heading out. His prison breaks don’t last long and he is soon put back in the house.
At first Tomcat absolutely hated Weasel. He would go out of his way to slap him sideways for no good reason. Over time though they have become buds and will tussle with each other playfully. Sometimes there might be a tuft or two of hair about from those play times getting a little rough, but they remain amicable.
.
I’ve had two black cats. Astrid had a grey undercoat and a few stray white hairs. Kveldulf had a small white streak on his belly and, again, some stray white hairs. I think you’ll find that most black cats have some white hairs somewhere, i not a spot or streak. In any case, if you see a black cat in strong light, such as sleeping in a sunny window, you’ll see that their fur is actually a very dark brown rather than black.
When Weasel was young you could see tabby stripes in his coat when he was sunning. Hard to see now. But he still looks black to me though 🙂
What on earth did you do when a pit bull humped your leg? The usual advice in the circumstances is to fake an orgasm.
Our then Senior Cat, Neko san (Mr Cat in Japanese) died in March, resulting in the promotion of Shimi (cat in Tibetan) to the senior role. Neko was an Abyssinian, and my husband wanted another Aby. My daughter went on a crusade to find us another one, and came up with two litter mates who were Aby – tabby crosses. Their human was moving from Queensland to Western Australia and could not take them. So they were booked on JetPets and flown to South Australia where they have after two months finally settled in.
Mathematically, do two half Abys equal one full Aby?
I honor our following family members: Our oldest cat Steve, a tuxedo who I bottle fed along with his 7 other abandoned week-old brothers and sisters 13 years ago; Zoey, my son’s 12-year-old cat he found as a feral kitten when he attended Auburn (War Eagle!); Freddie, my beautiful 7-year-old, flame-point ragdoll who we adopted when he was 1 after he ran away from an abusive home; Nallie, my little 4-year-old black cat who literally saved my life; and Haley, my gorgeous, 2-year-old, well-rounded “crabby tabby,” who is my college graduation gift. (And yes, I was the oldest graduate in my class by many, many years.) Thank you, Dr. Coyne, for allowing us to share our cats with strangers!
“Nallie, my little 4-year-old black cat who literally saved my life…”
I think we need to hear more from you. 🙂
We have a cat who uses a blanket as a surrogate mate. He’ll grab the blanket in his teeth, and do the standard cat mating dance, followed by mating, followed by the dance again.
Ha ha that’s cute. My dog does that with her bed when she is really wound up. I’m always yelling, “stop humping your bed!” or “Leave that bed alone!”. I’m glad my neighbours are too far away to hear me.
[Last picture]
There’s a stream of rats and other rodents queueing for the next ship off the Azores. The Jaws of Doom are closing!