35 thoughts on “Winter animal care”

  2. Hmmmm…. yes, but I don’t think my cats would come out from under the bed for at least a month!

  3. Awwww…poor kitty just wants to snuggle under the covers, I bet. Keep you both nice and toasty!

    Might get a bit…interesting…if the traditional epic battle against the evil bed-toe monster ensues, but I bet it’d be worth it….

    b&

  6. Love our new kitten but she’s a biter have to wear long sleeves it’s helping.She is a siamese but quite and sleeping the only way i could be on here.

  9. I’m cold because I am not covered with fur…

    My cats, when I was living in the country, spent most of the time outside all year round. They developed a thick winter coat and did not beg to come inside – only for food because in the winter when temperatures dropped below 0°C their food would freeze.

    I had a huge walnut tree in the garden and left most of the walnuts for the squirrels. There were also several hazelnut trees and half a dozen large fir trees, so they had a plentiful supply of nuts stashed away for the winter.

    I also have always put out special winter food for the birds that is sold in the shops. Different kinds for different species of birds.

  10. By yumpin’ yiminy – he/she is taking a bit of a chance – the guy who owns that house has some pretty fearsome weapons just inside the door !

  11. I’ve been hearing the coyotes yipping and howling at night. They’re probably pissed with the cold. My dog wakes up from a deep sleep to full on run and barking within 2 seconds.

    1. Occasionally there’s a cougar warning on the trails that my wife walks our two dogs on – they are both big dogs and together I think they’d be OK, but like me, they are getting on in years,so Trish exercises caution when there’s a warning.

    1. Quote from Michael Fisher’s link at #7:

      “Went upstairs to the window right above it, dropped a coffee cup on its head,” Nielsen continued. “It didn’t flinch. Shot two warning shots into the steps right next to it. Didn’t even flinch. Switched weapons up a grade, in case it broke the window and came in.”

  13. The weather here in Iowa is pretty close to Chicago. The indoor cat has nothing to worry about and the outdoor guy has a nice heated garage. Maybe 2 or 3 inches of snow today.

    Feed the birds

  14. Natura Artis Magistra, the Amsterdam Zoo, used to, may still, have a movie theater that showed films of zoo animals and so on continuously. One of the segments was about a keeper who fostered three Puma cubs whose mother had rejected them. The last shot showed him entering his home after work. All three of the cats, by then half grown, jumped into his arms. They’re not bad house cats, at least for a while.

  15. Actually, we’ve just given our dogs a good hair cut because…rhe weather is heating up down here!

  16. So, being a cat lover, I. Recently have learned that the whole “cats love milk and it is a good thing to give them” idea is wrong. From what I’ve come across, cats can’t digest the lactose, and just drink it for the sweet fat.
    http://www.knowyourcat.info/info/lactose.htm
    Originally I came across the position from reddit, and went on to read that. If I’m wrong I’d love to know! Might make a pretty purr-tinent post. I used to sneak my old cat, Pootie, a bowl of milk and never noticed any digestive tract issues.

    1. Yup. Mammals drink milk from their mother when they are young. After they are weaned they lose the ability to digest lactose, found in dairy products. It can make them sick if you give it to them and they can’t digest it properly, just like with lactose intolerant humans. That’s why we have lactose intolerant humans; we are supposed to be weaned and stop having dairy but some ancient people started herding and if you’re descended from those groups you evolved to digest dairy products throughout your life.

      I think if you feed a cat dairy since when it’s a kitten it will keep producing the right enzymes and if a human stops eating dairy they will stop making them but I’m not totally sure about that.

    2. If your cats like milk but don’t tolerate it well, you can give them lactose-free milk and lactose-free cream. Several brands of cat food also produce lactose-free milk for cats. 🙂

    3. I think my solution is pretty workable. Whenever I whip cream, Baihu gets to lick the whisk. He enjoys it as much as any kid would, but the quantity isn’t enough to cause discomfort for any mammal regardless of digestive enzymes.

      b&

      1. Since 14-yr-old Fred has developed hyperthyroidism ( and lost weight) we’ve been crushing his pills into milk twice a day and he absolutely loves it. He hadn’t really had milk for years but seems to have no ill effects.

    4. I believe I’ve read that it’s not true of all cats–some can tolerate lactose all their lives.

  18. A friend of mine took that picture. He lives up in the North Cascades in Washington State in a tiny town called Stehekin. It was last winter, he was up for a late night piss and let the dog out to do the same. The dog came yipping back onto the porch with the cougar right behind her. Bob just got the door closed. The cat was yeowling and scratching on the glass. He scared it off by firing some shots in the air but in the morning it was in his shop growling at people. So some neighbors shot it. It was an old female with just a few teeth and a lot of sores, she weighed about half the normal weight for an adult cougar. She had come out of the mountains because she could no longer hunt, and met a more painless death than she would have up there.

    My friend shared a series of pictures the next day on Facebook. Funny to see this going viral a year later.

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