We have another felid trifecta today for you lucky readers. I’ll put the lagniappe first: a picture from the local Greenville newspaper than I read at breakfast. When I opened the front section, there was a photo of the Clemson Tigers basketball team playing Syracuse on January 17. Here it is—with a GIANT CAT HEAD!
*******
At least half a dozen readers sent me the heartwarming story of the Polish Nurse Cat, recounted here at Mashable:
Rademenes, a black cat who lives at the shelter in Bydgoszcz, does the important work of providing comfort and companionship to animals undergoing medical treatment. Duties include gently resting on top of recovering cats and spooning canine patients.
Rademenes came to live at the animal shelter after his original owners brought him in with an inflamed respiratory tract, and feared he was too sick to make a recovery, Polish news channel TVN Meteo reported. But veterinarian Lucyna Kuziel-Zawalich took a liking to the cat, and managed to nurse him back to health before taking him in as her own.
Now Rademenes is considered an important asset to office staff, comforting patients after surgery and sometimes cleaning their ears.
Some photos. Were this not so far from Dobrzyn, I’d definitely visit Rademenes on my next trip to Poland.
Finally, Matthew sent me this ad for a cat hoodie. Question: would you wear it or buy it? It certainly makes a “statement”, though that statement may be “I’m a loon.” (Personally, I’d rather have the large wool cat head):
h/t: Su, Matthew Cobb, Nikki
I’d opt for the cat head, too🐾🐾
As a woman, while I actually really like the hoodie, I suspect it’d either look like I had two sets of boobs, or they were absolutely massive in size and drooped down to waist level!
It’s Sunday am in New Zealand, and I’m still in bed, wearing a nightshirt with a cat head on the front. TMI? 🙂
The boobs aspect occurred to me, too.
And on the plus side, a guy would have a legitimate response to “My eyes are up here.”
Not that I’ve ever heard that myself.
But, you know, I’ve heard about it happening…
I fear the cat head might be too expensive. I’m curious to see how ‘everything’ lines up with the hoodie (the hood of which could use some wispy fake fur).
oh yeah… love the pics of Rademenes too. That’s a sweet kitteh.
A welcome change. I started this AM with a news story about a veterinarian in Brenham, TX that proudly killed a neighbor’s cat with a bow. Google it if you want to see her FB photo.
How horrible! That is very cruel and I’d like to shoot her with a bow and see how she likes it.
I think I might have the warrior gene. Thank my prefrontal cortex that I don’t act on my compulsions!
Hmmm, I’m mostly for rational behavior, but as someone I used to work with in animal rescue used to say, some things are worth going to jail for.
Which is hyperbole, of course, but still . . .
I’ll just say that if someone with a less-developed frontal cortex did take her down, I’d feel like there was some justice, vindication, karma, whatever. And I would probably feel some undeserved vicarious satisfaction.
I think I have the warrior gene, too. I wish I didn’t, because it’s exhausting to want justice so fiercely sometimes, and to need to be a protector or champion. Guess the best I can do is channel that into trying to be an agent for change. Which I do, as long as the compassion fatigue isn’t the stronger motivation.
The cat was mistaken to be a feral cat (no excuse!), and the vet has been fired.
It didn’t look like a feral cat to me. Too well fed and clean.
But the shocking thing to me was that she was a veterinarian. Well, she is now an unemployed veterinarian. I hope she finds another line of work.
I was going to just ignore this story, thinking it was just another situation that I could do nothing about and sparing myself the emotional trauma. Then I saw that it was a VET who killed the cat . . .
Just wanted to post a WARNING to anyone who looks this up online: it’s pretty much impossible to find a link that doesn’t include the very disturbing and graphic photo that this psychopath posted. Just wanted to issue that heads-up.
Also, this might be a case where those of us who are horrified can do something about it. There are online petitions, a FB page, etc demanding for Lindsey to be fully prosecuted and lose her license. Not sure how effective online outrage is as far as long-term results go, but this story looks like it’s going viral in some of the right places:
http://www.veterinarypracticenews
I’m planning to contact the Texas state board directly. This is their email address, per VPN:
vet.board@veterinary.texas.gov
But not just yet. As I feared, I read the whole damned story, and need to think about moving my evening glass of wine to mid-afternoon. When boasting about her kill, Lindsey proclaimed herself “vet of the year.” Not sure which is my stronger response to that, my head exploding, or my heart breaking.
Yeah, I think un-happy hour is here
😿 😢
Earlier, Lindsey boasted that she wouldn’t be fired because “I’m awesome.” Awesome stupidity from a malignant narcissist. Hope she loses her license.
The last picture of nurse cat looks like kitteh is sitting there saying, “you up? You awake?”
Hard to say what’s on his mind at this very moment, but he does seem to have developed a deep empathy toward the sickly animals, having gone through his own “near-death experience.”
He was admitted to the clinic when he was just two-months old, and treated for serious respiratory infection and mycosis in the process of which his head went completely bald (vets were worried that even if he managed to survive, he wouldn’t grow the hair back), and was losing fur throughout his entire body. He was so sick that he was treated in a separate room, for fear of spreading infections to other animals at the facility.
He’s a wonderful kitteh! I wonder if it’s partly natural behaviour and partly learned behaviour from his new staff – staff who are clearly not from Texas.
Glad to see he’s grown his fur back as well as grown a beautiful personality. I have my own black cat, Miles, who I found on my doorstep last year. At the time I had two other cats, but both have since died — one at age 14 — he was born the night I moved into my house back in 2000; the other at age 19 — I adopted her while living in Crete, Greece, finding her in an olive tree mewing her little head off.
Sounds like Miles showed up just when he knew you’d be needing him shortly.
And much sympathy for your losses!
Moar giant cat heads!
Photo makes me wish we had a sports team with a felid mascot. I might follow it just for the cat dress-up ops. Best dress-up op we got is Talk Like a Pirate Day (which is pretty cool, but hard to figure out a way to include a giant cat head).
I bought a cat T-shirt from The Mountain, but haven’t worn it yet:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/nlyrkf3
If I can score one of those wool cat heads from Japan, maybe I could wear them as a set.
I have a couple shirts from The Mountain (all arthropod related), and my kids have various shirts as well. It is fun to peruse their very large web site, and not everything they make is just a big face of something. But if you just visit, be ready to have ALL of your banner ads in your browser be from their site for weeks to come.
Love the nurse cat! That is so sweet, and I’m sure comforting to the patients.
I like the cat head sweatshirt, but too pricey for me!
Cat shoes are great as well.These designs by Charlotte Olympia are cute:
https://40.media.tumblr.com/f5e7c9f62ad1687584588027666ab6db/tumblr_mk1cj5lMqO1rtbezyo1_500.png
I am currently learning to make shoes, and I definitely want to create cat themed designs.
I saw some really cute cat shoes that looked like they would accommodate my orthotics. I rally wanted them!
Where did you see them, Diana?
Online somewhere. If they were somewhere I could try them on, I would’ve bought them for sure!
I could wear those black ones.
Oh, you know those fuzzy animal bedroom slippers? Well, the children used to love them but so did the d*gs who would chase the little feet all around the house. Sadly, the slippers had to be retired.
I’d wear them, too. Add the head, a tail, and we’d be stylin;-)
Wonder if I still have the orange-striped catsuit I had in my younger days;-)
I might still have a tiger costume (made out of tiger-patterned plush fabric)stashed somewhere. Def kept the Pink Panther costume that I made for the ‘lads’. The neighbourhood kids used to freak out over the 6′ tall Pink Panther!
Actually, with the head handcrafted out of a wire frame plus padding and ears, it came up to over 6 feet tall.
Photos, please🐱
My cat used to sit between a pair. They were striped, just like her. One time I put them on and went for a walk around the house, and she damn near had a heart attack she was so terrified.
“With a cat call from Grøüber (röck döts bëçåûšè…?), I know I’ll be safe.”
And Rademenes is one very special cat. I wonder how he deals with cats who don’t like attention from other cats…? Can he read that sort of thing well enough to avoid confrontation?
b&
The veterinarians report that Rademenes approaches both cats and dogs with complete friendliness, and although some animals are diffident toward him, he does have a positive effect on them anyway, as he often diverts their attention away from the treatments they are getting. 🙂
The nurse cat will protect us from loon-some cat hoodies. I hope.
Many of us have heard the story about the other nurse cat who visited patients in the old folks’ home, and would seemingly comfort the dying by lying close to them on their beds. It was said that s/he had a knack for picking out the ones who were on their last lap. Well, the doctors subsequently surmised that the cat was attracted to the raised body temperature of certain patients.
Why can’t I find the laser-guided cat car??
Was it for April Fool’s Day?
http://blogblogs.com/#!/post/5074487/groupon-is-offering-cat-cab-services-for-april-fools-day
Thst’s cute, but isn’t there supposed to be one in this OP?