Caturday felid trifecta: Cat in fire saved with animal oxygen mask; humorous cat videos; photos of cranky and silly moggies

The BBC reports that London fire departments have begun carrying special oxygen masks for animals, and in the case reported below, they apparently saved one moggie’s life (click on screenshot):

They can even be used on rabbits and SNAKES. Here’s the full story:

Fire crews attended a blaze in Paddington, central London, on Friday and saved two cats from the ground floor, putting a mask on one of them.

Station officer Nathan Beeby, who was at the scene, said the apparatus “ultimately saved the cat’s life”.

Masks will be carried by fire trucks in Battersea, Paddington, Richmond and Hammersmith as part of a pilot scheme.

If the scheme is successful, the masks will be rolled out to fire stations across the capital.

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has said the specialist equipment can be used on other pets, including dogs, rabbits, snakes and mice.

Here’s the equipment; note the various sizes of masks:

Before, crews had to improvise when trying to revive pets but the new equipment should improve animals’ chances of survival.

The brigade’s deputy assistant commissioner for operational policy, Dave O’Neill, said: “Of course a firefighter’s priority is always to save any human life, but we know how precious people’s pets are to them and we also know owners will put their own lives at risk by trying to return to a burning building to rescue them.

“We know there’s been an increase in people getting pets during the pandemic and we are likely to see more animals involved in incidents, so we needed to improve our ability to respond appropriately.

***************

Here’s an eight-minute Russian video (the Russians love their cats, too) showing a variety of funny cat situations. You don’t need to know Russian to watch it.

***************

And an article at Colossal  shows a variety of photos by Elke Vogelsang showing weird cat expressions. Click on the screenshot to read; I’ll put up a few:

Unlike the affectionate canine companions that grace many of Elke Vogelsang’s portraits, the cats she finds in front of her camera exhibit more irritable, even stereotypical emotions. She captures her feline subjects with a range of reactions, whether snarling and baring their teeth or showing off their more playful sides with leaps into the air or a quick flick of their tongues.

A professional pet portraitist, Vogelsang mostly visits her subjects at their homes rather than bringing them to her Hildesheim studio. This tends to make the animals more comfortable, she shares, at least enough for her to coax out more genuine emotions with the help of string, feathers, treats, and sometimes catnip for mood-boosting. “Let’s face it, cats can be so much harder to photograph than dogs. If they can’t be bothered, they won’t do it for our sake,” she says. “In general, sessions with cats are shorter than sessions with dogs. They are the ones to determine the schedule.”

Vogelsang maintains an Instagram account devoted to her feline collaborators, and you can find much more of her portraiture on her site.

Here are five of them, but go to Vogelsang’s site and Instagram account to see more (there are d*gs too):

h/t: Debra, Reese