As I’ve mentioned before, many Muslims love cats but consider d*gs unclean.  Muhammad himself is rumored to have had a cat named Muezza, and this story is a popular one:

Many Muslims believe that Muezza (or Muʿizza; Arabic: معزة) was Muhammad’s favorite cat. Muhammad awoke one day to the sounds of the adhan. Preparing to attend prayer, he began to dress himself; however, he soon discovered his cat Muezza sleeping on the sleeve of his prayer robe. Rather than wake her, he used a pair of scissors to cut the sleeve off, leaving the cat undisturbed.

Cats are often welcome in mosques, and when I visit Istanbul I always notice the prevalence of street cats and cats in mosques. Here’s a cat at the Prince’s Mosque:

. . . and me feeding the famous Hagia Sophia cat Gli in 2008. (In Turkey I always carry a box of cat food in my daypack.) At the time I didn’t know that Gli, now deceased, was so famous and beloved:

But on to the topic: medival Muslim cats, which you can read by clicking on the screenshot below from Weird Medieval Guys:

It retells the story of Muezza, and adds that in the UK you can buy halal cat food named after Muhammad’s cat (click on screenshot):

An excerpt:

But it wasn’t just the prophet himself who loved cats! They occupied a unique place in the medieval Islamic world. The Middle East and Mediterranean are famously full of stray kitties nowadays, and it seems that 500 years ago, things weren’t too different. Medieval Europeans who travelled eastward were baffled by both the sheer quantity of free-roaming cats and the affection lavished upon them by locals. Flemish nobleman Joos van Ghistele wrote of his surprise at seeing a cat shelter in Damascus in the late 15th century CE, and a 13th century CE Mamluk sultan apparently mandated that all the strays of Cairo be taken care of by the local government. An English visitor to Cairo in the late 19th century attested that the sultan’s wishes were still being upheld, much to the exasperation (and expense) of the chief judge, to whom the responsibility fell.

As well as collective care for strays by the community, a number of sources describe cats’ status as beloved pets for people from all levels of society in the medieval Islamic world. For much of the Middle Ages in Western Europe, pet ownership was seen as an indulgence afforded primarily to noblewomen and monks. High-ranking men might have owned hunting dogs, but these animals served a largely utilitarian purpose. The keeping of animals for emotional companionship would have been rather taboo for a Christian man of the day. Muslim men, whether nobles or humble labourers, don’t seem to have been subjected to the same stigma surrounding their pets.

Prince Rokn-al-Dawla of the Deylamites (in modern day Iran) reportedly had a pet cat that he was so fond of, petitioners would attach written requests to its neck to make sure that prince received them. One Sufi sheikh is said to have had shoes made for his cat so that it could sit with him on his prayer rug without snagging the fibres on its claws. Women doted on their cats, too, with one Persian source reporting that it was common for noble ladies to adorn them with jewellery and even dye their fur.

And a story depicted in the painting below:

Let me close this post by sharing another Nasreddin joke, this time about his wife and his cat:

After the Hodja got a liver recipe from his friend, he bought some liver. Nasreddin loved liver and he wanted to eat it very often. But everytime he brought livers, he couldn’t eat it because his wife said that the cat took the liver and fled away.

One day the Hodja became very angry and said: “Woman, I brought liver! Where is it?” “Oh”, said his wife. “The silly cat took it and fled away.” At this same time the cat was in the room.

The Hodja caught it, brought a steelyard and weighted the cat. Then he said: “That is exactly two kilos. And the liver which I brought was also two kilos. Now tell me: If that is the liver where is my cat, if that is the cat, then I want my liver.”

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If you know about fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, you’ll know that the love of his life was his pampered longhair cat Choupette. Here’s a photo of Lagerfeld and his love that appeared on Choupette’s Instagram page, which is still going:

Harper’s Bazaar tells you everything you want to know about Choupette, including this:

The designer’s beloved Burmese has lived a lifestyle nearly as luxurious and chic as his, and following his death, she is rumored to inherit a portion of Lagerfeld’s €200 million net worth. Though, shockingly, that does not make her the richest cat in the world (Taylor Swift’s Scottish Fold, Olivia Benson, beats her with a reported worth of $97 million), she is certainly still amongst the wealthiest, and arguably the favorite within the fashion world.

Throughout her lifetime, the booked-and-busy feline has graced several magazine covers—including that of Harper’s Bazaar UKin 2013—and even had her own line of makeup and a book about her life.

She has traveled by private jet, alongside a handful of bodyguards, agents, chefs, and personal assistants. And she dined across from Lagerfeld every evening, during their time together, in the designer’s Paris apartment.

This content is imported from instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Lagerfeld told Numéro in 2016, “Now that she is an adult, she eats at the table with me. She sits across from me and only eats what she needs to eat. Before, she used to attack a shrimp, but now she only touches her four different dishes that are prepared for her the same day, served in lovely bowls. Everything has to be fresh, otherwise Mademoiselle sits in front of her croquettes in sauce for three quarters of an hour, giving me murderous looks, without touching them.”

The 11-year-old Burmese currently lives in Paris and is now owned by Lagerfeld’s former housekeeper, Françoise Caçot, who has since dropped her nanny role to care for the feline full-time.

From the article:

Choupette traveling (from Instagram):

As the Wall Street Journal reports below, Choupette was the theme of the Met’s Gala ball this year, honoring Lagerfeld, who died in 2009. Click to read:

An excerpt (my emphasis)

At this year’s Met Gala, the celebrity-packed museum fundraiser held on the first Monday in May, the most anticipated guest is a cat.

Choupette Lagerfeld, an 11-year-old Birman with enormous blue eyes and silky white fur, belonged to Karl Lagerfeld, the late German fashion designer and honoree of this year’s ball. For the former creative director of Chanel, Fendi and Chloé, who died in 2019 at the age of 85 without children, Choupette may be the closest thing to a living relative. Fans are hoping to see her strut the red carpet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in his honor.

“She was his baby,” said Françoise Caçote, Choupette’s caretaker. A former housekeeper for Mr. Lagerfeld, Ms. Caçote, 50, has been Choupette’s nanny since 2012 and inherited the cat permanently after her boss passed away. “He would say, ‘In my life, my priority is Choupette, and then everything else.’ ”

Mr. Lagerfeld often talked about how much he adored Choupette, and treated her to multicourse meals on Goyard dishes and supplied her with two maids. She has her own agent, coffee-table books, a skin-care collaboration and social-media followers spanning the globe.

Choupette didn’t show, but stayed in Paris.

Mr. Lagerfeld shared photos of the cat on his Twitter and Instagram and fans loved seeing the notoriously sharp-tongued designer, known for his long ponytail and signature sunglasses and leather gloves, be tender with an animal.

Choupette has graced the covers of British Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia and German Vogue and has posed with fellow celebrity catwalkers Linda Evangelista and Kendall Jenner. Most recently, she starred with Naomi Campbell in a May photo shoot for American Vogue. In 2015, Mr. Lagerfeldtold New York magazine that Choupette had earned 3 million euros from two modeling gigs.

In 2018, Mr. Lagerfeld told Numero, a French magazine, that he had left some money for Choupette in his will, which sparked rumors and some catty talk that the feline would inherit a fortune. But Ms. Caçote said she hasn’t received any money from the estate, and that the situation with Mr. Lagerfeld’s inheritance is complex.

 Ms. Caçote said she takes care of Choupette with her own money and does so happily, as it was Mr. Lagerfeld’s wish. She and Mr. Berullier said they are setting up a feline-focused charity in the cat’s name.

Choupette is content at Ms. Caçote’s Paris apartment, she said. The cat likes to wake up early, and her fur is brushed multiple times a day. Choupette relishes walks on the balcony and treats herself to the catnip planted outside. Choupette’s favorite toys are Chanel paper bags and Chanel ribbons, Ms. Caçote said.

Jared Leto dressed up at Choupette at the Met Gala (tickets run, I hear, around $10,000):

. . . and so did Doja Cat:

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Finally, here’s a story from Lady Freethinker about two women from Alabama who were arrested and fined for feeding stray cats on city property, but then had the charges dismissed. Justice was done!

PETITION UPDATE: Criminal Charges Dismissed Against Wetumpka Women Who Fed Stray Cats

An except:

Two women criminally charged after they fed community cats on public land in Wetumpka, Alabama, got a reprieve this week when city prosecutors said they’d no longer pursue the case.

Beverly Roberts, 84, and Mary Alston, 60, made international headlines in June 2022 when three police vehicles and multiple officers arrived on a vacant, county-owned lot and told the women to stop feeding and trying to trap the stray cats that liked to congregate there — or be arrested and go to jail.

Body camera footage showed the women asking questions about why they were being threatened with arrest. When Roberts attempted to hand her car keys to Alston, an officer told her, “It’s going to get ugly if you don’t stop.” Another officer handcuffed Alston’s arms behind her back, telling her she wasn’t listening “fast enough” and that “You wanted to keep talking so now you’re going to jail,” according to the body camera footage.

Wetumpka Municipal Judge Jeff Watson convicted the women of misdemeanor charges in December after a 5-hour long trial — Alston for reported criminal trespassing and obstructing government operations and Roberts for reported disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing.  He sentenced the women to two years unsupervised probation and 10 days, suspended, of jail time.

Attorneys for the women — including William Shasy, a retired Montgomery County Circuit Court judge — appealed the ruling to the 19th Circuit Court. A GoFundMe account to help cover legal costs raised more than $87,000, according to news reports.

Following the appeal, Wetumpka prosecutors submitted a motion saying they would no longer pursue the charges, without giving a reason for that action. Circuit Judge Amanda Baxley signed off on the plan, also without giving comment on her ruling, according to court records.

Here’s a news video of the ladies being arrested. DEFUND THESE COPS!

Charges could still be reinstated, though, and prosecutors have until June 25 to do so. If they know what’s good for them, they’ll leave this be.

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Lagniappe: Reader Peter sent me this photo and some notes:

Freddie Mercury of Queen (1946-1991) was well known as an ailurophile, as well for other things. According to the BBC (source: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65375583), his friend Mary Austin is about to auction a large collection of Mercury’s possessions, including some great artworks, antique furniture, costumes, and of interest to WEIT readers, “his favourite waistcoat”, with hand-painted portraits of his six cats.

The BBC adds this:

h/t: Ginger K., Thomas

The average weight of a house cat is between 8.8 and 11 pounds, but this giant moggie is at least four times that weight. It is truly a Cat of Size. Click to read:

Some of the article from CBS News:

Patches, a massive cat weighing in at 40.3 pounds, has been adopted, the Richmond Animal Care and Control shelter in Virginia said Wednesday on Facebook.

The fluffy white cat with gray spots and a gray tail had been looking for a new owner who could help maintain his special diet and get him to a healthy weight, the shelter said. A post describing Patches and his needs quickly garnered thousands of reactions and comments.

Look at the size of that moggie! I’m sure that readers don’t find this amusing, for a cat of that size will have health problems, and those who have had chubby cats know how hard it is to make them lose weight.

Richmond Animal Care and Control posted a photo of Patches with his new owner, as well as a video showing the cat being transported in a kennel.

You can see the video here (I can’t embed it), and here’s Patches with his new owner. Best of luck to the both of them!

But wait! (or should I say “weight”!): Patches is not the fattest cat of all time:

While Patches was described by the shelter as “gloriously gluttoness” [sic], he is not the fattest cat in history. According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest cat on record was Himmy, who in 1986 weighed 46 lbs and had to be transported by wheelbarrow. The record-keeping institution no longer keeps track of the category to avoid encouraging pet owners to keep their animals at unhealthy weights.

Here are two pictures of Himmy I found on the Internet:

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From Malcolm. twenty minutes of cat (and d*g) behavior (note, some of the videos show cats getting scared, occasionally on purpose, which isn’t nice): Notice, though, how a cat can fall into a tank of water and extricate itself without getting wet.  Note as well “cat ball in the side pocket.”

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From the OMG Blogwe have a number of pictures of cats sitting on glass tables, often photographed from below. I love these photos as it gives us a new perspective on cats, especially their flattened feet and toes. Click on the screenshot to see the photos, and I’ve posted a few of my favorites below:

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Lagniappe: Jez in England sent me photos of a cat who likes to steal only underwear and socks. Look at that haul! Why doesn’t  he steal women’s underwear?

Sadly, neither Jez nor I can find the story of this klepto-cat.

h/t: Nicole

I think it’s legal in several states to own servals (Leptailurus serval) , so long as they’re bred in captivity. (Their genes went into producing the “savannah cat” breed.) But owning wild felids isn’t recommended. Here’s a pet serval intimidating a housecat just by touching it lightly with its paw. Enlarge the video and turn the sound on to hear the low rumblings of the serval:

to intimidate a serval
by u/HornyDiggler in therewasanattempt

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Every week in the Free Press Douglas Murray publishes thoughts on his favorite poems, and I have to say that he has good taste. This poem, “For I will consider my cat Jeoffry“, is a fragment of a larger poem, “Jubilate Agno” (“Rejoice in the lamb”) written by Christopher Smart (1722-1771), probably while he was confined in St. Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics in London.  The data of the poem is unknown, and it wasn’t even published until 1939.

Still, in my view it remains the best poem about cats ever written, and although some of the “lunacy” might be evident, it hangs together as a great piece of work. I must have mentioned it, if not reproduced it, several times on this website. The second best poem about cats is, of course, Pangur Bán, a fragment written by a ninth-century Irish monk in his notebooks.

Here’s Murray on the poem (an extract from his article):

. . . at some point, his mind started to become lost to him. Dr. Johnson described his “poor friend” Kit Smart as showing “the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place.” Johnson noted with characteristic clarity and charity that there was no reason why those who fall to their knees and pray in the street should be regarded as displaying any “greater madness” than those who do “not pray at all.” But the rules then, as now, were unclear and Smart found himself on the wrong side of them. Devout Christian piety was expected. But not that much.

So, in a deeply religious society, poor Kit Smart still ended up in the madhouse. And it was there that he created the work for which he is now best known.

That work is “Jubilate Agno” (or, translated from Latin, “Rejoice in the Lamb”), an ecstatic, long poem that claims all of nature is always and forever by its nature praising God. It adheres to a strange logic. For example, Smart decided that his Psalm-like verses must fall into two categories: sections in which every verse begins with the word Let and those that begin with For. The surviving manuscript throws up multiple textual and interpretational problems.

For these reasons, among many others, it took centuries for Smart’s work to reach outside the madhouse walls. Though he composed the poem in a mental asylum between 1759 and 1763, it was not published until 1939.

The visions contained in “Jubilate Agno” hover between the sublime and the absurd. Sometimes the poet is in a state of religious ecstasy—about which, who is to judge? At other times, he seems to be banging his head against a padded wall. Amid the exultation of all nature praising God, there are also occasional moments showing a knowledge of his situation that are almost too painful to read. At one point, Smart scribbles onto his densely packed pages: For in my nature I quested for beauty, but God, God hath sent me to sea for pearls.

And the bit about Jeoffry:

A few years ago, a young biographer, Oliver Soden, wrote a fanciful biography of Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat. Nobody knows where Jeoffry came from or went to; Soden describes him in the asylum with Smart, keeping the poet company.

. . . .In the imaginary biography of Jeoffry, the cat has moved on after his master’s death, and has found a new home. Nobody knows who he is or what he has seen, but at the end, as he is quietly dying, his biographer writes, “All the while nobody knew that Jeoffry had once danced in the rain with Christopher Smart.” What an image. What an honor.

Read the Jeoffry bit of the poem; I require it of you, especially if you have a cat. It is not long but quite evocative.

Benjamin Britten wrote music for parts of Jubilate Agno, which he called “Rejoice in the Lamb”.  Here’s the music about Jeoffrey, with the YouTube notes:

Miranda Colchester sings “For I will Consider my Cat Jeoffry” from “Rejoice in the Lamb” by Benjamin Britten. Ulf Norberg playing on an Allen organ in Hedvig Eleonora church, Stockholm, Sweden. Recorded and edited by Pär Fridberg.

Samuel Barber set “Pangur Bán” to music, too, and it’s a lovely piece.

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Is this conclusion from a piece in Science really surprising? Tigers are complex animals, and anyone studying wild mammals quickly learns their varied quirks. Here’s the rational for this study of the “personalities” of Siberian tigers studied in zoos (that, of course, can change their behavior). There’s a link to the original paper:

In the first study investigating the dispositions of tigers in a semiwild setting, researchers surveyed the caretakers of nearly 250 Siberian tigers about the cats’ personality traits. The findings, published today in the Royal Society Open Science, suggests the psychological makeup of Siberian tigers may affect their hunting, mating, and even social standing among their peers.

The work could help conservationists manage these endangered animals, says Ellen Williams, an ethologist at Harper Adams University who was not involved in the new study. With only about 500 Siberian tigers left in the wild, insights into how they interact with their environment are vital, she says.

Click to see the précis in Science:

An excerpt:

So when scientists led by Rosalind Arden, a cognitive researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science, wanted to plumb the psyche of these fierce felines, they turned to 248 Siberian tigers living in two wildlife sanctuaries in northeastern China where groups of tigers roam in fenced-in swaths of forests or snowy grasslands. The team invited more than 50 feeders and veterinarians to fill out questionnaires with lists of 67 to 70 adjectives that described tiger personality traits for each cat in their care. These words ranged from “savage” and “imposing” to “dignified” and “friendly.” The researchers designed the questionnaires to mimic human personality tests.

In total, the caretakers completed more than 800 questionnaires, offering the researchers multiple personality surveys on each tiger. A battery of statistical analyses revealed whether particular adjectives clustered around certain tigers.

Two distinct personality types emerged that accounted for nearly 40% of the tigers’ behaviors. Tigers that scored higher on words such as confident, competitive, and ambitious fell under what the researchers labeled as the “majesty” mindset. Those that exhibited traits such as obedience, tolerance, and gentleness were grouped together under the “steadiness” mindset. Together, these two personalities explained 38% of the behavioral differences displayed by the tigers in the study.

According to Williams, the new findings resemble past data on both wild and domestic cats. She cites a review article that found the most common personality types across felines are sociable, dominant, and curious. “It would seem that ‘majesty’ aligns quite closely with a ‘dominant’ personality component,” she says, “and their ‘steadiness’ component aligns with components such as ‘calm.’”

These personality types seem to make a difference. Based on their weights and eating habits, the tigers with majesty mindsets were generally healthier than those with steadiness personalities. They also hunted more, mated more often, and had more breeding success. Tigers that scored higher on majesty traits also appeared to have a higher social status than tigers that scored higher in steadiness traits, according to their caretakers.

So it pays to be aggressive, which isn’t a surprise. However, as author Tamisea notes, this doesn’t hold true for all mammals. In chimps, our closest living relatives (along with bonobos), a reproductive advantage appears to accrue to those individuals

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Lagniappe: From the Miami Herald:

A live broadcast captured the moment a cat interrupted an imam’s nightly Ramadan prayer in Algeria, and the internet went crazy for it

.The clip was posted to Imam Walid Mehsas’ Facebook page on Tuesday, April 4. It shows a white cat with orange and black patches pop out from behind a wall next to the imam and meow up at him as he prays. The cat climbs onto a ledge that’s supporting a microphone for a better vantage point, then jumps down and paws and rubs at the imam’s legs to get his attention.

Here you go:

h/t: Jez, Peter, Ginger K.

I almost forgot Caturday! Today I will cobble one together featuring the planet’s most famous cougar (Puma concolor), Messi. He’s a rescue cougar, and his staff has made many videos about him. I’ll show three, and will I’ll let Wikipedia explain Messi’s situation:

Messi (Russian: Месси; born 30 October 2015) is a pet cougar, model and Internet celebrity, owned by Russian couple Alexandr and Mariya Dmitriev. The Dmitrievs live with Messi in a two-storey house on a large plot of land in Penza, Russia. Messi was adopted in 2016 from a local petting zoo. In 2017, the Dmitrievs started an Instagram account and a YouTube channel for Messi, which became very popular by 2018 and continues to grow in subscribers.

Here’s Messi cuddling up to his staff in bed, just like a housecat.

Messi was born in a zoo at Saransk, Russia. He was one of three newborn cougars at the zoo to be named after professional football players for current Paris Saint-Germain and former FC Barcelona; Messi was named after Lionel Messi, and the other two were named Suarez and Neymar. The cubs were given these names because Saransk was one of several cities proposed to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Messi was later sold to a petting zoo in Penza when he was three months old.

Messi was significantly smaller than other typical male cougars, and as the species is not native to Russia, he could not be released into the wild. He had numerous other health problems as well, which rendered him unable to live in a zoo or wildlife sanctuary either. Furthermore, workers at the petting zoo originally planned to euthanize him.

In 2016, Alexandr and Mariya Dmitriev visited the Penza zoo and met Messi for the first time. The couple experienced “love at first sight,” and noticed Messi’s exceptionally gentle personality. The Dmitrievs already had a sphynx cat named Kira but Aleksandr always wanted a big cat and so they considered bringıng Messi home and offered a high price to the zoo authorities. “So we went to the zoo and started negotiations to buy Messi. We were surprised ourselves when they agreed”, Mariya Dmitriev recalled in an interview with Caters News.

Here’s Messi getting a bit of omelet for a treat:

When they first purchased Messi, Alexandr and Mariya Dmitriev lived in a small studio apartment in Penza. The hallway of the apartment was modified and was designated as Messi’s play area  Messi uses toys such as empty bottles and balls. Messi has a gentle and calm personality, and has never attacked a person or another animal. The Dmitrievs sometimes refer to him as “kitten.”

Messi is regarded by his owners as similar to a domestic dog. He has been trained at a local dog training facility and has learned around ten formal commands. The Dmitrievs walk Messi regularly using a leash, coat, and harness through various environments.

Messi is fed twice a day, and his diet mostly consists of raw turkey, beef, and chicken.  It costs the Dmitrievs about 630 rubles per day to feed him. The couple regularly bathes Messi in a bathtub and sometimes trim his claws.

Messi is house-broken (trained) and prefers to stay inside when there is snow outside.

Here Messi is howling for Alexandr; I guess he’s highly bonded with him:

Smithsonian reports a female serval (Leptailurus serval; a wild cat native to Africa) found wandering around in Missouri. Click the screenshot to read:

Some excerpts:

Over the last six months, a farming family in rural Missouri began to notice bones and feathers between their stacks of hay bales. Occasionally, they’d catch a glimpse of the possible culprit: an animal one family member described as a “crazy-looking cat.”

Eventually, they decided to put an end to the mystery and set a live trap. Within 12 hours, they’d caught the four-legged perpetrator—an out-of-place wild cat known as a serval, which would’ve been much more at home in the grasslands of Africa than in the Ozark Mountains near Ava, Missouri.

Where the feline came from was anyone’s guess, but the family fed it venison, gave it some water and took it to a local veterinarian, who determined the wild animal was a female. The veterinarian did not find a microchip that could’ve helped identify the creature’s owner.

After inspection by a vet, the cat was taken to the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas for thorough vet care and then re-homing:

After transferring the serval to a crate and driving her to the refuge, the center’s team helped her get comfortable in a much larger recovery enclosure. They set her up with boneless chicken, toys and a mulch bed that she “seemed to really enjoy,” per the statement.

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In an initial veterinary exam, the refuge’s team found the serval was suffering from several problems. One of her toes had a puncture wound that had become infected, and she was anemic from a bad flea infestation. They also amputated a small piece of her tail that they suspect fell victim to frostbite.

“All of this has now been treated, and she’s being kept under observation in quarantine at our onsite vet hospital,” Cheryl King, the refuge’s marketing director, tells UPI’s Ben Hooper in an email.

A video of the cat’s inspection, mentioned above:

Staff at the refuge don’t know how the serval got to the Ozarks or what she experienced over the last six months, but they have a few hunches. She likely escaped from a backyard breeder or, possibly, the breeder released her into the wild for unknown reasons. Fortunately, she still had her claws, and the refuge’s staff found evidence that she’d been doing a little hunting to keep herself fed, likely catching birds, rats and mice.

“Who knows how long she was out there,” says Smith to FOX Weather’s Chris Oberholtz. “If we hadn’t rescued her, I’m afraid that she wouldn’t have lived more than a couple more weeks, because the infection in her paw was pretty significant.”

Poor kitty! But she’s going to be all right.

A rescue video can be seen on Facebook.  I have no updates, although Turpentine Creek’s site shows a rescue serval named CeCe (the facility is especially for rescuing big cats).

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“Pilling the cat” is an onerous task at best, Even hiding the pill in a treat often fails, as cats are great at spitting out the medicinal center. Here’s a video compilation of cats successfully getting pills (only 35 seconds long); the YouTube credits say just this: “Successfully giving cats medicine. Credit: @mo_harutan”

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I discovered Aymie and her talking cat Penny as “short clips” on Facebook, and became enamored with the pair. Aymie is always changing the color of her hair, and Penny ends every video with a cat raspberry. Here’s nearly a full hour of Penny & Aymie shorts compiled over eight months.

The YouTube caption is this:

8 months ago we made a 53 minute video of all of our short skits and now it is time for a new almost hour long video! In the last few months there have been many hair color changes, sickness in the household, thieves breaking in and much more! Enjoy while getting something done or just sit back and giggle at our sillies!

It’s a very popular YouTube channel, with 1.2 million subscribers!

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Lagniappe: I love this meme, though it’s not exactly appropriate for a family-oriented website:

h/t: Al, Athayde

You might have heard about “cocaine bear”, but how about “cocaine cat”? Actually, it’s a serval, as recounted by this story from NPR. Click to read:

An excerpt:

The protagonist of this particular tale is a serval named Amiry.

The capture:

The big cat was kept as a pet and escaped from his owner’s car during a police stop in January, according to Anderson.

That’s when Hamilton County Dog Wardens (a division of Cincinnati Animal Care) got calls about what was thought to be a leopard spotted up in a tree.

Responders were able to retrieve Amiry and bring him back to the shelter, where the medical team called in an expert (whose credentials include working on the “Tiger King” case and the Zanesville tragedy) to identify his species.

The expert suspected Amiry was actually a serval, a long-legged, big-eared wild cat that is native to sub-Saharan Africa and illegal to own in Ohio. To confirm that, the medical team took a DNA sample — and also tested him for narcotics.

“Amiry tested positive for exposure to cocaine and the DNA test concluded he was indeed a serval,” Anderson wrote.

Here’s Amiry being tested; the caption is from the website:

The cocaine:

Why did the shelter test Amiry for drugs in the first place? The short answer is a capuchin monkey named Neo.

Last year, local animal control seized the monkey from his Cincinnati home after a veterinarian who saw videos of him believed he had ingested Xanax and/or cocaine and was in need of medical care.

Neo tested positive for amphetamines, underwent treatment and is now “safely in an undisclosed location,” according to Anderson. His owner was indicted on animal cruelty charges.

Since then, Anderson says it’s become standard protocol for the shelter to test for narcotics for any animal that is more “exotic” than the usual household pet.

“Of course, we also test for narcotics on any dog or cat displaying behaviors that would lead us down that path,” he added. “Amiry was extremely agitated at the time he was with us, which is understandable given what he had been through that morning, but we were able to sedate and treat before transporting to the [Cincinnati] Zoo.”

Anderson declined to elaborate on the specifics of the toxicology report, and said authorities are still looking for specific evidence that would indicate how the cocaine got into Amiry’s system.

“Given the nature of his capture, we cannot currently say if this intentional or environmental,” he added.

Amiry was moved to the Cincinnati Zoo where he will become part of the Animal Ambassadors program. A bit more:

Amiry has been recovering from a broken leg, an injury he sustained while slipping out of the tree during his dramatic rescue.

Zoo officials said in a statement on Friday that his health had improved enough for him to move to the area of the Cat Ambassador Program, which aims to educate visitors about the importance of wild cat predators and raise money for cheetah conservation efforts.

The team there will monitor his recovery and help him acclimate to a new environment, a process they say is off to a promising start.

. . . “Amiry is young and very curious. He is exploring his new space and eating well, both great signs of progress,” said Linda Castañeda, the lead trainer of Cincinnati Zoo’s Cat Ambassador Program. “We are working on building trust and increasing his comfort as he adjusts to his new home.”

Amiry’s owner willingly signed Amiry over to animal authorities and has cooperated with their investigation, Anderson said, which is why they are not pursuing charges at the time.

“His owner was cooperative and paid for Amiry’s care until all ownership transfers were finalized, which is when this story went public,” Cincinnati Animal Care noted in a Facebook post on Thursday.

However, it says the case remains open pending additional evidence and that the Ohio Department of Agriculture is investigating as well.

Seriously, the owner had no idea how the cocaine got into that serval?

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Since this post is from The Dodo, you know that it will turn out all right. And it did. Click to read:

The story:

On a construction site in the Bronx, a tiny kitten named Yankee hid among the rubble, fighting for her life. With nothing to protect her from the winter chill, Yankee was essentially frozen. She wouldn’t have lasted much longer, but thankfully workers on the site found her and contacted Puppy Kitty NYCity for help.”

“Construction workers heard her cries the day before and were looking for her,” Meagan Licari, president of Puppy Kitty NYCity, told The Dodo. “When they found her, she was freezing. When I got [there] her temp was so low it didn’t even register on a thermometer. She couldn’t pick up her head. I rushed her right to the emergency hospital.”

Here’s the poor thing being saved:

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More:

Yankee was so cold and fragile that she barely even noticed she was being rescued. She just let Licari take it from there. Once she was at the hospital, the vets sprang into action. She was freezing and starving, but once the little kitten started to warm up and get food in her belly, she slowly began coming back to life.

Yankee at the vet’s:

Licari was shocked and thrilled when Yankee began to transform into a playful little kitten. She truly was rescued just in time.

“It took her three days [in the] hospital to get back to normal,” Licari said. “She needed a lot of supportive care … She’s now the happiest girl!”

As soon as Yankee healed, her curious and spunky personality came out in a big way. Everyone knew she would make the best addition to a very lucky family, and it wasn’t long before she was adopted into her forever home.

See, everything is for the best in Dodo Land! Here she is, all warm and fed up:

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From Linkiest, an obviously biased view, but one with which I concur:

I’ll give the reasons and a precis of each, but there’s more at the site (indented text represents quotes):

1. Grooming. Cats are like self-cleaning ovens when it comes to grooming. They groom themselves pretty much constantly and the only clean-up is the occasional hair ball.

2. The Litterbox.  Whether your cat is an indoor cat or an indoor/outdoor cat a litterbox is necessary and easy to deal with. You hide it in a place company rarely sees like a closet or laundry room and you clean it once a day.

3. Freedom.  Cats give you the freedom to be spontaneous. If someone calls and asks you to go out of town for the weekend you’re good to go without having to find a kennel to board your cat. You simply put out extra food, extra water and take off. Cats don’t really care if you’re gone for 2 hours or 2 days.

4. Expense.  Cats are just cheaper to own. Unless you have a sickly cat on your hands they are just plain cheaper. Their food is cheaper and they eat less of it so it lasts longer. They tend to need to visit the veterinarian less often as well.

5. Easy to Please.  I’ve never had a needy cat while every dog I’ve ever had has been needy in one way or another. As long as you feed them, water them and pet them once in a while cats are good to go. They don’t tend to ‘need’ to be hugged, petted or held constantly.

6. Cats Don’t Bark.  When cats hear something you’ll only know it if you’re watching them and see them shift their ears toward a noise. They certainly won’t bark incessantly at passing cars, kids playing or the mailman.

7. No More Mice. Not everyone lives where mice can be a problem but if you do then cats are awesome to have. Living in the country makes having a few cats a necessity.

I would add, as a subsection of #5, that, unlike d*gs, cats are not obsequious. Cats are more like humans: they have moods, and there are times they want to be left alone. D*gs, on the other hand, are like one’s servants, and have only one mood: needy.

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Lagniappe: Click to read:

Yes, a cat becomes a bunny:

A one-eyed cat named Crash is the first-ever cat to win the Cadbury Bunny contest, making him the brand’s official “spokesbunny” for the year.

The chocolate company announced Crash’s win in a news release Tuesday. The lucky winner is an 8-year-old from Boise, Idaho, according to the release.

Crash was injured in a “devastating” car accident, according to the release. The accident left him “severely injured and left with one eye.”

While healing at a local shelter, Crash’s “quirky, outgoing personality” earned him the love of shelter staff, the release said.

As the winner of the Cadbury Bunny tryouts, Crash will star in the 2023 Cadbury “Clucking Bunny” commercial. He’ll also receive a prize of $5,000 for himself, as well as $5,000 “to the shelter of his choice,” according to the release.

. . . It is the fifth year of the Cadbury Bunny tryouts, but the first year the brand has specifically sought out rescue pets. Crash was chosen from thousands of entries, according to a March 6 news release from Cadbury. The adorable group of finalists included a chinchilla named Ande, a sheep named Timmy, and a duck named Ping.

Here’s Crash at the Bunny Tryouts; photo from Cadbury. (I haven’t been able to find the actual commercial online.)

And a video:

BUT WHY NOT PING?????

h/t: Ginger K., Matthew