The meme below, from Cats Doing Cat Stuff: implies that Thaland has declared all cats as official national symbols. Well, as the articles below say, that’s not exactly true. Some cats have become national symbols, but only breeds from Thailand. Read on:

Here are two articles, the first from the Singapore-based cna news organization and the second from the Bangkok Post. Click on either to read, though the first is more informative:

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From cna:

Five cat breeds native to Thailand were approved as national pet symbols by the government on Nov 18, joining the Thai elephant, fighting fish and Naga among other nationally recognised emblems.

The pure Thai breeds – Suphalak, Korat, Siamese, Konja and Khao Manee – possess distinctive physical and behavioral traits that clearly differentiate them from other breeds, according to Thailand’s National Identity Committee, which had proposed their designations as national pets.

“Their uniqueness has gained international recognition, with some foreign breeders attempting to register purebred Thai cat lines and establish global breed standards,” the Thai government’s public relations department said in a report on Nov 20.

A drawing of the five lucky breeds from cna graphics:

More from cna:

Preecha Vadhana, a cat breeder who operates Bangrak Cat Farm in Bangkok, said that each of the five breeds has very distinct features, making them easily distinguishable from one another.

“But they also share similarities, particularly their structure and short coat.”

The Suphalak has a distinct copper coat and is considered a symbol of prestige and fortune. The Korat is a bluish-grey cat with large, vivid green eyes, while the Khao Manee – a rare, white species – often has eyes with two strikingly different colours such as gold and blue.

The Konja is known as a lucky black cat, unlike its foreign counterparts which are often infamous for the opposite.

Finally, the “king of cats”, the Siamese or Wichienmas, is marked by its distinct dark spots and treasured for its intelligence. It is typically the most expensive of the breeds and can cost 15,000-20,000 baht (US$465-US$620) from a local breeder, while others cost 7,000-15,000 baht.

. . . . The decision to elevate these species is not just symbolic: It is meant to help conserve rare native breeds, standardise them and protect Thailand’s ownership of them. The species will also be used more in creative-economy and tourism branding, according to the government.

Then there’s some grousing about how this recognition won’t help the hundreds of thousands of feral Thai street cats.  That’s probably true, but this is just symbolic. I think the USA needs a National Cat too, and give the genetic admixture that is America, it should be a regular moggy, like a tabby.

Here’s a 4½-minute video about the recognition of National Cats:

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This article from artnet (click to read) describes a new exhibition of medieval manuscripts with cat drawings at Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum. The title of the exhibit is cute: “Paws on Parchment”.  Click to read, and go to the site to see some of those medieval cat drawings, none of which look like real cats!

Note that if you live near Baltimore, the exhibit runs only through February 22, so get your tuches there soon. If I lived nearby, I’d sure go.

An excerpt:

In the 1470s, a Flemish scribe left some meticulously drafted pages of an illuminated manuscript out to dry, only to find out the next day that his cat had trod over them, leaving inky paw prints on the parchment. (Contemporary writers will know the similar pain of typos and elisions wrought by a feline friend’s frenzied scamper across a keyboard.)

Now, more than 500 years later, those pattered pages are the “cat”-alyst for an exhibition at Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum. Aptly titled “Paws on Parchment,” the show explores how medieval illustrators in Europe, Asia, and the Islamic world celebrated cats in the marginalia of their manuscripts and beyond. On view through February 22, 2026, it’s the first of three exhibitions over the next two years dedicated to the depiction of animals in art.

Here is that page with the cat print on it, a cat that lived over 550 years ago!

Herbert researched the works from a lot of different angles to better understand how people felt about cats. This included primary sources like medieval poetry, moral and cautionary tales, recorded pet names, and discussions of cats in encyclopedic works like Isidore of Seville’s Etymology, from the 7th century, and in medieval bestiaries.

Pets with Purpose

She was surprised by what she found. “Many medieval people loved their cats just as much as we do,” she said. However, the reason people kept them in homes, churches, and libraries was less for company and more for the practical reason of rodent control. Their skills at hunting mice and rats were critical to protecting food stores, valuable books, and textiles—and of course, preserving their owners from the plague and other diseases carried by vermin. “Because this was their key purpose in people’s lives, they are most often shown hunting mice,” Herbert said. “While this is still something a house cat might do today, our lives and livelihoods generally don’t depend on their success.”

A manuscript cat that was on display. Does this look like a cat?  Go to the artnet page or the Walters Museum page to see other illustrations and photos.  This exhibit has been running since last August, and you have about six weeks to see it.

Here’s a FB video of cats that didn’t make the cut for the exhibit.

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We all know about Larry, the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, who roams around in and around 10 Downing Street, but did you know that there’s an equivalent cat in Belgium. He belongs to the Prime Minister, and has the lovely name of “Maximus”, short for his full name, “Maximus Textoris Pulcher”. Click below to read the Guardian article about him:

An excerpt:

For nearly 15 years, Britain’s Larry the Cat has charmed visitors to 10 Downing Street. Now another prime ministerial pet is proving a social media hit in Belgium.

Maximus Textoris Pulcher was announced in August as an official resident at the Belgian prime minister’s office, Rue de la Loi 16 in central Brussels.

The grey rescue cat is now thought to have the second most popular political account on Belgian social media, with more than 142,000 followers on Instagram – second only to his master, Bart De Wever, who became Belgium’s prime minister in February.

The cat’s full name is a mock-grandiose title rooted in the prime minister’s love of Latin and Roman history, conveying the meaning “De Wever’s beautiful Maximus” (textoris being “of the weaver”, or De Wever).

De Wever adopted the cat, an abandoned Scottish fold, from a refuge. “I have a cat in my office, it is grey and it does not catch … mice, but I love it anyway,” he told journalists during a recent press conference.

Maximus’s posts on Instagram have lit up the Belgian internet, whether he is stretching for a toy, lolling on a windowsill or being tickled on his chest to an electropopsoundtrack.

. . . Unlike Larry, officially an apolitical cat, Maximus offers subtle observations on his country’s political life. “Another strike,” reads one Maximus thought bubble on the day Belgium began a three-day national action in November against proposed spending cuts, hinting at the exasperation of his master. In another post when De Wever’s eclectic five-party coalition was locked in budget talks, a grumpy-looking Maximus lies on the floor with a thought bubble reading: “Even on Sunday, these nuisances [cabinet ministers] are here.”

A source close to De Wever – described as “a cat person all his life” – said the account was a low-effort part of his team’s work and offered the public a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Rue de la Loi 16.

My friend Maarten Boudry, a Belgian philosopher, tells me that everybody in Belgium knows who Maximus is, and many people follow him.

Here are a couple of Instagram entries showing Maximus making pronouncements. I’ll put a translation for each:

“I’m lookng forward to 2026”:

View this post on Instagram

What do you think of my Christmas sweater, Maximus?
Maximus: Gorgeous!
Maximus (thinking): Ugly…

View this post on Instagram

BDW: What a lovely present, Maximus!
Maximus: Happy birthday… you old sock!

(Note that the socks bear pictures of Maximus)

View this post on Instagram

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Lagniappe. This cat seems to be real, or at least the same photo is everywhere. One specimen:

View this post on Instagram

h/t: Peter N.,, Ginger K.

From yahoo! news we hear about the rediscovery of the flat-headed cat, but the headline is a bit misleading, for the flat-headed cat was thought extinct in Thailan, but it’s still present in other places. Click below to read; you may not know about flat-headed cats (Prionailurus planiceps)) anyway.  Here’s the range given by Wikipedia, and Thailand does extend partway into the Malay Peninsula.

An excerpt:

An elusive wild cat long feared extinct in Thailand has been rediscovered three decades after the last recorded sighting, conservation authorities and an NGO said Friday.

Flat-headed cats are among the world’s rarest and most threatened wild felines. Their range is limited to Southeast Asia and they are endangered because of dwindling habitat.

The domestic cat-sized feline with its distinctive round and close-set eyes was last spotted in a documented sighting in Thailand in 1995.

But an ecological survey that began last year, using camera traps in southern Thailand’s Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary, recorded 29 detections, according to the country’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation and wild cat conservation organisation Panthera.

“The rediscovery is exciting, yet concerning at the same time,” veterinarian and researcher Kaset Sutasha of Kasetsart University told AFP, noting that habitat fragmentation has left the species increasingly “isolated”.

It was not immediately clear how many individuals the detections represent, as the species lacks distinctive markings so counting is tricky.

But the findings suggest a relatively high concentration of the species, Panthera conservation programme manager Rattapan Pattanarangsan told AFP.

The footage included a female flat-headed cat with her cub — a rare and encouraging sign for a species that typically produces only one offspring at a time.

Nocturnal and elusive, the flat-headed cat typically lives in dense wetland ecosystems such as peat swamps and freshwater mangroves, environments that are extremely difficult for researchers to access, Rattapan said.

Globally, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that around 2,500 adult flat-headed cats remain in the wild, classifying the species as endangered.

In Thailand, it has long been listed as “possibly extinct”.

THE CAT CAME BACK! Here’s a video showing the cats filmed in southern Thailand. Their hats are indeed flat!

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I have had the next article verified by my friend Catherine who lives in Amsterdam, who has see these cat stairs. Click to read the article from Vice.  

The nooz:

Amsterdam is world-renowned for its canals. They’re a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You might already know that. You might not realize, however, that Amsterdam is crazy for cats, and now it’s trying to protect them.

Amsterdam is spending €100,000 to build tiny wooden staircases along its canals as part of a cat safety initiative. After 19 cats drowned in the city’s elaborate network of waterways over the past six months, city officials finally decided that enough is enough. It’s time to start saving these kitties.

The plan was put forward by Judith Krom of the Party for the Animals. While other political parties in the Netherlands bicker about human needs, the Party for the Animals represents the political interests, rights, and welfare of wildlife.

That includes the Netherlands’ massive population of stray cats.

The cash comes from a forgotten biodiversity budget fund, and the staircases (nicknamed “cat traps”) are designed to give cats (and any other critters) a way out of the canals when their curiosity leads them into a waterway they’re not evolutionarily equipped to thrive within.

Animal welfare group Dierenambulance Amsterdam is collaborating with the city to identify the locations where the most accidental cat water plunges have occurred. Then, they’ll install the stairs at high-risk sites later this year.

This story was written in August of 2025 but some stairs have already gone up. And not just in Amsterdam:

Not to be outdone, the city of Amersfoort already started installing around 300 of its cat stairs as part of its 2024 animal welfare program. The local council even collaborated with residents to identify trouble spots.

Krom called it a “simple measure” that can “prevent enormous animal suffering.” As the world spins ever faster into absurdity, it’s heartening to hear such empathy being extended in our age of callousness.

I found a video showing the cat stairs:

You have to hand it to the Dutch; you have to have a big heart to do something like this.

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An article in Current Biology answers a provocative question with an untested hypothesis.  The question is this: why do most cats, at least according to the survey, sleep on their left sides? While individual cats are left-pawed or right-pawed, domestic cats as a whole are—unlike humans—about 50% of each type. But not so for the way they sleep. Most moggies sleep on their left sides, at least in this sample, which was actually taken by watching YouTube videos.

Click on the title below or find the pdf here.

The method (quotes from the paper are indented):

To address this question, we included 301 publicly available YouTube videos in our analysis based on our defined criteria, featuring a cat that is visible from head to hind legs with a full-body sleeping position lying on one side, with this sleep side not changing for at least 10 seconds. Only original, unaltered videos were included, while low-resolution, obscured, duplicated, or modified (e.g., mirrored/selfie) videos were excluded (Supplemental information). Our results revealed a statistically significant leftward bias at the population level (χ² = 22.9, df = 1, p < 0.001) with n = 192 cats (63.8%) showing a leftward sleeping position and n = 109 cats a rightward one (36.2%) (Figure 1). Thus, on average, about two-thirds of cats preferred to sleep on the left side of their body with their left shoulder down.

A figure with the data.  They imply that individual cats always sleep on the same side, but I doubt that. And readers can check that themselves. It’s just that a random snapshot of cats on YouTube are mostly sleeping on their left side:

Now the sample isn’t huge, and perhaps people tend to photograph their cats when they lie on their left sides, but I think this is probably a real phenomenon, In fact, if your cat is sleeping now, go look at what side it’s lying on and answer the poll below (a one-time observation).

The question then arises, of course: WHY do they sleep on their left side? Well, we could say we don’t know, just as we don’t know why most people are right-handed (maybe they’ve figured it out by now). But biologists want THEORIES, and one suggestion involves the lateralization of the cat brain. In short, right side of the brain, which contains the predator detection “module”, is connected by nerves to the left eye. (We have the same crossover between our eyes and the brain hemispheres, which many of you probably know.) The theory, then, which is the authors’, is that sleeping this way allows the left eye to see the predator and activate the right side of the brai, and this causes a quicker response. Or, to put it as the authors do:

This finding is not only interesting from the perspective that cats show a significant population-level bias for the left side but also fits very well with previous findings on functional specialization in the mammalian right hemisphere. The right hemisphere is dominant for threat processing, and in most species, animals react faster when a predator is approaching from the left side. Moreover, the right hemisphere is dominant for spatial attention and the right amygdala in the processing of fear in response to a threat. Upon awakening, a leftward sleeping position would provide a fast left visual field view of objects that approach from below or from similarly elevated positions, thus allowing optimal conditions for fast processing of external stimuli in the right hemisphere of the brain.

Well, as someone said, “all this is as plausible as anything else.” But it could be tested by having mock predators approach sleeping cats and see if the ones sleeping on their left become aware or flee faster than the right-sided sleepers.  Pity the authors did not test this!

So go look at your moggie now and take this poll if you have a cat (answer for each cat separately if you have more than one).

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Lagniappe. A tweet from the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office:

Happy #Caturday
(Yes, it’s Saturday)pic.twitter.com/L9IBOLFDnw

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) December 27, 2025

And this:

h/t: Stephen. VaneWimsey,

Well, at least we still have Caturday felids, as there is never any end to cats appearing on the Internet.  But the dearth of comments always makes me think about dispensing with this feature, too.

The last Caturday Felid post featured the legend of the murderous Icelandic Yule Cat, called the Jólakötturinn, described by Wikipedia as

. . . . . a huge and vicious cat from Icelandic folklore that is said to lurk in the snowy countryside during the Yule season and eat people who do not receive new clothing. In other versions of the story, the cat only eats the food of the people who had not received new clothing.

Here’s a short holiday ad for Icelandair featuring an interview with Jólakötturinn. He is not a crook! Sadly, Yule cat resents the lack of credit he gets for looming so large in the Icelandic psyche and for ensuring that many Icelandic children get new clothes.

. . . and one more, also from Icelandair. Here Yule cat, at first rejected by a family, is finally accepted—and allowed to go on a trip with them—after he gets cleaned up and has a shrimp dinner.

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Here is a happy Christmas tail that appeared in the Torygraph on Christmas Day. I’ve linked the screenshot below to an archived site, so click below to read about the reappearing Bindi.

The story:

Bindi the cat has been reunited with its family for Christmas, five years after it went missing.

The black feline “vanished into thin air” from its home in Haddenham, Cambridgeshire in August 2020.

Jilly Fretwell, Bindi’s owner, had moved house since the disappearance but thanks to microchip technology, vets were able to pull off “a real Christmas miracle”.

Ms Fretwell, 29, said: “She used to go out for a couple of hours and then come straight back, so it was really odd for her to be missing for more than a day.”

Despite posting appeals on social media and searching local walking routes for several months, the software project manager was unable to find her pet.

She had become convinced Bindi would never come home until a phone call from vets on Dec 18 brought welcome news.

Ms Fretwell said there were “no clues” about where Bindi may have been over the last five years, but that she had clearly been “looked after by someone” as she was in “great shape”.

She described her cat as “the most cuddly”, adding that it will “put her paws on either of your shoulders to give you a real cuddle”

Ms Fretwell said: “I think she’s been looked after by someone, she looks in great shape.”

Describing the moment they got the phone call, she said: “We were just in complete disbelief. It wasn’t really until we saw her that we believed it was her.

“We’re just so glad we had her microchipped and that she was alive and well. I’ve never heard of anyone’s cat going missing for so long and turning up absolutely fine.”

Here’s Bindi in a FB post from the Manchester Evening News:

Some info added by The Daily Fail:

The cat, now 10, was in good health and had been ‘well looked after’ and ‘instantly’ recognised her family.

Jilly told the BBC: ‘She’s been missing for five years and we got a call on Thursday from the lovely vets in Witchford to say they had scanned her microchip and she was coming back home to us.

‘She had a couple of little scratches on her that the vet wanted to see to, but other than that, she looks great. She’s lovely and glossy, well-fed and has been looked after somewhere. But we have absolutely no idea where she has been the last five years.’

Bindi disappeared during the Covid pandemic and Jilly spent her daily walks searching for her, sharing appeals on social media and asking people across Haddenham to keep an eye out.

Despite being 10 years old and having spent so long away from her family, Bindi remains affectionate, happily cuddling up to Jilly and settling on her lap.

Other stories frequently use the word “miracle” to refer to Bindi’s reappearance. What tails she could tell, but nobody will ever know. (I suppose the vet could reveal who turned her in, but that may be unethical for vets.).  We send Bindi and her staff thoughts and prayers for the holiday season.

Be sure to get your cat chipped, even if it’s an indoor cat.

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Finally, we have a story from the Guardian about Sylvia Townsend Warner (1973-1978), a lesbian writer described by Wikipedia as:

. . . .an English novelist, poet and musicologist, known for works such as Lolly Willowes, The Corner That Held Them, and Kingdoms of Elfin. She spent most of her adult life in partnership with the poet Valentine Ackland.

And here’s Valentine Ackland:

Warner was a bit of a polymath, and you can read about her accomplishments in several fields here, or in her biography at the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society (with more pictures).

But today we’re featuring her role as an ailurophile, and of a new and wonderful statue of Warner—avec chatte—that has just been produced and unveiled.

Click headline to read:

An excerpt:

The thing all women hate is to be thought dull,” says the title character of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s 1926 novel, Lolly Willowes, an early feminist classic about a middle-aged woman who moves to the countryside, sells her soul to the devil and becomes a witch.

Although women’s lives are so limited by society, Lolly observes, they “know they are dynamite … know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are”.

Warner herself was anything but dull: a writer, translator, musicologist and political activist who wrote seven novels, extensive poetry and contributed more than 150 short stories to the New Yorker, more than any other female writer. She was also a communist who volunteered for the Red Cross during the Spanish civil war and an LGBTQ+ pioneer, living with the poet Valentine Ackland for decades in a quiet Dorset village, in a partnership they described as a marriage.

In the 1930s, Warner was described as “famous in two continents for numerous and brilliant contributions to literature”, but though many of her works remain in print, her name has faded from widespread recognition, even in the county where she lived.

The Guardian article was written on December 12. More about the statue, which is a big megillah. It was controversial because the cat was modeled on a local cat named Susie and people argued that the cat statue (see below) didn’t look much like Susie. Oy!

That is due to change this weekend, when a statue of Warner will be unveiled in Dorchester. The sculpture by Denise Dutton shows Warner sitting on a bench accompanied by a cat, in a nod to the creatures she loved and the witch’s companion in her best-known novel.

Anya Pearson, who led the campaign to erect the statue, said that by placing the lifesize figure in the town’s main shopping area, “we are saying very clearly that women’s stories and queer women’s stories belong in our public spaces”. “Sylvia pushed boundaries, wrote without fear and lived authentically. This statue finally allows us to celebrate her as her authentic self, proudly and openly, in the town she called home.”

Pearson is a veteran of this kind of thing, having previously been the force behind a statue of the Victorian fossil hunter and palaeontologist Mary Anning in nearby Lyme Regis. After that statue was unveiled to great local enthusiasm in 2022, Pearson set her sights on her home town of Dorchester, where statues commemorate the writers Thomas Hardy and William Barnes – but until now, no non-royal women.

The campaign, which asked for nominations of overlooked women, received more than 50 names that were shortlisted then put to a vote. Warner “won by a landslide”, says Pearson, who works at Arts University Bournemouth. The £60,000 cost was raised through crowdsourcing and a number of significant international donations.

Here’s a video of the appeal for funds for the statue, and gives more photos  (a couple with cats) and info about Townsend:

Warner apparently loved cats, and had several. Like many artists, she tended to favor Siamese cats (some day I’ll figure out this correlation), and you can see two photos of her with her felids at the gallery section of her society.

It was hard to find a good picture of the statue that doesn’t appear to be copyrighted, and here is one, from Discover Dorchester., which has no photographer attribution. It’s a great statue, with Townsend sitting on a bench with books at her feet and a cat rubbing against her leg:

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Lagniappe:  Four lion cubs and mom. It appears that there are more, but they are being taken care of by other lionesses in the pride (it’s not clear whether that mother had nine cubs, which would be a LOT for a single mother). This was shot at Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, adjacent to the Serengeti.

h/t: Robert, Ginger K.

This article from The Piedmont Clearinghouse MAY be a spoof. I don’t know, but if so it’s a bad spoof because a spoof will eventually let you in on the joke. Certainly many of the readers took it seriously, and the author doesn’t suggest it’s a spoof in the comments. To be sure, it is humorous, and maybe that’s the key to the fact that it’s tongue-in-cheek.  You be the judge.

It touts dgs as better pets than cats, but in fact cats are not “pets”; rather, we are their staff (we could be considered cats’ pets!). That is not the case for the obsequious dg. So even at the get-go Zack Morris is just dead wrong.

Click screenshot to read.

Some excerpts:

One of the most reliable cultural memes of the last hundred years or so is whether a dog or a cat is the better domestic pet. Everybody likes to debate it. This feels, in the main, very dumb. It is really inconceivable that a cat could ever be considered a better pet than a dog. Cats are awful. They are really terrible pets from start to finish. There is virtually nothing a cat does well that a dog doesn’t do much better, and there are countless things that cats do terribly, even horribly, that cat defenders hold up as positives rather than obvious negatives.

Up front let’s identify the one virtue cats possess over dogs: They can often catch mice and rats and other pests very well. This is a great skill. But it’s also something better suited to a working farm, or a wharf, or maybe a prison complex. I’m not saying it’s not a good skill for a pet to have, but look, if your house is being overrun with mice and rats, you’ve got bigger problems than the dog-vs-cat debate. You have to deal with that on a structural level. A cat can kill a lot of rodents in one day, which is great. But also, maybe you should clean up your house a bit, sweep up the crumbs and pick up the burger wrappers and whatnot. Then you won’t have so many mice to deal with anyway. If you do that—if you make your home less inviting to vermin—then you’ll just naturally have fewer mice and rats running around, and the cat’s one tactical advantage more or less vanishes.

Thus on an even footing, a cat will lose this endless debate, and a dog will win. A dog is overwhelmingly just better suited as a human companion. Of course, people like to try and qualify this in all sorts of ways. “It depends on your lifestyle and needs!” “It really depends on your personality!” “It depends on what kind of pet you want!” That’s really the point, though: You shouldn’t want a cat, any more than you should want to live in a mud hovel or eat raw slugs for dinner. Some things are objectively not good!

The main point is this: The idealized dog is a good, affectionate, fun, loyal pet. I say “idealized” as a qualifier, because of course bad dogs exist, but in truth it’s really not that hard to create the idealized dog. Some dogs are smarter and others are dumber, some are more eager to serve and other are just looking to loll about, but if you fulfill a few certain obligations for a dog—if you get it pretty young, feed it well, train it even moderately, play with it, give it decent living conditions, keep it reasonably stimulated—then it will almost certainly be a good pet. The same is not true for cats, none of whom you can really train beyond teaching it to shit in a box, inside your home, which you then have to shovel out yourself as if you are the cat’s personal valet. (We’ll get to that.)

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Now one could add that there are seeing-eye dgs and emotional support dgs, but not seeing-eye cats or emotional support cats. But the former assertion comes from dgs having being bred to do what humans want (question: could cats have been bred that way? I doubt it, and it goes along with the lack of sociality of wild cats versus the nearly obligatory sociality of wild dgs.).  But there are indeed emotional support cats, as outlined in this article from petful.com, which you can read by clicking below. The thing is, an emotional support cat doesn’t have to do any tasks save be there, allow itself to be petted and hugged, and sometimes purr. That’s not too much to ask.

A few excerpts:

How Emotional Support Cats Sense our Needs

After my dad’s heart attack, my grandmother got me a comforting companion, Alexander, a lanky red tabby. He stayed by my side through that strange, uncertain time, and even after Dad returned home, Alexander remained my go-to feline. Although he lived outside with our other cats, my brothers always brought him to me whenever I was sick or hurt.

Since Alexander, many emotional support cats have filled this role, sensing my needs even before I realized them. Here’s how these cats offer emotional support:

• Attentiveness to Emotions: Cats who form close bonds with their owners often become attuned to their human’s feelings.
• Natural Comforting Behaviors: Some cats instinctively respond with comforting actions, such as sitting close or gently nuzzling.
• Adaptability in Domestic Spaces: Indoor cats, in particular, develop behaviors that help them connect more closely with their humans.

As Patricia Fry observes, their cats try to console them when they’re unhappy, and indoor cats often reflect comforting characteristics due to this close connection.

The Comforting Legacy of Emotional Support Cats

Despite some misconceptions, emotional support cats have a history of providing comfort to humans. Here are a few stories showcasing their unique ability to console and uplift:

• Hima’s Gentle Comfort: A plushy gray cat named Hima consoles her young owner, who has just hurt her foot. Hima responds instinctively, nuzzling and gently patting the child as if caring for a kitten in distress.
• Historical Figures and Their Cats:
  • Abraham Lincoln: Even during the Civil War, Lincoln found solace by rescuing three kittens while visiting General Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters.
  • Florence Nightingale: Struggling with chronic brucellosis and depression, Nightingale found companionship and comfort from her cats, whose paw prints marked her personal papers.
  • Edgar Allan Poe: Although his life was often plagued with hardship, Poe’s tortie cat, Catterina, provided comfort by sitting on his shoulder, “purring as if in complacent approval” as he worked.
• Modern View of Cats as Therapists: Today, furry therapists like emotional support cats are recognized for their calming influence. Though dogs are typically chosen for therapy, cats remain invaluable due to their intuitive, independent nature, often comforting people in ways dogs cannot.

These examples illustrate how cats have provided companionship and relief, offering therapeutic support across generations.

The Unique Role of Emotional Support Cats in Therapy:

While dogs are often chosen as therapy animals, emotional support cats play a unique and irreplaceable role in therapeutic settings, particularly for individuals with complex emotional needs.

• Limitations of Dogs in Therapy: According to Animal-Assisted Therapy Programs of Colorado, dogs are excellent for initial therapy due to their accepting and non-judgmental nature. However:
  • Dogs may struggle to set boundaries, which can be challenging for clients dealing with social skills or family issues.
  • Unlike dogs, cats do not tolerate poor behavior, which can encourage healthier interactions and reinforce boundaries.
• Support for PTSD and Trauma: Cats have a special capacity to comfort people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma. In one instance, a woman described how her cat, Simon, became her emotional anchor following a traumatic event. She would often wake up in distress, only to find Simon gently “licking her tears,” offering solace that helped her reconnect with the world.

Emotional support cats provide a balance between comfort and boundaries, making them invaluable companions for individuals facing deeper emotional challenges.

The other sections are called “Emotional Support Cats: Companions for Seniors”, “Emotional Support Cats: A Matchmaking Service for Companionship”.  And there’s a short video captioned, “Watch Hima comfort her sad human”. The YouTube caption is this:

Contrary to popular perception, cats can be as loving as other pets. Take, for instance, Hima, a cat from Japan who is currently winning hearts on social media for the way she comforts her crying owner. When Hima’s owner, a little girl, hurt her foot on a chair and started crying, she tried to comfort her with some loving cuddles. The video, which has received over 9 lakh views on Imgur, shows Hima, a Russian blue cat, snuggling up to her owner as she cries in pain. Watch the unbearably adorable video below on Hima’s own Instagram, where she has over 2,600 followers.

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Finally, as it turned Yule yesterday (the first day of winter), it’s appropriate to learn about the Yule cat, which is not an emotional support cat but an Icelandic legend about a killer cat!  First, a tweet:

The icelandic cat who eats those who are not wearing their new clothes.

The Jólakötturinn, or the Yule Cat is a monstrously large creature from Icelandic folklore that is said to roam the snowy countryside during Christmas, with a particular appetite for anyone who has not… pic.twitter.com/hdaZJ0CDwn

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 14, 2025

Click below to read about Jólakötturinn at The Great Cat site, your go-to site for all things Cat.

I can’t embed it, but it has photos and drawings.  You can also read about it in Wikipedia, and I’ll give a few excerpts:

The Yule cat (Icelandic: Jólakötturinn, Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈjouːlaˌkʰœhtʏrɪn], also called Jólaköttur^[1]) is a huge and vicious cat from Icelandic folklore that is said to lurk in the snowy countryside during the Yule season and eat people who do not receive new clothing. In other versions of the story, the cat only eats the food of the people who had not received new clothing. Jólakötturinn is closely associated with other figures from Icelandic folklore, considered the pet of the ogress Grýla and her sons, the Yule Lads.

The first definitive mention of the Yule cat is from an 1862 collection of folklore by Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri (is). It was described as an evil beast that would either eat those who did not get new clothes for Christmas, or eat their “Christmas bit” (an extra portion of food given to residents of a farm). Jón gave no source for either story.^[2][3]

. . . . The Yule cat was traditionally used as a threat and incentive for farm workers to finish processing the wool collected in the autumn before Christmas. Those who took part in the work were rewarded with new clothes, but those who did not would get nothing and thus would be prey for the Yule cat.

. . . The establishment of the Yule cat as part of classic Icelandic Christmas folklore came in 1932, when Jóhannes úr Kötlum published his poetry collection Jólin koma (is) (lit. ‘Christmas is Coming‘). One of the poems, Jólakötturinn, centered on the eponymous man-eating monster which subsequently became a common part of Christmas festivities and decorations in Iceland

You can see Kölum’s poem at the “Legend of the Yule Cat” site above; it’s too long for me to reproduce here.

Here’s a three-minute video explaining and showing the Yule Cat:

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Lagniappe. First, a meme.

Still more lagniappe: Hispanic cats injure Jesus and his family, as well as the Good Shepherds. They have no respect, for they are cats. Sound up.

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More lagniappe from ISTANBUL! This is more or less what you’ll see if you go there.

And even more lagniappe: free accommodations on a Greek island if you take care of kitties!

h/t: Thomas, Nicole, Marion, Ginger K., Cate, Reese

From Inside the Magic comes a story I’ve known for a while—but you might not. It’s about the feral cats that roam the original Disneyland at night, taking care of the rodent problem. Click below to see the story; excerpts are indented:

Excerpts:

It’s no news that Disney parks hide some special park features in plain sight, like the hidden suite in Cinderella Castle, Walt Disney’s apartment at Magic Kingdom in Disneyland Park, and the private members-only Club 33, also located in Disneyland Park.

However, Disneyland Resort in California focuses much of its attention on a “secret attraction” in Disney park 24/7, and they manage to hide it in plain sight. [JAC: Disneyland Resort comprises two parks, one of them the original Disneyland, which I went to once as a child.]

To be more exact, around 200 of these “secret attractions.” Yes, you read it right — There are about 200 feral cats at Disneyland! The adorable feral cat colony lives in the happiest place on earth.

. . . . There have been sightings going as far as 1955, soon after Disneyland opened.

The story goes: When Walt Disney decided that there should be an attraction inside the Sleeping Beauty Castle — what we know today as the Castle Walkthrough attraction — he brought engineers into the castle to begin the planning. But to his surprise, he was greeted by a feral cat colony that had made the court their home.

But the cats had brought a huge problem — an infestation of fleas. Walt Disney knew he couldn’t just get rid of the cats without sparking public uproar, so he adopted each cat and made them all Cast Members. By doing so, the problem seemed to be solved in the best possible way.

Unfortunately, things weren’t that simple. Due to the theme park’s rustic design, Disneyland had ironically brought unwelcomed guests to the park — rodents.

For Walt’s luck, not all feral cats had set home in the castle but other places around the park property. Those cats found their wonderland inside the park with a good source of food — the rodent population — plus, the park was a place free of the typical dangers that a stray cat faces. They would come out at night and hunt inside the park in peace.

Someone at the Disney company had a brilliant idea; allow the cats to live in the park. By nature, feral cats are scared of humans. Therefore they wouldn’t bother the park’s guests, and apparently, they were doing a better job at pest control than human exterminators.

The idea worked so well that the cat population at Disneyland still exists with over 200 felines! The kittens received a forever home at the happiest place on earth, and the theme park guests are always surprised and glad to spot one of the felines around the park. So, next time you are at Disneyland, keep an eye out for some whiskers, bushy fur tails, and significant cuteness.

After deciding to keep the cats, the Disney Company established protocols and ways to keep the cats and guests safe. Disney placed feeding stations around the property, the cats were all spayed/neutered, vaccinated the entire feral population, and Circle D Ranch Cast Members were assigned to care for the furry batch of Disneyland Cast Members. The cats a very well taken care of at Disneyland!

Mostly, the cats stay hidden during the day and roam around at night. But not all cats follow that rule. Park guests often spot the feral cats sleeping around the park or wandering around the park property during the day. For that reason, and as a general rule, Disney does not encourage guests to try to get too close or even pet the cats. They are better off remaining solitary and admired from a distance. But, by all means, take some pictures!

If, by any chance, a Disneyland cat starts getting too comfortable around park guests, Disney adopts the feline out to a Disney cast member. The same goes for any new litter of kittens accidentally born within any Disney property. So, please don’t encourage the cats to lose their permanent home inside the happiest place on earth.

If any of the Disneyland cats start to get too friendly around the park’s guests, or if a new cat litter is born, Disney decides to put them up for adoption to a Disney employee — So they are always part of the Disney family.

I knew that any company that makes its living by extolling animals would take care of cats this way! Has any reader who’s been to the original Disneyland seen these cats?

And here’s a video showing them, including Walt himself, holding stroking an orange moggy:

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The other day I got an unexpected package in the mail, and, opening it up, I found a wonderful picture book, large and full of glossy photos of domestic cats (both moggies and purebreds) as well as wild cats like tigers and lions. It’s published by Abrams Books, where the hardcover goes for $70 (only $49 at Amazon); the fantastic photos were taken by Tim Flach, and the text is by evolutionary biologist and ailurophile Jon Losos.  I figured out quickly that, because I reviewed Jon’s book The Cat’s Meow in the Washington Post, and favorably (I called it “the definitive book on the biology, ecology and evolution of the house cat{“). Jon had the book sent to me. I was right: Jon told me, “The publisher asked for suggestions about whom to send it to, and you immediately came to mind.”

I was delighted, and sent the photo below to Jon that day.

Flach, a British photographer specializing in animals, does spectacular work here’s a video he produced about the book:

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One of Flach’s photos from the book, somewhat degraded as I took it with an iPhone. But even so it’s mesmerizing.

Here’s an eight-minute video aired on CBS about Flach and his photos of cats (and other creatures):

This book would make a great Christmas present for ailurophiles, and you can get it for less than fifty bucks on Amazon. Have a look!

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Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire has some of the worst weather in the United States. Located atop the eponymous 6,288-foot mountain, it has human residents who stay for a week at a time, but also a cat, Nimbus, who’s a permanent resident.  The Observatory is a private, nonprofit organization aimed at producing scientific data, and Wikipedia says this:

The U.S. Signal Service, a predecessor to the Weather Bureau, occupied the summit and kept records from 1870 to 1892. Starting in 1932, the current observatory began keeping records. On April 12, 1934, the observatory staff recorded a wind gust of 231 mph that at the time was the highest recorded wind speed in the world, a record that was held until 1996. [JAC: the new record was set in 1996 “at Barrow Island, Australia during Typhoon Olivia. According to the report, the new record stands at 253 mph.”] The observatory’s weather data have accumulated into a valuable climate record since. Temperature and humidity readings have been collected using a sling psychrometer, a simple device containing two mercury thermometers. Where most unstaffed weather stations have undergone technology upgrades, consistent use of the sling psychrometer has helped provide scientific precision to the Mount Washington climate record.

The observatory makes prominent use of the slogan “Home of the World’s Worst Weather”, a claim that originated with a 1940 article by Charles Brooks (the man generally given the majority of credit for creating the Mount Washington Observatory), titled “The Worst Weather In the World” (even though the article concluded that Mt. Washington most likely did not have the world’s worst weather). The Sherman Adams summit building, named for the 67th Governor of New Hampshire, houses the observatory; it is closed to the public during the winter and hikers are not allowed inside the building except for emergencies and pre-arranged guided tours.

It’s dire up there in winter; here’s a photo from 2004:

The observatory has a page on “History of cats on the mountain,” showing that they go back to the 1930s, and there has been one ever since I can remember. The current resident, Nimbus (formerly “Greg”) came from The Conway Area Humane Society, and while he goes out in summer, he’s always well taken care of and well fed. You can read “20 FAQs about Nimbus, the Summit Cat“, and here’s an excerpt (Nimbus wrote it himself):

10. What does Nimbus like to do all day?

When I am not outside, I enjoy begging for treats from the Observers and taking naps on the couch or on someone’s lap. At night, I like to hunt for mice and I take that role very seriously; after all, it is my purrsonal responsibility to keep the rodent population in check.

11. What is Nimbus’ personality like?

I consider myself a sociable cat and I like to use meows, chatters, and purrs to get the attention of staff members and visitors.

12. Does Nimbus live at the summit year round?

Besides my occasional routine visit to the doctor, I do live at the mountain year round. When I do take a trip down to the valley, though, I always forget how there is 20% more oxygen at the base of the mountain than at the summit.

13. Does Nimbus like the winter season at the summit?

I am less than thrilled when the weather turns colder, snowier, and windier at Mount Washington in the winter. So, most days, the observers will find me enjoying the warmth of our living quarters. Sometimes, I’ll even lay directly on the heater in the living quarters when I am not warm enough.

Here’s Jen, the “Good News Girl,” narrating some video and facts about the Summit Cat:

And an Instagram post from the Observatory showing all the cold-weather gear that Nimbus has acquired. I seriously doubt, though, whether he ever dons this stuff. But look at his booties!

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Lagniappe 1: Larry the Cat in a photobomb

Lagniappe 2:  Cat vs. d*g (cat wins!)

Lagniappe 3: Cat vs. snow. Click on the picture to go to the video:

h/t: Andrew, Phil

First we have a five-minute video, showing a paralyzed cat name Har-PURR getting a new wheelchair. He seems okay with it, and I hope he’s okay for a long time to come:

There’s more about ten cat at four other places:

Please visit HarPURR’s official pages to follow his incredible journey: –

Instagram:  / harpurr_kitty_warrior  
Website: https://www.harpurrkittywarrior.org/
Facebook:  / harpurrkittywarrior  
The Book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/harp…

And the book:

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And here’s an article that includes videos. From WorldsBestCatLittter.com, you learn why, if you’re doing yoga, you should do it with cats. Click to read (excerpts are indented):

Our naturally flexible feline friends don’t get the credit they deserve for their therapeutic superpowers. Even just being around a cat can improve our mood. That’s why blending yoga’s gentle movements with the charm of free-roaming felines has made cat yoga a feel-good trend all over the world.

But before we get to what yoga with cats is like, let’s get ourselves into the Cat Cow pose.

Cat-Cow pose gets its name from the two animals it mirrors: the gentle arch of a stretching cat and the dip of a calm, grazing cow.

The “cat” portion especially reflects the way real cats flex their spines to wake up their bodies. In yoga, this movement is said to help loosen the spine, releasing tension, and helping you ease into deeper breaths, just like a cat starting its day with a good stretch.

Here it is:

@fosterkittenohana

the best yoga partner 🐱🧘🏽‍♀️ (mat is in my am@zon page) #bibbleandnori #yoga #peaceful #wholesome #fyp #cutecats #catmom #catbestfriend

♬ original sound – Aidan Robinson

What is cat yoga?

Cat yoga is the practice of doing yoga in the presence of cats or kittens. It’s basically a normal yoga class, but with cats wandering around, judging you from a corner, jumping in your lap, walking on your back, and licking your face.

If you haven’t heard of cat yoga, you’ve probably heard of goat yoga or dog yoga. Any yoga class with animals is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, but cats tend to be less messy than most animals. Cats have the right temperament, but goats are notorious for pooping everywhere and dogs can be overly rambunctious.

So, here’s what we know about yoga with cats.

. . .Obviously, cats make everything better, even exercise! It’s scientifically proven that, individually, yoga and cats can improve our mental health. And when you combine them, expect your brain to explode into rainbows of happiness.

According to research, cats can amplify the benefits of yoga by affecting our brain chemistry. When you interact with a cat, your brain releases oxytocin, which is a hormone that promotes social bonding and lowers stress and anxiety levels. While oxytocin increases in the brain, the stress hormone cortisol decreases. This puts you in a more relaxed state that can lower your blood pressure and heart rate.

Well, yes, cats can effect these physiological changes, but the link doesn’t really show research on the benefits of cats with yoga. So I’ll just assert it as a plausible hypothesis.

If you’re doing cat yoga at home with your beloved pet, they get the benefit of extra bonding time with their favorite human. Plus, yoga at home means they don’t have to get up and leave after Savasana.  [This is “a restorative pose at the end of a yoga session.” It’s shown in the video below.]

How do do cat yoga:

It doesn’t matter if you’re at home with your cat or at a yoga studio surrounded by adoptable kittens. You can do cat yoga anywhere there’s a cat and a mat. Just know that any sense of personal space goes out the window when your fellow yogis are felines!

Cat yoga classes are frequently held at shelters, adoption centers, yoga studios, and cat cafes. Simply search for a studio or class near you.

Classes are usually a bit more expensive than a regular yoga class because they are often fundraising events. The majority of the time, the cats joining you in class will all be available for adoption.

Or if you’re thinking, “Na…maste home with my cat,” break out your mat, grab your kitty a treat, and find videos of guided yoga practices from your local studio or on YouTube.

yoga cat
byu/RemarkableBudget5277 infunnycats

Here’s one example of how to incorporate a cat into your yoga:

Looks like fun to me, and good for both cat and staff!

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Here’s a conflict over a shorhair cats that tore apart a friendship and wound up costing $25K in legal fees. It’s from the Philadelphia Inquirer, and you can read it by clicking below (excerpts are indented):

First they were roommates, and then they were friends. But after Jessica Yang and Nicole DeNardo couldn’t agree on who should keep Gary — the exotic shorthair that Yang bought and DeNardo had been taking care of — it took a Common Pleas Court judge to decide.

The two former roommates say they disagreed over whether Yang had given Gary to DeNardo or whether it was a temporary arrangement. In December 2024, Yang sued DeNardo to make her return the cat.

“She said I was unfit to be a pet parent,” Yang said. “She said I was childish and selfish for even wanting Gary back. She kept asking me to consider the feelings and preferences of Gary.”

Two lawyers contacted for this story say that situations like this one are on the rise, though the money spent on such a case — Yang spent $20,000, DeNardo, $5,000 — is a bit remarkable.

“People love their animals, and people are willing to spend a lot of money in legal fees to reclaim their animals,” said Rebecca Glenn-Dinwoodie, a Doylestown-based family and animal lawyer not involved in the case.

But for the two women, the fight over the small, cuddly cat with blue eyes became a catastrophe that dragged on for a year.

“She just didn’t want me to have him,” DeNardo said. “It was personal. It was about beating me.”

The two fast friends and roommates began to squabble after Yang made a discovery:

Things began to go south when Yang said she learned that DeNardo had changed Gary’s last name at the vet — from Yang to DeNardo — and added her name to the cat’s microchip. DeNardo, Yang said, considered the cat hers.

It’s one of several details DeNardo remembers differently. DeNardo said the vet’s office changed the cat’s last name, not her. As for the microchip, which would help people identify Gary’s owner if he were to get lost, she said she added her name for practical reasons — she was the one who was around.

DeNardo said she was often the one who took care of Gary. She fed him, she said, and took him to the vet. She even “cleaned his eyeballs” every day — something shorthair cats often need.

“He was always in my life, always on the windowsill next to me,” DeNardo said.

She provided a timeline showing she’d spent more time with Gary than Yang. She offered lists of friends who would attest Gary was her cat — a fact many people in her lifefound mildly amusing, since her father and her brother are also both named Gary.

The article also says that some states, including Pennsylvania, have laws about who gets custody of pets in a dispute, but those laws are relevant only to married people, not roommates.

Who got the moggy? Read on by clicking the People magazine article below:

After a years-long process, involving a hearing and a bench trial, the Pennsylvania legal system ultimately ruled in Yang’s favor because she had initially purchased the animal.

“You can spend years scooping litter, cleaning his eyeballs, and the court tells you none of that matters, because pets are property,” DeNardo said. “He’s just a really playful, sweet cat. He was my buddy… I just hope he’s OK and has all the things he needs, and is living a good life. If he’s happy, I’m happy.”

While the feud cost Yang $20,000 and DeNardo $5,000 in legal fees, pet custody disputes are not uncommon, especially among couples. According to a recent survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), over 25% of its members reported an increase in couples fighting over pets in the past year.

That’s why some have opted to implement a “pup-nup,” a prenuptial-style agreement that can also be used between friends and roommates, that lays out who is responsible for a pet and its daily care, so ownership and custody are clearer to determine in the wake of a split.

Lesson: if you’re not in a state that has law about pet custody, you and your partnet need a “pup-nup”, or a “claw-law” to settle any future disputes.

Here’s DeNardo, who lost gary, giving her side of the story (sound up).  Her arguments seem irrelevant given that Yang PAID for Gary:

@nicoledenardo

I’m the defendant in the $25,000 cat lawsuit and here’s my full story about Gary the cat #exoticshorthair #philadelphia #cats #storytime #cattok #legaltiktok @The Philadelphia Inquirer

♬ original sound – Nicole DeNardo

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Lagniappe: The Truth from FB: Why cats are not only better than d*gs, but are the most biologicall perfect creature to exist. Well, to a biologist that is pure hyperbole, but I would still argue that if you want a fulfilling pet, get a kitty. Here’s the full text:

Here’s why scientists—and even philosophers—find cats endlessly fascinating. Beyond their beauty and independence, cats possess a combination of biological traits that no other creature perfectly blends. Their balance, reflexes, low-light vision, agility, sensory awareness, and ability to survive in wildly different environments make them one of nature’s most refined designs.

A cat’s body is engineered for precision: silent footsteps, lightning-fast reactions, flexible spines, and a hunting instinct so sharp it borders on supernatural. Their nervous system is incredibly efficient, their whiskers serve as advanced spatial sensors, and their eyes capture even the faintest light.

And emotionally? They strike a rare balance—capable of forming deep bonds while maintaining autonomy. It’s this harmony of instinct, intelligence, and elegance that makes many scientists refer to cats as “biologically perfect.”

Whether you believe it or not, there’s something undeniably magical about them—almost cosmic.

To me the penultimate sentences gives the best reason for owning cats, for they aren’t obsequious like their canine counterparts, and also are “living sculptures,” ever graceful. I think that’s why every time I see a photo of an artist with a pet, it’s a cat (often a Siamese).  I wrote about this two years ago.

Here’s Klimt with his beloved and appropriately named pet, “Katze” (from Instagram). Artists know grace and beauty. . .

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And here, for what it’s worth, is Chrome AI’s answer to my question, “What pets do artists prefer: cats or dogs?”

Artists often prefer cats due to their independent, enigmatic nature, which serves as a quiet muse, but many famous artists also deeply loved dogs, finding inspiration in both; cats fit well with solitary creative work, while dogs offer energetic companionship, so it’s a personal choice reflecting different creative needs, though historical examples lean towards cats. 

Why artists choose cats

• Low maintenance: Cats are self-sufficient, allowing artists to focus on work without constant demands.
• Muses: Their mysteriousness, stillness, and elegant forms provide inspiration (e.g., Picasso, Warhol, Dalí).
• Studio companions: They can observe artists, nap nearby, and even serve as “sympathetic critics”. 

Why artists choose dogs

• Loyal companions: Dogs offer immediate affection and energetic support (e.g., Picasso’s dachshund Lump).
• Different energy: They bring a different dynamic, encouraging activity and providing constant presence. 

Famous examples

• Cats: Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Salvador Dalí (with an ocelot).
• Dogs: Pablo Picasso (many breeds, especially Lump the Dachshund), Gustav Klimt. 

Ultimately, inspiration comes from many sources, and both cats and dogs have deeply influenced many artists, though cats’ traits often align more closely with the solitary, introspective nature often associated with creative work, note Quora users. 

h/t: Norman, Ginger K.

One of the first things you notice after arriving in Istanbul—indeed, anywhere in Turkey—is the profusion of street cats, most of whom are in excellent condition. The Turks love their cats, and take care of the street cats, providing them with food and sometimes with housing. Some of this may be due to Islam, which, as Wikipedia notes in a whole article on Islam and cats:

The cat is considered “the quintessential pet” by many Muslims, and is admired for its cleanliness.

Unlike many other animals, Islamic Law considers cats ritually pure and that cats possess barakah (blessings), and allows cats to freely enter homes and even mosques. Cats are believed to be the most common pet in Muslim countries.

Turkey is almost entirely Muslim, of course, but there seems to be extra affection for cats beyond that held by the faith.  Here, for example is a picture I took of the famous cat Gli, whom I encountered (and fed) in the Hagia Sofia, where she lived.  Gli passed away in 2020 at the age of 16.

The article below appeared on the BBC news, documenting love of cats by the people of Istanbul. The author Jeff Bogle, is identifed as “. . . . the author of the first-ever travel guidebook for cat lovers: Street Cats & Where to Find Them: The Most Feline-Friendly Cities and Attractions Around the World.  Now that sounds like a book worth having, and would make a nice holiday gift

Click the headline below to read the story; I’ll give a few excerpts (indented).  I can’t reproduce the photos because of copyright considerations, but I’ll put up a video and a few of my own photos from Catstanbul. And you should definitely watch the film Kedi (“cat” in Turkish), a superb documentary of a selection of Istanbul’s street cats. It won several prizes and has a 98% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

A few excerpts:

From Ottoman “cat sitters” to modern-day street guardians, Istanbul’s bond with its cats runs centuries deep.

In Istanbul, a delicate balance is struck daily in its winding streets, mosques, metro stations and cafés.

More than 15 million people compete for space in Turkey’s largest city, which straddles Europe and Asia on either side of the Bosphorus, much like a house cat perched half on the sofa, half on the coffee table. That’s the appropriate visual, because there are an estimated quarter of a million stray kitties living here, too. Cats are woven into the very fabric and history of the city, as ubiquitous as the rugs for sale on every corner. This is a city shared; a city that purrs incessantly with love and life.

“Istanbul cats are, on the whole, neither pets nor strays, but a hybrid of those terms,” says Marcel Heijnen, photographer and author of City Cats of Istanbul, adding that the cats are not owned by specific people “but taken care of by the community in their respective neighbourhoods”.

Some pictures of kitties I took in 2008 (all photos are mine):

x

He notes a local reverence for cats that he has not witnessed elsewhere. “Each municipality has a veterinary department that helps street animals in their district, with free neutering service for street cats,” explains Fatih Dağlı, co-founder of Cat Museum Istanbul. “Private animal clinics also offer discounted services for street cats, and residents often chip in to pay the vet bills.”

. . . Today, the human residents of Istanbul still happily share their spaces, inside and out, above ground and below, with their city of cats. So much so that the nickname,”Catstanbul” is widely used by feline fanciers around the world – and many tourists make the trek here because of the cats.

. . . . Unlike some less hospitable spots around the globe, where life on the streets is far less kind to stray animals, the cats of Istanbul seem to have it made. Walk the historic area of Fatih to see the famous Blue and Hagia Sofia mosques, and you’re likely to spot Sulo the cat. The plump grey and white tabby will be posing be posing for tourist photos in Sultanahmet Square, never far from the newsagent who cares for him. In hillside neighbourhoods and along the Bosphorus, cats lounge on benches and steps and curl up for midday naps in A-frame wooden cat houses. Outside markets and metro stations, bowls of dry food and water wait for hungry kitties to pass by, and locals and visitors share portions of their café meals with street cats gently brushing up against legs.

I love the first one below, taken outside an Istanbul Museum. Cat on cat!

This is an absolutely typical scene at an Istanbul outdoor cafe:

Many shops also keep cats as pets, an effective lure for visitors to venture inside. Many more leave out food and water bowls for strays passing by, like commuters on their way to and from work. “The symbiotic relationship between cats and humans first began in this part of the world,” said Heijnen. “During Ottoman times, cats were kept for practical reasons. They worked to help keep vermin away from stored food.”

These days, cats have a different job. They are unofficial tourist ambassadors, softening the edges of a hard, busy city. Many of Istanbul’s street cats will appear at your feet and in your photos, their faces, paws and purrs remaining lodged in your head and heart long after you leave this place. They are an alluring reminder of what’s possible when we peacefully share our spaces, our food and our lives with others, at home and while travelling.

There is much more to see in Istanbul than cats, but the felids are definitely a high spot.

A trailer for “Kedi”, and you can purchase the full-length movie at this site.  The moviemakers rigged up a device that could photograph the city from a cat’s-eye view:

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Moving west, we have an article from the Oxford Clarion on the college cats of Oxford.  Oxford comprises numerous separate colleges that operate semi-autonomously, and some of them have named resident cats. Click below to read some excerpts (indented):

Once upon a time, we featured an image of Magdalen’s kitten, Ozymandias, in our newsletter. We figured it might be a gentle contrast to our regular diet of planning and local politics.

The grey ball of fluff with the steely eyes proved so popular that we got repeated requests for more Ozymandias content. But just as we aim to give an airing to all Oxford’s political parties, so too do all the college cats of Oxford deserve equal billing with Ozymandias.

We have even made you a cat map (mainly because we liked the name). Don’t go cat-napping them, they’re precious. We hope it cheers up your wintry week. We have a feline this may be our best article yet.

Here’s the map from BlueHair:

I reckon you can learn a lot about the atmosphere in various Oxford colleges by looking at what they choose to name their cats (courtesy of @oxfordclarion.bsky.social ). We should all aspire to the energy of a Teabag, Isambard Kitten Brunel, or an Admiral Flapjackoxfordclarion.uk/college-cats…

— Joshua Bull (@joshuabull.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T13:01:28.455Z

And a few named cats (photos are in the article):

From Exeter College:

Walter de Staplecat (@walter_the_exeter_cat) lives at Exeter College, and is named after the college founder Walter de Stapledon. He arrived at the college in 2020 when his then owner brought him in to keep her company in lockdown. When they left the college, Walter stayed; he has since become a solid, high-profile figure at Exeter. As honorary feline he likes to spend time in the Rector’s Garden or, if the sun is shining, finding a sunny spot in the front quad. Rumours always go around about Walter’s personal life, but he’s a very solitary cat and likes his own company. (He has, however, been known to accept Dreamies and scritches.)

From St Hilda’s:

Teabag arrived at St Hilda’s in late 2014, and was adopted by the Lodge, which she has been running ever since. She was named Teabag as there was a grey cat named Earl Gray wandering about at the time – the father of her kittens, which she had in the Lodge. (It all happened rather quickly, and she is now spayed!)

Carrying herself like an Egyptian god with emerald-green eyes, Teabag likes going out for walks in the gardens. She is particularly keen on exploring the river pathway in college, from where she enjoys watching punters and ducks, chasing butterflies and feathers on sticks, and getting into (gentle) fights with the other feline residents. You can find Teabag on instagram here and here.

From Hertford:

Hertford’s Simpkin is the fourth in the Simpkin dynasty, and has been with the college since January 2017. He came to Hertford as a rescue cat after being abandoned in Devon. Simpkin isn’t known for being warm and cuddly. He values his personal space, but he has graciously adopted a few people and places. Clearly a studious type, he’s most likely to be found in the Academic Office or the Library.

Hertford is, of course, on Catte Street. In the 15th Century this was also known as Mousecatchers’ Lane, or Vicus Murilegorum.

And a warning about Simpkin the Fourth:

Simpkin IV is a menace (I remember the previous one, he was a nice calm cat!). Apparently he ended up in Hertford after his previous rescue caught fire, but I'm convinced that 'twas he who set the house ablaze. This was previously on the door of the Exeter College library…

— Natasha Simonova (@philistella.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T19:35:23.965Z

There are many others at the site, so go have a look.

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Wikipedia has a fascinating article about Simon the Cat, a brave and decorated moggie in the British Navy.  Excerpts (the Yangtze incident involved the Communist insurgents attacking British ships in the Yangtze River):

Simon (c. 1947 – 28 November 1949) was a ship’s cat who served on the Royal Navy sloop-of-war HMS Amethyst. In 1949, during the Yangtze Incident, he received the PDSA’s Dickin Medal after surviving injuries from an artillery shell, raising morale, and killing off a rat infestation during his service.

. . .The badly wounded cat crawled on deck, and was rushed to the medical bay, where the ship’s surviving medical staff cleaned his burns, and removed four pieces of shrapnel, but he was not expected to last the night. He managed to survive, however, and after a period of recovery, returned to his former duties in spite of the indifference he faced from the new captain, Lieutenant Commander John Kerans. While anchored in the river, the ship had become overrun with rats, and Simon took on the task of removing them with vigour, as well as raising the morale of the sailors.

Following the ship’s escape from the Yangtze, Simon became an instant celebrity, lauded in British and world news, and presented with the “Animal Victoria Cross“, the Dickin Medal; as of 2025, Simon is the only cat to win the award. He was also awarded a Blue Cross medal, the Amethyst campaign medal, and the fanciful rank of ‘Able seacat’ (cf. Able seaman) after disposing of a particularly vicious rat known as “Mao Tse-tung” (cf. Mao Zedong). Thousands of letters were written to him, so many that one Lt. Stewart Hett was appointed “cat officer” to deal with Simon’s post. At every port Amethyst stopped at on its route home, Simon was honoured, and a special welcome was made for him at Plymouth in November when the ship returned. Simon was, however, like all animals entering the UK, subject to quarantine regulations, and was immediately sent to an animal centre in Surrey.

Here’s a photo of Simon from Facebook posted by The Animal Rescue Site by GreaterGood:

Sadly, Simon died from his war wounds:

Whilst in quarantine, Simon contracted a virus and, despite the attentions of medical staff and thousands of well-wishers, died on 28 November 1949 from a complication of the viral infection caused by his war wounds. Hundreds, including the entire crew of HMS Amethyst, attended his funeral

The caption for the next photo is “Simon’s resting place at the PDSA Animal Cemetery in Ilford”.  He was a good boy:

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Lagniappe: Cat meets piglets (description here).  Well, they don’t really look like friends!

@southerncharmersfarm

This is the most unusual friendship 😘 #cuteanimals #farmlife #funny #creatersearchingsight #friends

♬ Curious Cats – Eitan Epstein Music

h/t: Marion