Mau Mew

There is or was a belief that a domestic cat's desire to hunt is divorced from his hunger or lack of it. In other words whether a cat is well fed or not does not affect his desire to hunt prey animals as the desire or motivation to hunt in innate. It is instinctive and the feline will always do it when the prey is available. High quality wet cat food which is grain-free plus play will curb your cat's desire to hunt. Graphic provided by the scientist conducting the study.  There is no doubt that there is some truth in this but a recent study  might be considered to undermine the theory or perhaps it supports the theory? The scientists found that complete diet cat food as described i.e. wet cat food which is considered by the manufacturers to totally complete, might not be quite so complete as expected as it might be omitting some micronutrients (unspecified). Domestic cats instinctively sense this and hunt mice to make up the defecit.  The scientists decided this because when

Felines are related through evolution. It is obvious that all cats are closely related because they are so much alike. The biggest Siberian tiger is a carbon copy of the smallest domestic cat in terms of anatomy. The size is vastly different and the coat colours and markings are different too but all the internal and external anatomy is the same. The coat colour is different because it is camouflage for tigers. Domestic cats don't need camouflage anymore. They just need to look pretty for people! The domestic cat. Photo: Helmi Flick. You have to believe in evolution to understand how they are related. I am referring to Darwin's 'On the Origin of the Species'. It has taken perhaps around 40 million years for the various species of cat (around 36 different species) to evolve to the current state. And evolution is continuing. It is a perpetual journey. What happens is that different types of cat gradual evolve to fit the environment in which they live and times in which

Bengal cats are not dangerous but it does depend on how you interact with them and whether we are referring to F1 or F5 Bengal cats and finally whether we are referring to Bengal cats being a danger to other cats or people. Bengal cat Fifth filial (F5) Bengal cats are pretty well like any other standard domestic cat. Treat them nicely and they will be nice back to you. There is nothing more to say particularly about this breed of cat except perhaps that they are liable to be more athletic than your standard random read cat. I say "liable" because that does not apply in every instance. And because they're more athletic they are more inclined perhaps to get into trouble or break out of cat confinement fences if you've taken the trouble and time to build an enclosure in your back garden. If you adopt a first filial (F1) cat it is a different proposition (note: license required in the UK and elsewhere probably). The father of these cats is an Asiatic leopard cat and th

A domestic cat in Ireland contracted TB from a badger which had been vaccinated with the BCG vaccine. I don't have any more information as it is reported on one website: fginsight.com but that site requires registration to access their content. The report is troubling as I think it is the first report that I have seen of a domestic cat contracting TB from a badger.  Image by  OpenClipart-Vectors  from  Pixabay   The information would seem to be at least potentially of a real concern to domestic cats anywhere particularly in countries where it is normal for domestic cats to be indoor/outdoor cats as in the UK. I am particularly aware of this hazard as I put out food for foxes and I also know that a couple of foxes and a couple of badges eat the food.  Thirdly, my cat walks around the same places as these wild animals. Is there a chance that my cat could contract TB? I think that it is highly unlikely but the story tells us that there is a possibility. Although the document is u

There's quite a lot of talk about scammers selling cats and dogs online at the moment partly because the coronavirus pandemic has brought these abusive people out of the woodwork because they can see vulnerable victims to be preyed upon. These gullible victims are people who want to adopt a cat or dog, now without delay during the lockdowns. The scammers are like flies to the honeypot. Avoid scammers selling pets online. Image: PoC. READ ANOTHER PAGE ON SCAMMERS SELLING PETS . There is so much wrong with buying a cat online and I know it happens quite a lot, sometimes through Facebook which is against their policies. I know that breeders sell cats online and they are shipped sometimes hundreds of miles by airfreight to a purchaser who has never met the animal before. If you buy direct from a reputable breeder it is probably okay except I would never do it myself. But a lot of people are buying online and the sellers could be scammers. They may present excuses as to why you can&#

Australian newspapers on Facebook have lost all their posts as Facebook admin have decided to remove all news activity on their site emanating from Australia over their dispute with the Autralian government who want Facebook to pay for news when it is published on their site. It is a difficult one to understand because many Australian newspapers are on Facebook voluntarily because it is a way of promoting their businesses. They have quite a hefty Facebook presence in addition to their website presence. Facebook removes all posts from Australian newspapers on their website It's quite surprising to visit Australian newspapers such as The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald to see all their posts removed. I doubt whether they have been deleted permanently but they been removed from the Facebook pages of the newspapers and all other Australian newspapers. Therefore there is nothing on their Facebook webpages. It's all gone. Nada. Animal rescue FB pages? I wanted to check how far

Should the word 'tiger' be capitalized? I have answered the question already. It should not be capitalized because it is not a proper noun. The word 'tiger' is a common noun. But if you are referring to the 'Bengal tiger' or the 'Amur tiger' the first world in these wild cat names are proper nouns. 'Bengal' describes the name of a geopolitical, cultural and historical region located in South Asia.  Image: MikeB There is an Indian state called West Bengal. Therefore, Bengal is a proper noun. 'Amur' is a region in Russia. Once again it is a proper noun because of that. The full name is 'Amur Oblast' which is a federal subject of Russia, located on the banks of the Amur and Zeya Rivers in the Russian Far East. To recap, tiger should not be capitalized because it is not a proper noun but if the word is prefixed with a place the first word in the name of the tiger is capitalized as place names are proper nouns. Sometimes people mist

First things first: in the USA, according to the Humane Society there have been 49 confirmed cases of Covid-nineteen in cats and 35 confirmed cases in dogs. As there are around an estimated 94 million domestic cat companions in the US, you can see that this is not a problem that people should get wound up about. At the moment it seems that the chances of your cat contracting Covid-19 are extremely, almost infinitesimally small. A high temperature is the first sign that your cat or dog might have Covid. Image: PoC. The best way to protect your cat, I would have thought, is to protect yourself by following the well-publicised procedures. And in the USA a high percentage of cat owners keep their cats inside full-time which must protect them from this disease. That said, Newsweek have written about the nine signs that your cat has Covid so I will reproduce them here just for the sake of completeness. I think it's nice to know these just in case you and your cat are unlucky. It's

The world is aware of the incredible snow storms and freezing weather engulfing Texas made worse by the power outages caused by what appears to be a less than robust electricity supply. People are in danger and we must not forget the animals. The feral cats are no doubt dying or barely surviving in the extreme weather. Teenager kennel technician slept with dog at animal shelter during Texas snowstorm. Image: Marion Area Humane Society shelter. Some animal shelters have suffered power cuts. The animals have been saved by foster carers who have taken them into their homes which have been heated. This story is about Emily, the youngest kennel tech at an area animal shelter: the Marion Area Humane Society shelter. I'm told by 10TV that she drove to the snow at 8 p.m. on Monday and then spent the entire night in the shelter snuggled up to Flo a pit bull mix sleeping with her in her kennel. An example of complete dedication. Another technician, Riley, promised to drive in early Tuesda

The world is celebrating Larry the Cat's ten year anniversary at Number 10 Downing Street, the heart of the British government and the offices of the Prime Minister with his residence above in a flat. Although, as I understand it, Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds live at number eleven because it is a bigger flat. Larry's Twitter feed provides a celebration of his decade at Downing Street. Please note that sometimes these embedded videos go wrong and stop working for reasons beyond my control and if that has happened I am sorry! My good friends @Reuters have put together this video to celebrate my decade in Downing Street #Larryversary pic.twitter.com/RdkqfbM0oO — Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) February 15, 2021 For someone like me, who is concerned about cat welfare, I'm surprised that he has survived. He lives in the centre of London. Okay, it's a cul-de-sac and he has some space in front of Number 10 Downing Street and he can stroll across the road outside

I'm sure hundreds of millions of people are happy that Biden says China must face repercussions on human rights. Apparently he had a two hour conversation on the phone with the Chinese president Xi Jinping. On CNN he implied that President Xi knows that there will be repercussions, "Well...there will be repercussions for China and he knows that". Biden and Xi. Let's have some hard talk about animal rights please. Pic in public domain. He is of course referring to the abuses of human rights with respect to the Chinese Muslim community which has been well reported in the news media for a very long time. I think we can conclude that there is hard evidence of these abuses. It's been referred to as genocide because of forced sterilisation. But this brief note is not about human rights, concerning as they are, it's about animal rights which are even more dramatically abused in China. I'm referring to the fur trade business in China which is the biggest in the

I'm going to write a series of posts about the dangers of buying a kitten or cat during the Covid pandemic. The news media have spoken a lot more about purchasing dogs. These are always purebreds. There has been a surge in dog adoptions but there's also been an increase in cat adoptions for the same reason: companionship during long lockdowns. And people have almost nothing to do if on furlough so it is a good opportunity to get to know your new companion animal. Watch out for deposit scams when buying kittens and cats online during Covid pandemic. Photo: Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay   But against this background the scammers have moved in big time to take advantage of very keen purchasers some of whom are gullible to be quite frank. For example, in today's Times newspaper, Jenni Russell, one of their journalists, describes her struggles to try and purchase a dog. She tells us that there is a frenetic amount of activity to the point where she says that, "Enti

Karen Hancock was a veterinary nurse at a veterinary clinic in Clevedon, Somerset called Alexandra & Hillyfields. She had worked there for four years with no prior problems. She started a claim for compensation saying that she had suffered a knee injury when moving dead dogs at work. She was suing her employer. We don't have a picture of Hancock. Image in public domain. She said that she was moving euthanised dogs weighing 60 kg which is over nine stones in August 2015. But the evidence didn't support her claim. In fact, the evidence clearly worked against. Her employer and boss Mr Wilson said that he carried and moved Cezar down steps. This is peculiar because Ms Hancock had spoken to Wilson when making the claim that she had damaged her knee carrying this dog down steps but it should have been known to her that Mr Wilson knew that he had done it. She also made false claims about moving a dog called Bailey. In addition, she made false entries in the clinic's acciden