Plus a Japanese artist’s stunningly real-looking bespoke cat backpacks.
A Reddit post with almost 30,000 upvotes claims a cat took it upon himself to learn sign language after realizing his human is deaf.
You don’t need me to tell you it’s nonsense, do you? It’s interesting how we’re willing to believe a cat can endeavor to learn sign language, but we — the supposedly more intelligent species — can’t be bothered to watch for emotions conveyed by the curl of a tail or a twitch of the whiskers.
Cats are incredibly smart little furballs, but just like the people who claim their cats are meaningfully communicating via talking boards with 100 buttons, this is just social media fodder for the credulous.
Unfortunately the credulous are numerous, although a few Redditors had a good time at their expense. One user complimented the addition of a VHS-like filter over the video clip, giving it a vintage quality.
“Not a filter. It’s been around for a while,” another Redditor responded. “The cat now knows ASL, English, French, Spanish, and is working on its doctoral thesis.”
A cat in a backpack? No, a cat backpack
In a reminder that the Japanese have an endless appetite for all things cat-related, the newest hot item among the Land of the Rising Sun’s neko-infatuated is a bespoke cat backpack hand-sewn by a housewife in Fukui prefecture.
The bags don’t come cheap. It takes Miho Katsumi between one and three months to make each one, and they’ll set you back about $1,000 each via Katsumi’s site. Check out her Instagram for more images.
How quickly do you think Bud would murder me if I came home with one of these in his image one day? 🙂
The people of Dubrovnik are not happy with the leaders of a local museum, who evicted a beloved local cat from the grounds of the historic building.
UPDATE, 8/7/2022:Anastasia has been allowed back on the palace grounds, but without the custom shelter a Dubrovnik carpenter built for her. Click here to read our latest story about Anastasia’s saga.
Original text:
In a city that stood in as a filming location for King’s Landing in the hugely popular series Game of Thrones, it was only fitting that a regal cat named Anastasia would choose a palace as her home.
Anastasia chose the Rector’s Palace, a historic building in Dubrovnik, Croatia, as her royal abode, and she’s become a local fixture there for the past 17 years, a familiar feline face appreciated by locals and tourists alike.
People who run shelters in the city of 42,000 have tried to find a home for Anastasia in the past, but she always returns to the Rector’s Palace, so a group of volunteers set up a small cardboard shelter for her on the grounds.
But the snooty museum authority didn’t like the little dwelling and had it removed in May of 2021. In response a local woodworker named Srdjan Kera built a beautiful wooden cat house for Anastasia that combines elements of the palace’s gothic and baroque architecture, boasts a distressed finish that matches the five-century-old building’s facade, features a velvet bed for its resident feline princess, and even has a golden nameplate with “Anastasia” etched into the metal. (Spelled Anastazija in Croatian.)
The little cat palace blends right in under the larger palace’s arcade and even emulates the stonework patterns, but the people who run the museum authority still weren’t impressed and earlier this month ordered the eviction of Anastasia for a second time.
(Credit: Videographer Zvonimir Pandža, clip courtesy of DuList. Click through to see more photos of Anastasia, her local admirers in Dubrovnik and her beautiful cat palace by Srdjan Kera.)
“The opinion of the Dubrovnik Museums is still the same,” the museum authority’s leadership wrote. “The cat house has no place in front of the Rector’s Palace, be it a cardboard box or a stylized dwelling. We emphasize that no one has anything against the cats that stay here for many years and which until recently had no housing,”
The people of Dubrovnik aren’t having it. A petition to return Anastasia to her rightful palatial place has garnered more than 12,000 signatures, a huge number for such a small city. In addition, some 90 percent of readers said they wanted Anastasia to stay at the palace when polled by a local newspaper.
“Anastasia needs her house! Give it back,” one local wrote on Facebook. “Apparently, cultural institutions are run by people without culture.”
Kera even told the museum’s leaders that he would pay a fine if it meant Anastasia could stay, pointing out that at her age, she needs a stable, stress-free existence.
“It’s her home,” Kera said. “We’re only talking about one cat, not 70 of them.”
Anastasia in her miniature cat palace. Credit: Srdjan KeraDubrovnik is a historic city that has been inhabited for more than 1,300 years. Its Mediterranean location and walled old city made it the perfect stand-in for King’s Landing, the capital of Westeros in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Credit: KingsLandingDubrovnik.comA night view of an arcade at Rector’s Palace. Note the detail on the stone benches, which Kera emulated for Anastasia’s cat house. The interior of the palace was used as a shooting location for a scene in season two of Game of Thrones. Credit: Diego Delso/Wikimedia Commons
A screening of ‘Cat Daddies’ will benefit the Little Lion Foundation, which specializes in caring for neonatal and abandoned kittens.
A trailer for ‘Cat Daddies‘ comes right out with it: Men who love cats are often stereotyped as oddballs.
“People see a cat dad and they think ‘Oh he must be weird and creepy,” says one guy, who is shown hilariously working out his biceps by lifting his cats in place of weights. “I feel like we’re getting to a point where it’s okay [to say] ‘Yeah, I have cats.'”
Another man recalled a conversation with his college buddies in which one of them floated the idea of adopting a few cats.
“The reaction was ‘No man, you can’t do that,'” he says with an amused look on his face.
Of course, PITB readers know it’s perfectly natural for men to love cats, especially cats as muscular, intimidating and tiger-like as Buddy.
But if you’ve ever wondered what the experience is like for guys who want to adopt kitties, ‘Cat Daddies’ takes a look at several men from different backgrounds and their beloved felines, from a homeless man in New York who won’t part with his tabby even it means he won’t get housing, to an Instagram star whose rise to fame has been propelled by his feline masters.
Californians can catch the documentary in person, and help fund a good cause, at an April 16 screening in Long Beach, CA, on behalf of the Little Lion Foundation. The California-based nonprofit specializes in caring for neonatal and young, abandoned kittens, as most shelters aren’t equipped to care for them and such kittens are often euthanized if they land in an animal control or kill shelter.
For the rest of us, check out the Cat Daddies site for a list of virtual screenings and festival events.
Credit: Tim Douglas/Pexels
A grieving woman explains why she’s cloning her late cat
Kris Stewart adopted Bear, a five-year-old ragdoll “with a big, bold, sassy look,” in March of 2021.
Stewart, the CEO of a senior care company in Canada, described Bear as “the smartest animal I’ve ever owned,” and said the resourceful cat could work out how to open locked doors and windows.
“What I didn’t realize was his need for adventure and exploring,” she wrote in a column for Newsweek.
After “cat-proofing” her backyard and taking Bear on walks via a harness, Stewart decided the ragdoll needed to be outside to be happy. Bear “was off-leash by May 2021,” she wrote.
“Then, one day in January 2022, I let him out about 4.30pm and within about 20 minutes I heard something, saw cars backing up down the street and ran outside. Bear had been hit. Obviously it was my fault. I’m his guardian and I made the wrong decision, and I have to live with that.”
Stewart acknowledges that cloning is a process that involves mistakes, although it’s not clear if she’s aware just how gruesome the process can be. Likening it to “human parents who want to go through IVF rather than adopt,” she said she’s hoping the clone will have the same temperament as her beloved Bear.
“I would much rather replicate Bear’s genetic material into another cat than adopt again because I would love to see the personality of Bear live on,” she wrote. “He was the most brilliant animal I’ve ever owned. Research tells us that a significant portion of personality is carried in genes so I’m willing to take the chance. I’ve said before that Mother Earth is not finished with Bear and Bear is not finished with Mother Earth. So, if I can bring back his genetic material in the form of another cat, I would like to do that. If their personalities are a little different, that’s OK, I’ll be happy regardless.”
Stewart with Bear.
It’s clear Stewart is devastated by losing Bear, and we don’t want to sound callous by criticizing her decision. Grief leads people to do all sorts of things, and there’s no “correct” way to cope. We all handle it differently.
At the same time, it’s wishful thinking to believe a clone is somehow a continuation of the original, or that cloning can bridge the considerable gap between nature and nurture. That’s just not how it works. Sadly, Mother Earth is done with Bear — there’s no continuity of consciousness.
Even in science fiction stories where cloning technology is flawless and human cloning somehow exists despite considerable moral and religious objections, it’s clear that cloning is, well, cloning: Even if the clone is perfect in every way, even if the process manages to faithfully reproduce personality and memories can somehow be transferred, there is no “bridge” between the original and the copy. For the person who is cloned, life ends when their consciousness blinks out, and nothing can resurrect it.
We hope Stewart finds peace and loves her new cat, but we don’t believe cloning is right answer when grieving the loss of a pet.
A new study reveals some surprises, while The Other Buddy continues to make progress after surviving an attack by two dogs.
I know you’re going to read this and think, “Okay, what have these two wiseasses come up with this time?” but I swear we didn’t make this one up!
It even appears to be a legitimate research paper, despite first attracting media attention on April Fool’s Day. (The paper itself was accepted in late 2021 and published in the journal PeerJ on March 25.)
To put it simply, adopting a cat will make all your wildest dreams come true. Buddy was right!
Cat servants are rated more attractive than people who don’t share their homes with cats, rate higher on traditional measurements of attractiveness like facial symmetry, and even weigh less (women) or, if they’re men, have higher levels of testosterone.
That’s according to a multinational research team led by Javier Borráz-León of Finland’s University of Turku.
How is this possible?
The team — which also consists of scientists from Latvia, Estonia and Mexico — believes it’s because of the infamous toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that infects cat droppings and can pass to humans and other animals.
T gondii nudges its hosts toward behavior that propagates the parasite itself.
“First, we found that infected men had lower facialfluctuating asymmetry whereas infected women had lower body mass, lower body mass index, a tendency for lower facialfluctuating asymmetry, higher self-perceived attractiveness, and a higher number of sexual partners than non-infected ones,” the study authors wrote. “Then, we found that infected men and women were rated as more attractive and healthier than non-infected ones.”
There’s precedent for this. Earlier studies have found that while most parasites make their hosts less likely to reproduce because they cause detectable negative health defects, toxoplasma gondii does the opposite. Male rats who are infected by t. gondii are more attractive to potential sexual partners in an example of a parasite that “can indeed manipulate host sexual signaling to their own advantage.”
That’s not to say you’d want to go and get yourself infected. Toxoplasma gondii can cause negative health effects, most famously in pregnant women, and may be responsible for agitating certain mental health issues. Some scientists have said fears about the parasite are overblown, and cats aren’t actually the primary culprits: People are more likely to become infected by drinking water from unsanitary sources, eating undercooked meat or shellfish, or eating unwashed vegetables and fruits from contaminated soil.
Still, it’s possible to get the parasite from being careless around cat litter, especially if your cat spends time outdoors. It’s another good reason to keep your kitties inside.
Your feel-good story of the morning. The @PSPCA says Buddy has left the building. He’s heading to his foster home this morning. One of his foster parents is a veterinarian who treated Buddy. ♥️ https://t.co/EEaIYBaO1l
The little guy made headlines and captured hearts around the world with his ordeal, his bravery and the strength he showed as he clung to life in those first few days, when veterinarians feared he could succumb to his many wounds.
But late this week, Buddy was able to stand up for the first time since the attack, and he had a big appetite after so many days spent incapacitated and on pain medication.
The little fighter still needs time to recover before the Pennsylvania SPCA finds a good home for him. From what we hear, there are no shortage of applications from people who would love to give him the best life possible. For the time being, he’s staying with one of the veterinarians who cared for him during those fraught early days, so it’s good to know the good boy will have a familiar face around.
Buddy, the cat who was brutally assaulted when two teenagers sicced their pitbulls on him in Philadelphia last week, is making progress every day.
The little guy began opening his eyes again a few days ago, the Pennsylvania SPCA said, and now they’ve shared a short video of Buddy the Black Cat sitting up, licking his lips and tucking into some yums:
Little Buddy the Cat has been pulling for his fellow Buddy. In the meantime, a lot of people have been asking the SPCA how they can help. Here’s a way to do that and get something in return: A spiffy t-shirt that says “Save Every Buddy” with an original design:
Pain In The Bud 