Feline Overlords – Page 46

Sunday Cats: FDA Approves Kitty Arthritis Drug, Woman Calls Cops On Her Cat, Grudge Gets A Book

The new med could be a “game changer” for kitty quality of life. Meanwhile, Grudge the Cat of Star Trek fame gets her own origin story comic.

Older cats could soon have easier lives after the FDA approved the first-ever drug to treat feline arthritis.

Degenerative joint disease and the pain that comes with it is extremely common, impacting 45 percent of all domestic cats and 90 percent of cats older than 10.

It’s the reason kitties “slow down” later in life, it’s a significant blow to quality of life and it often leads to decisions to euthanize beloved pets who are in severe pain. The new drug, called Solensia, has been described as a “highly efficacious treatment” by experts. It can “extend [cat] life, extend their happiness, and extend that beautiful relationship between cats and their owners,” Dr. Duncan Lascelles told USA Today.

“This is absolutely groundbreaking,” said Lascelles, who researches pain and surgical methods at the North Carolina State College of Veterinary Medicine. “I have been in pain research for 30 years and this is the most exciting development that has happened.”

Solensia is administered via injection by veterinarians, with doses calculated by weight. Because traditional painkillers and other drugs can aggravate kidney disease and other common feline ailments, the new medication “marks the first treatment option to help provide relief to cats that are suffering from this condition,” said Dr. Steven Solomon, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

“You’re Grounded, Go To Your Room!”

A Nebraska woman called the police on her cat this past Monday, Jan. 10, after kitty supposedly flipped out.

The woman told police she was breaking up a fight between her cats when she warned one of the feline aggressors she would “put it in its room” if the fighting didn’t stop.

“At this point, the cat became enraged and attacked,” the police report says.

The woman suffered “superficial” scratches from the cat’s claws and was treated at a local clinic as a preventative measure. Unfortunately Omaha police took the cat and brought it to the Nebraska Humane Society. It’s not clear if the cat was permanently removed from its home or what its fate will be. Calls to the police and the Humane Society by Newsweek were not immediately returned.

Grudge The Cat Gets Her Own Comic

I’m not a big fan of Discovery, the newest iteration of Star Trek, but there are some elements of the show I like — including Grudge, the feisty Maine Coon companion of the rogueish Cleveland Booker, played by David Ajala.

Now Grudge stars in first issue of a new spinoff comic, dubbed Adventures in the 32nd Century.” The comic will tell Grudge’s origin story, as well as how she encountered Booker and appointed him her loyal human servant.

Although Grudge is female and often referred to as Queen Grudge in the show, she’s played by a pair of Maine Coon brothers, Leeu and Durban, who swap off between acting in front of the camera and napping.

If you can’t get enough of the well-traveled kitty, there’s also The Book of Grudge, in which the Star Trek feline shares her opinion on everything from space travel to the nature of time.

“Depending on what planet you’re on, what sun you’re passing or what temporal anomaly you find yourself in, I’ve learned that time is nothing but an artificial construct,” Grudge muses in the book. “So it’s in everyone’s best interests to synchronize their clocks to me.”

Seven Thousand And One!

Buddy’s back to his usual routine, including loudly demanding snacks.

The streak continues!

Buddy's House — “I make the rules, human!”

Buddy had to wait an extra day for my return from the Outer Banks due to the snowstorm, which made a mess of the roads, led to canceled flights and would have been miserable — and impossible — to drive through. My SiL’s brother tried to drive through it and gave up after 13 hours, getting as far as just north of Washington, D.C., before booking a hotel room and driving the rest of the way to New York the next day.

As expected, little dude tried to play it cool at first. He couldn’t stop himself from getting up and going to the door, but he played it off like “Hey, you’re home. That’s cool, I guess.” Then he nonchalantly padded away.

The indifferent act lasted for about 15 minutes, as usual, before Bud forgot he was supposed to be mad at me. He hopped up to the couch and started nuzzling and scent-rubbing on me, happily purring.

However, it took him longer than usual to act like his normal self, and he’s been particularly clingy since then. At one point I put on my coat and shoes to get a bag I’d left in the car, and Bud started nervously pacing, loudly vocalizing and sat down in front of the door as if to say “No! Big Buddy stays here!”

I think he does okay if someone’s here with him, but having a cat sitter stop by once a day probably doesn’t cut it anymore. Partly that’s Bud’s fault for attacking her last time, because she won’t play with him anymore, but I’ll have to think about alternatives next time I’m away for more than two days or so.

I took some photos of OBX and will post them this week after I’ve had time to sort them. We were very fortunate, with 65-degree days for the entire stretch, and even in winter there’s lots of interesting history to see on the islands where two Americans first achieved powered flight, colonies disappeared and notorious pirates stashed their treasure.

Oh Big Buddy, Why Have You Abandoned Me?

Buddy is not happy about being left alone.

Day Four: Here I exist in solitary confinement, without anyone to meow to or sleep on.

If a Buddy meows for snacks and no one is around to hear him, do his meows exist?

These are the questions I ponder as hour after silent hour ticks by, my stomach rumbling. (Nice lady stops by only once a day to feed me, oh woe is me!)

Oh how I miss the halcyon days when delicious snacks were an insistent meow away, when I’d lounge on Big Buddy’s legs and in his lap for hours as we watched Squid Game!

Oh how I miss slapping his face with my paw, then sitting directly on his face and meowing into his ear for breakfast, knowing I’d successfully woken him when he yelled “I’m going to sell you to Shezhuan Garden II, you annoying little jerk!”

I am on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, ready to present my contribution to quantum mechanics in which I posit that a new, heretofore unknown fundamental particle, the Turkon, exists at the subatomic level.

Without a human here to dictate to, how will I submit my findings to a prestigious journal?

Meanwhile my human is probably frolicking on the beach, basking in the sunshine and warmth of a 70-degree Outer Banks January day.

It’s going to take A LOT of snacks, massages and “good boys” to make this right.

Do You Use ‘Baby Talk’ With Your Cat?

Buddy does not tolerate baby talk.

A few years ago when Bud was a bit more of a daredevil than he is now, I was sitting on my balcony on a warm summer night when the little dumbass squeezed through the railing bars and did a circuit of the balcony outside the rail — with only three or four inches of ledge between him and a potentially brutal fall onto the concrete below.

“Bud!” I said, feeling my own fear of heights bubble up as I watched him take his precarious stroll.

He ignored me.

“Bud!” I said again, loud enough to make sure he heard me but not so loud as to startle him and cause him to fall. “Bud! I’m talking to you! Get back over here right now!”

He paid me no mind. I stood up, put my hands on the railing and looked down at him.

“Buddy, get back here now! I’m not gonna say it again!”

At that point I realized there was a couple about my age, probably returning from the bars, drunk-walking toward the back door of the building and watching me have a furious one-sided discussion with my cat. They seemed to think it was hilarious, not only because I was speaking to my cat, but also because I was talking to the little stinker like he was a person.

I don’t baby talk with Buddy, and I’ve noticed my brother doesn’t baby talk his dog, Cosmo.

Sure I’ll speak to Bud warmly and encourage him when he’s clearly frightened of something. (Which is very rare, of course, because he’s such a fearless and brave tiger!) But it isn’t baby talk, and 95 percent of the time I speak to little man as if he’s, well, a little man.

It turns out I may be “doing it wrong,” at least according to some veterinarians and animal behaviorists who say baby talk is a good way to communicate with pets. Animal behaviorists call it “pet-directed speech,” and although the studies so far have been limited, they seem to suggest cats (and dogs) are more likely to respond to it than typical speech in normal registers and cadences. (A study published in the journal Animal Cognition earlier this year found horses respond well to “baby talk” too.)

Despite that, I just can’t bring myself to do it. There are certain standards we must uphold in this home, and besides, I’m pretty sure Bud would paw-smack me if one day I scratched his head and started saying “Who’s a good widdle boy? Is that you? Are you the good widdle boy? Yes you are! Yes you — OUCH! What the hell, dude? Why’d you do that?”

Do you “baby talk” to your pets?

person wearing apron holding orange tabby cat — “Who’s a cute widdle fluffy wuffy?” Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

Sunday Cats: ‘Christmas Cats’ Rescued From Hoarders Need Homes, PLUS: Epic Workplace Cat Battle!

An office employee demanded ‘sensitivity training’ after a co-worker joked about an orange cat’s smarts.

Humane Societies in California and Indiana hope people have it in their hearts to welcome new cats into their homes this holiday season after 110 cats were rescued from two different hoarding situations.

In Pasadena, Calif., the Humane Society rescued 52 cats who were living in a nearby home and in a crawlspace under the house. They’re calling the rescued kitties “Christmas Cats,” have given them names like Jolly, Merry and Jingle, and will offer discounted adoption fees in addition to spaying/neutering and microchipping the kitties before they’re sent to their forever homes.

A ‘Christmas Cat’ rescued from a hoarder in California. Credit: Pasadena Humane Society

Meanwhile, local authorities rescued 58 cats from a hoarding situation in Evansville, Indiana. The kitties were crammed into a single-wide trailer and many of them were in poor health, according to Kendall Paul of the Vanderburgh Humane Society.

“I think it probably started innocently enough, with the person trying to take care of just a couple of cats and then things got out of hand,” Paul said. “Most of these cats are ill with upper respiratory infections, some with more serious issues.”

The organization is calling its holiday cat adoption event “Deck the Paws,” and adopters will be able to choose from “presents” from beneath a Christmas tree, each containing discounts on adoption fees.

“We’re certainly hoping people will step up and help us,” Paul told the Evansville Courier & Press. “If you want to adopt a cat, we have lots here that are ready for new homes.”

Epic Cat Battle: Employee Demands ‘Sensitivity Training’ For Co-Worker Who Joked ‘Orange Cats Are Often Dumb’

A Redditor sought the sage advice of the always-hilarious “Am I The Asshole?” sub-Reddit, explaining her dire situation. She works in an agency with two office cats: Jean, a tortoiseshell, and Jorts, the new cat on the block who is an orange tabby.

Jorts isn’t the sharpest claw on the paw.

The Redditor explains that Jorts is “kind of a simple guy” who can’t open doors and gets himself locked into rooms and the closet where he and Jean have their food nook. When kitty Jean can’t rescue Jorts (she can open most of the doors in the office, the Redditor wrote), Jorts meows until one of the employees rescues him from his predicament.

A co-worker named Pam decided Jorts should be more independent and “has been spending a lot of time trying to teach Jorts things.”

The Redditor favored a more simple solution and put a doorstop against the closet door so Jorts wouldn’t get himself stuck every time he went for a bite. That angered Pam, who insisted using a doorstop was depriving poor Jorts of a “chance to learn.”

Then Pam went full Karen, drawing up “a series of special learning activities for Jorts, and put the tasks on the whiteboard of daily team tasks.”

“Who you callin’ dumb?” Credit: Nantenaina Andrianjaka/Pexels

The Redditor tried to put the entire thing to rest by installing a cat flap and tried to diffuse the office tension by joking that they couldn’t “expect Jean’s tortoiseshell smarts from orange cat Jorts.”

The joke made Pam “furious”: “She started crying and left the hallway, then sent an email to the group (including volunteers) and went home early. In her email Pam said I was ‘perpetuating ethnic stereotypes by saying orange cats are dumb’ and is demanding a racial sensitivity training before she will return.”

The Redditor followed up with a second post after HR stepped in and — unlike many HR departments — had some level-headed people bring much-needed sanity to the kerfuffle. They told Pam to chill out and to stop assigning “Jorts-related tutoring” tasks to her co-workers. They also told her it was inappropriate to compare a co-worker installing a helpful doorstop to ethnic insensitivity.

During her little chat with HR, Pam also admitted she’d taken the tutoring thing too far:

“Lastly, and this made us both laugh so hard we can’t deal with it in person and will be said via email: Pam admits that she has been putting margarine on Jorts in an attempt to teach him to groom himself better. This may explain the diarrhea problem Jean developed (which required a vet visit).”

Speaking as a fellow redhead, I’m outraged! My people (human and cat alike) have been the butt of jokes for too long, and it’s time we organized a Union of Extraordinary Redheads to promote our shared interests, protect our own, and show the brown- and blonde-headed people of the world that we will not take their ridicule anymore! Jorts will receive his invitation in the mail shortly.