cat safety – Pain In The Bud

Americans Are Lousy At Taking Care Of Their Cats, Poll Claims

The respondents also admitted they “forget” to feed their furry friends an average of three times a week. Say what?!?

Americans don’t know basic facts about their cats, fail to properly care for them and overestimate how well they do as pet parents, according to a new poll.

The survey of cat owners commissioned by PetSafe found most people in the US who have cats in their home don’t know their feline friends typically have 18 toes, for example, and don’t realize cats purr when they’re content as well as when they’re trying to soothe themselves.

Respondents said they frequently forget to refill their furry little buddies’ water bowls, but the thing that really blew my mind is that people supposedly forget to feed their cats an average of three times a week.

How is that possible?!?

The number of times Bud has missed a meal in 10 years is precisely zero. Even when I had COVID, even when half my face was frozen with Bell’s Palsy and I was throbbing with the worst headache I’d ever endured, I fed the little guy according to his schedule.

It’s not just that he reminds me. There’s a whole ritual around it, an elaborate series of increasingly affirmative and urgent meows that quickly give way to panic if Buddy doesn’t see activity associated with a bowl of fresh wet food and water delivered to his nook.

The pre-reminder reminders begin about 45 minutes to an hour before feeding time, with Bud’s infallible internal clock signaling upcoming meal time.

At the 30 minute mark Bud will put himself directly in my line of sight and stare at me. Then he’ll start to meow at regular intervals, and if I’m not up and heading to the kitchen by T-minus 15 minutes to yums, the meowing begins in earnest.

Even the act of retrieving a pack of wet food from the Buddy Cabinet is highly formalized and ritualistic: the little dude grunts and trills excitedly as I open the seal, dump the food in his bowl, mash it up and pile it in the middle the way he likes it.

Then he leads me back to his nook, looking over his head every few paces to make sure I’m right behind him, even though we’ve done this song and dance literally 7,318 times as of today. (It’s probably more than that since I fed him more than twice a day when he was a kitten, and doesn’t include his bowl of dry food for his late night snack/overnight emergency supply so he doesn’t have to wake me up if he’s hungry.)

I realize Bud’s a bit of a tyrant and there’s no peace until he gets what he wants, but still. Cats are cats. So really, how does anyone “forget” to feed their cat?

Yes, It’s Safe For Your Feline Friend To Eat Catnip

It turns out catnip has a different effect when cats eat it instead of sniffing and rolling around in it.

Is it safe for a cat to eat catnip, and does eating it instead of sniffing it make any difference to the kitty?

I wondered about that while watching Buddy enthusiastically lap up some silver vine and ‘nip yesterday afternoon before he drifted off to nirvana.

If you’re worried about whether it’s safe, don’t be. While most cats tend to sniff or roll around in the stuff, there’s nothing in catnip that can harm them according to veterinarians.

The worst that can happen is a mild stomach ache from eating too much of the good stuff.

As for whether ingesting vs sniffing makes any difference, it turns out it does.

When catnip hits the olfactory receptors, it works as a stimulant, prompting energetic, playful behavior.

But when it’s ingested, catnip has the opposite effect, working as a sedative. Felines who eat the ‘nip become more relaxed, often drooling or drifting off for a nap.

Buddy on catnip — “I think…I’m pretty sure I’m feeling it. Oh yeah! Break out the laser pointer and the snacks!”

That makes perfect sense given my own observations. As a feline who eats catnip, Bud will still play, but he’s lazy about it. Instead of ambushing and tackling his wand toys he’ll just pad up to them, drop to the floor and lazily paw at the plush toys at the end of the string, occasionally biting or rabbit-kicking them.

When all else fails, the laser gets him moving.

Regardless of whether your cat sniffs or eats the good stuff, the effects are relatively short-lived and wear off after about 15 minutes.

Catnip is safe for your furry friends and it’s a great way to help make an indoor cat’s life more exciting.

Help ID This Woman Who Dumped A Cat In A Garbage Can

If a bystander hadn’t witnessed the event and rescued the cat, it’s likely the little guy would have starved or died of dehydration.

Authorities in a Texas town near Houston need help identifying a woman who tossed a cat, carrier and all, into a garbage can.

The woman parked her car in a nature preserve in Rosenberg, Texas, at about 11 am on Jan. 12, opened the backseat to retrieve a cat carrier and unceremoniously dumped it in a garbage can.

A bystander happened to witness — and film — the entire sequence of events, and after checking the trash it turned out there was a scared two-year-old cat inside the carrier. The bystander brought the cat to Rosenberg’s animal control department.

“If no one would have seen this happening, that cat would have been in that container in that trash can with no access to food, (or) water,” said Omar Polio, the town’s director of animal control. “Not acceptable.”

The cat is a beautiful, affectionate white and brown male the shelter has dubbed King Triton. He’s in their care for the time being. King Triton is healthy, Polio said, and it’s not clear why the woman would have dumped him instead of surrendering him to a shelter.

While shelters are crowded, “we can always find resources that can better suit these animals,” Polio said, imploring people not to abandon or toss animals away like trash.

Polio said his agency would like the public’s help identifying the woman. It’s not clear what kind of charges she might face. Anyone with information can call Rosenberg Animal Control and Shelter at 832-595-3490.

Video of the incident provides a clear look at the woman, but the resolution isn’t high enough to make out the license plate on her car.

Here’s a news segment of the incident with footage of the woman getting out of her car, dumping the cat, casually returning to her vehicle and driving off. She has dark hair that was in a ponytail at the time and was wearing shorts and sunglasses:

Sue, My Dear Cat Sitter, I Love You!

A couple trusted their neighbor’s 16-year-old son to look after their cat for a few days, and he lost the kitty.

Have I mentioned how much I love my cat sitter?

Not only has she fed and watered Buddy almost every time I’ve been away these last few years, she’s done a great job and she even continues to watch Buddy despite the fact that Bud attacked her … twice.

She doesn’t play with him anymore since the second incident, and I don’t blame her. He’s known her since he was a kitten, for crying out loud. I’m sure he attacked her out of bratty frustration that she wasn’t me coming through the door, not because he was scared an unknown intruder was coming in.

Still, Sue’s so good that she was reluctant to tell me Bud attacked her because she didn’t want me to think there was a problem.

I appreciate Sue even more after reading this Reddit post about a couple who entrusted their neighbor’s 16-year-old son to watch their cat and dog while they were away for a few days.

Here’s the gist of it straight from the source:

He was supposed to let the dog out twice a day and keep an eye on the food and water. The cat is an indoor cat and he was to feed her.

Two days in he lost our key so I had to give him the garage code so he could get in.

We got home after 4 days and the cat was no where to be found. I called him and asked when the last time was he saw the cat, he told me that morning. Well we knew the cat was gone and checked our security cameras. We saw her at 5:30am on the camera outside so at a minimum she had been out since the day before. (I can see the history of when the garage opens and closes in our app) and he hasn’t been there that early. I had also checked her litter box and it was pretty clean, so she was probably gone for 2 nights.

When I told him the cat was gone he did come over and offer to go look for her and took off in his car. We saw him come back on our camera with a grocery store bag, so not sure if he actually went looking for her or not like he claimed.

We left the door open over night and she did come home and is fine. There was a good chance she couldn’t have, as we live 1 street over from open space where a pack of coyotes frequent and she is only 8lbs so a lot of other animals could have gotten her too.

Here’s the main part: we decided not to pay him. It’s a pay what you want agreement and given that we now need to rekey the house and he lost our cat we didn’t feel that he took his responsibilities seriously. And the bigger the mistake the bigger the consequence. You may say, well any job would have to still pay you. Yes, but they also can deduct or charge you the cost of damages which in this case will be more than what we would have paid him and we aren’t asking for it, just not paying him. Is that wrong?

The story was posted to the popular AITA subreddit, short for Am I The Asshole?, a place where people can solicit advice from strangers on whether they were justified for acting a certain way in a situation, or whether they were in fact “the asshole.”

Most people who responded said no, the poster and her husband are not in the wrong, and for the most part I agree.

In their situation, if my cat had come back, I would have given the kid something just to keep the peace with the neighbors and never hire him again, but I can see their side of it too. It’s expensive to get a locksmith, probably at least $200 if they only have two doors.

If the cat hadn’t come back, however, my rage would be incandescent. Nuclear. Scratch that. It would be beyond supernova level, akin to a gamma ray burst visible from millions of light years away, with a perpetual afterglow drifting in the void between galaxies. I would not be able to forgive myself nor shake the thought of my little Buddy lost, hungry, alone and terrified, and not knowing what happened to him.

It’s time to send Sue another bottle of wine and a card reminding her just how much I appreciate her.

Guy Kicks Girlfriend Out After She Admits To Tossing Cat Outside

A man ended his relationship with his girlfriend after she tried to get rid of his cat.

Reddit’s “Am I The Asshole?” is described as a “catharsis for the frustrated moral philosopher in all of us, and a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that’s been bothering you.” It’s also a goldmine for people who wish they could read an advice columnist’s slush pile.

On Tuesday, a user asked the community if he’s “the asshole” for kicking his girlfriend out of his home after she tried to get rid of the kitty by “pick[ing] him up and put[ting] him outside to wander off.” Here’s the full post:

AITA for kicking out my girlfriend from AmItheAsshole

According to the OP, his cat didn’t do anything to prompt his girlfriend from booting the little guy.

“She knows he can’t survive outside… She didn’t seem to have any regrets about her actions and no, she never lived with cats before,” the poster added in response to follow-up questions from the community. “She said she couldn’t stand cats and that she couldn’t live with one.”

A few users pointed out that kicking a house cat with no survival skills out of a home is not only dangerous, but kicking a black cat out on or near Halloween could have tragic consequences. As for the original poster, he says he’s placed Raven in the temporary care of a friend until his girlfriend moves out, as he’s worried she might try to hurt the cat — or throw him out again — out of spite.

Others said he was doing the right thing even if Raven wasn’t in danger.

“If she thinks it’s acceptable to do that with something as important as a pet, then she thinks she can do that with any aspect of your life she doesn’t like,” one user wrote. “The cat is important, but almost irrelevant in the scope of red flags she’s throwing out.”

For whatever reason, even though women are more likely to be cat caretakers than men — and men are statistically more likely to take their relationship frustration out on pets, especially cats — the last few viral stories about relationship conflicts over cats have implicated women. Obviously if the situation had been reversed, the boyfriend should have been thrown out, or the girlfriend should have left with her cat. Gender isn’t the issue here: The issue is jerks who take their frustrations out on innocent animals.