For the first time, the Budster has a patch of matted fur. Luckily, because this is a frequent problem for cats, there’s a lot of detailed advice out there about what to do.
Ruh roh!
In a first for him, Bud’s got a patch of matted fur. While it’s clear he understands I’m trying to help him, he’s not particularly keen on my efforts to comb it out.
He’ll tolerate limited brushing, but after a few attempts he pulls away. I don’t think it’s a sore spot in general. He hasn’t minded when I examined the area and he doesn’t pull away if I scratch his lower back, but his limited tolerance for the brush and his body language all say he’s uncomfortable with repeated attempts to clear the fur.
The dandruffy stuff is from the combing and looks like dead skin. His coat is normally clear of anything like that.
The mat is hard, like the bristles of a paint brush that hasn’t been cleaned properly. Bud’s white underfur is much more visible in the matted area as it sticks up.
After reading about matting in cats and the causes, I don’t think we’re dealing with fleas or an infection. I realize indoor cats can get fleas, but I very rarely see the little guy scratching himself and there’s no indication he’s in any general discomfort.
My best guess is that he’s, ahem, maybe still a little too much on the chubby side and can’t groom the area as he did when he was a younger, slimmer feline, before he moved down to Florida, joined the Del Boca Vista retirement community for cats and immersed himself in the exciting world of bocce.
As you can see, he doesn’t look chubby and his coat is otherwise very healthy.
He’s a tiger!
Of course any talk of weight issues is very hush-hush around here. Officially, Buddy has the physique of an athletic tiger. Anyone who vocalizes doubts about that does so at their peril.
Right now my plan of attack is to get a fine metal comb specifically for jobs like this. I’ll try to remedy it with short brushing sessions and encouragement in the form of treats and praise for Bud being such a brave little guy.
If that doesn’t work, the next step would be a groomer or veterinarian. These things don’t resolve themselves, unfortunately, and the longer they’re allowed to persist, the worse the problem becomes.
Is there any evidence to support claims of a longer kitten season?
Is kitten season getting longer because of climate change?
Some rescuers in California think so, according to a story in Santa Rosa’s Press-Democrat.
“Heat and warmth is what it’s all about,” said Mary Pulcheon, trapping coordinator for Forgotten Felines of Sonoma County.
Pulcheon and the executive director of Forgotten Felines, Pip Marquez de la Plata, told the Press-Democrat that strays in their care had given birth as late as December in 2023 when kitten season generally runs from late March through October.
They say the typical kitten season has shifted and is now longer due to rising temperatures caused by climate change.
It’s an unverifiable claim for several reasons.
First, we don’t have reliable estimates for how many cats there are in the US, let alone stray and feral cats. Any estimates are guesses, and they vary wildly from 20 million on the low end to 120 million, which seems an excessive and unrealistic number.
To date there’s been a single comprehensive feline census in the US, the D.C. Cat Count. It took three years, several million dollars, hundreds of trail and trap cameras, and the efforts of an army of volunteers and staff.
The final tally: 203,595, with only 6,533 unowned cats fending for themselves and drifting between managed colonies.
Credit: Ejov Igor/Pexels.com
The DC Cat Count is historic and has already proven its value by facilitating informed debate, showing rescuers/TNR volunteers where to direct their efforts, and yielding valuable data on local ecological impact.
Alas it’s a one-off, so we don’t know anything about how the population has changed over time.
Secondly, while there absolutely is scientific consensus that human activity is driving global temperatures up, there’s debate about how much temperature flux is directly attributable to modern civilization. We’re also looking at planetary timescales here, tracking changes that happen not just over decades, but centuries and millennia.
Attributing shifts in kitten season to climate change is a bit like attributing single storms to climate change. These are single data points from which we can’t draw conclusions.
Credit:Cats Coming/Pexels
Lastly, there could be dozens of factors skewing “normal” kitten season, and that’s assuming the March through October season is normal by historical measurements. We don’t know that for sure, and we can’t know it without data.
I’m limited by a lack of imagination here, but changes in kitten season could be regional, reflect non-climate weather patterns, or adjust according to cyclical patterns. Things as seemingly unimportant as ambient light pollution can have a profound effect on animal behavior, and it always helps to remember that felines are sensitive to stimuli that we literally cannot detect. Cats can pick up high frequency sounds we can’t hear and smell things beneath the notice of our own weak noses. They even have a second form of olfactory input, a literal sixth sense that is unmatched by anything in human biology.
We understand very little about how those things impact feline behavior.
With all things considered there could be hundreds of reasons for changes in kitten season, and that’s assuming the changes are real and people aren’t mistaking outliers for trends.
Ultimately we don’t need to draw conclusions about whether there are more kittens born each season. We know TNR, while imperfect, is the best way to humanely reduce stray and feral populations, and we still have a way to go before cats are no longer euthanized because we can’t find homes for them.
What do felines make of the spy-slash-UFO drama that has consumed the popular imagination for the last week?
The humans have been freaking out about a big balloon flying over Humanland, believing other humans sent it to spy on them. But some humans think aliens are behind the nefarious balloons, and they’re not balloons at all — they’re super sneaky alien craft sent here to scout ahead for an invasion. What do you think?
“If I wanted caviar for breakfast, I would have told you. Stick with the schedule.” – Versace, 13, show cat
“You gonna eat that hedgehog?” – P-84, 1, puma
“Hey up, mates. What’s this, then? Can’t we just fire a few fecking missiles at them and get on with it?” – Liam Gallagher, 8, British cat
“Allow the aliens to land. They look delicious.” – Zanzibar, 5 months, apprentice murderer
“We need a bunker, do we have a bunker? Well why didn’t you BUILD a bunker? Do I have to think of everything?!?” – Buddy the Cat, 8, ex-president of Americats
“This is clearly the work of the aggressive regime in Luxembourg. We should invade, confiscate all their cheese and make them a vassal state.” – Cicero Nash, 4 1/2 months, couch stylist
Kittens back home on Earth ask the brave catstronauts about their mission and life in space!
STAR COMMANDER BUDDY’S LOG, STARDATE 12142022, Aboard the USS Fowl Play
Lt. Commander Freddie Ferocious has command of the bridge while I’ve retired to my ready room for the important task of answering video messages from kittens in Mrs. Meowmore’s Kittengarden class.
Lt. Commander Freddie Ferocious, executive officer of the USS Fowl Play.Star Commander Buddy, commanding officer of the USS Fowl Play.
Myles, a three-month-old tuxedo who wants to be a catstronaut when he grows up, has asked me how catstronauts eat and use the litter box in zero gravity.
“Well, Myles,” I tell him, “as you may have guessed, regular litter is no good without gravity! You can’t bury your business, obviously, and you run the risk of free-floating poops and granules of litter escaping into the ship’s habitable areas, so a litter box is out of the question. That is why we have a sealed Litter Chamber and a special suction device. It takes some getting used to, especially since it tends to pull on your fur while you’re doing your business!”
Sophia, a five-month-old Calico, asks us what we eat in space.
“This morning at 0100 hours I was informed that our food replicators are malfunctioning, which means the entire crew has had to make do with freeze-dried kibble and pate MREs. No wonder we’re all so cranky! I have ordered the engineering department to devote all available resources and catpower toward the repair of the replicators. This simply cannot be allowed to go unresolved, for a cranky crew can easily become a mewtinous one, and I don’t want to have to start spacing kitties out of the airlock. Er, I mean throwing ’em in the brig! Chief Engineer Meowdi LaForge tells me the replicators should be back online by breakfast.”
Chief Engineer Meowdi LaForge
Simba, three and a half months, asks: “Dear Commander Buddy, how far are you from the place you’re traveling to, and what will you do when you get there? Is it true there might be monsters? That would be scary!”
“Thanks for writing, Simba! It’s 10.47 light years to the Epsilon Eridani star system, which is a long ride! Fortunately the USS Fowl Play is a pretty big, comfortable ship, with lots of stuff to do to keep her running, and some pretty cool options for entertainment and R&R when we’re off duty. We’re less than two light years away from our destination now, which means the Fowl Play has already flipped and is engaged in a prolonged deceleration burn. We have to do that, see, so we don’t sail right on past Epsilon Eridani!
“Where did you hear about the thing with the monsters? It’s not true, okay? I don’t know what anyone told you, probably that jealous jerk Commander Calvin, but I totally did not run screaming from a monster during the expedition to Luyten 726-8, okay? That’s fake news!
“What happened was, I saw the monster and issued a blood-curdling battle cry, but then I hit the wrong button on my Planetary CatRover, which caused it to spin around and run in the other direction. I was trying to inspire my team, not abandon them. I would have turned around and battled the monster too, except by the time I realized my mistake I was already more than half way back to the lander and the others had scared the monster away with their laser pointers.”
That’s my rover on the left, and the Scary Monster on the right. As you can see, I’m very brave for facing the Scary Monster:
Buddy’s Planetary Rover
The Evil Monster, whom Buddy was totally not scared of.
Five-month-old Pepper asks: “Star Commander Buddy, do you think smart aliens are out there? What do they look like? Will they be nice when you meet them?”
“Hi, Pepper! Those are good questions. Well we should remember that we cats are not only a super intelligent species, but we are intimidating too! We have sharp teeth and claws, some of us can roar, and we look really strong and tough! So maybe the aliens will be scared of us!
“I think there will be smart aliens even though we haven’t found other intelligent life on Earth. I mean, there’s humans, but they’re simple-minded creatures, aren’t they? That’s why they’re our servants! LOL! Maybe the aliens will only have fur on their heads like humans. Maybe they’ll look like dogs. Gross, I know! Or maybe they’ll look like a cross between elephants, manta rays and aardvarks.
“We just don’t know, which is why we’re trying to find out. Picture it: Star Commander Buddy, fearlessly leading the first expedition to make contact with smart aliens. It’ll be pretty cool to be in the history books. Tell ya what, Pepper. If we find smart aliens, you and the rest of Mrs. Meowmore’s class will be the first to know. After NASA, of course. We’ll send you pictures. Deal?”
Lt. Loki pilots our lander, and he’s a good example of how intimidating our species can look! Will aliens be scared of him?
Vice Admiral Yo’oko Nahsuareo. Did you know jaguars make up only 4% of the Catstronaut Corps? They are usually sleep specialists, designing cryosleep pods for space travel and constantly improving comfortable napping spots on our ships.
Local authorities have backed off the plan, but the story raises important questions about how local governments deal with stray cat populations.
The recent saga of a New Jersey town’s ill-advised plan to “destroy” feral cats highlights almost everything wrong with local government.
First, a notice went out from the northern New Jersey town of Matawan, informing residents that feral cats had become a “nuisance” and their presence posed a danger to “the welfare and safety of both the community and the cats.” The town, in cooperation with the police and SPCA, the notice said, would begin trapping stray, feral and free-roaming felines in November, and any cat not claimed after seven days would be “destroyed.”
The backlash was loud and immediate, and it took the Monmouth County SPCA by surprise.
After receiving angry complaints, the local SPCA posted a notice on Facebook blasting the “outlandish and outrageous campaign.” The SPCA’s leaders said they hadn’t been consulted and hadn’t approved of the policy, blaming the Matawan Animal Welfare Committee, a three-person group comprised of the town’s business administrator, Scott Carew, town councilwoman Melanie Wang and an animal control officer.
“We are completely outraged and disheartened that our organization has been attached to this archaic campaign to euthanize feral cats, when there are so many other successful, humane alternatives,” the Monmouth County SPCA wrote in its statement.
Carew backpedaled in the fallout, claiming the notice was a well-intentioned way of informing people who live in Matawan to keep their cats inside and stop feeding strays and ferals.
“By no means was the goal of the trapping efforts to destroy trapped cats,” Carew told NJ.com. “That said, since there was the chance that cats would be trapped and brought to the shelter, we wanted to alert cat owners whose cats are allowed to roam outside.”
But Carew also said he and the other were “obligated to address the complaint,” and said the town would have to enact “a resumption of trapping efforts” if it received more complaints about the cats. According to a statement by the Matawan police department, in a meeting between local leaders and people concerned about cats in one neighborhood, it was a single complaint about a possibly aggressive feral cat that prompted the plan.
That’s it. That’s all it took, in the eyes of local government officials, to justify a policy of trapping and killing sentient, human-habituated innocent animals, a group that includes free-roaming pets, former pets, strays and true ferals. A single, unverified complaint of a potentially “aggressive” cat, with no further detail about what the word aggressive means in that context, no information about what the cat supposedly did, or even confirmation that the cat was a feral and not a stray or a wandering pet.
When the dust cleared from all the finger-pointing, Carew said his committee should have informed the SPCA of its plans, and police brushed off responsibility by saying they “assumed” the notice was drafted with the cooperation and intent of the SPCA and other local animal welfare groups.
A cat caught during a trap, neuter, return program, which reduces feral/stray populations in the long term without the cruelty of culling. Credit: Pixabay
Local government leadership and incompetence has become a big problem. With the death of newspapers, particularly regional dailies that employed trained journalists, there are entire swaths of the country no longer served by local government watchdogs who have the time, skills and resources to monitor local officials and inform the public.
We’re fortunate that NJ Advanced Media, an online portal for content from more than a dozen New Jersey local newspapers, has found a way to exist as a viable business serving millions of readers throughout its home state. Without it, it’s doubtful the story would have surfaced anywhere.
Lots of people think local government is small potatoes, but the truth is that local officials are responsible for enormous budgets and wield considerable power. The decisions they make very likely have more impact on our lives than decisions made in the halls of congress, even if it’s the latter that gets people’s blood boiling.
In this case we have a meeting conducted in secret, without public notice, that would have determined the fate of an unknown number of animals. We have anonymous, nebulous complaints and allegations about “nuisances.” What constitutes a nuisance? How many cats are involved? Are the cats part of managed colonies and cared for by people who trap and neuter them? None of those questions were answered.
Additionally, instead of taking intermediary steps or using widely available resources — the “other successful, humane alternatives” the SPCA referenced, from the willing cooperation of local shelters to the free toolkit created by the authors of the incredible D.C. Cat Count — the local officials came up with their own ill-advised plan to trap and kill cats.
Outrage by animal lovers and the SPCA were enough to make sure a plan like this was quickly discarded this time around, but you have to wonder how many other places this kind of thing might be happening without so much as a blurb about it.
Pain In The Bud 