Tag: Kittens

Here Are Some Mom Cats Doting On Their Kittens For Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone!

All of us, whether human or animal, took our first steps in this world guided by a mother’s love. We wouldn’t be who and what we are without our moms.

To my mom, our readers who are mothers, and moms-to-be, remember that you are loved and appreciated on this Mother’s Day and every day of the year.

Sunday Cats: Super Bowl, Kitten Bowl, Tiger Bowl

Happy Super Bowl, a special day when Americans across the country will gather and watch more than 200 commercials, and some team will play some other team in just 11 minutes of actual game time.

No wonder the NFL and its advertising partners try to sell the commercials as entertainment in their own right: If you watch the Super Bowl, you’ll be subjecting yourself to an relentless onslaught of adverts for everything from Budweiser to Booking.com,  insurance companies trying to out-zany each other, and gambling commercials. Lots and lots of gambling commercials for sites like DraftKings, Caesars Sportsbook, MGM and FanDuel.

Super Bowl Sunday was previously made brighter by the Kitten Bowl, but Hallmark canceled the cute fan favorite last year, saying only that it’s “not currently developing original animal-centric programming.”

It was inevitable that another network would move in to capitalize on Hallmark dumping its popular annual special, and taking the place of Kitten Bowl is the Great American Rescue Bowl, an event by the Great American Family Channel and the North Shore Animal League which will feature adoptable dogs and cats on a pet-size football field, along with host Beth Stern revisiting the stories of kittens, cats, puppies and dogs who were featured last year and found their forever homes. If you don’t get the Great American Family Channel you can stream the event on Hulu beginning at 10:30 a.m. (See the previous link for other streaming options.)

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Viva la Tiger Bowl!

Watch this space in the coming week for a new longform story about the Champawat tiger, the most dangerous animal documented in more than 5,000 years of recorded human history. Little Buddy and I did quite a bit of research for this one, and we hope it’ll make for a good read.

wildlife photography of tiger
Credit: Sayantan Kundu/Pexels

Cat On The Street: What’s Your Favorite Meal?

Cats come in many different sizes and coat colors, but there’s one thing they all have in common: A love of food. This week we asked nine kitties what their favorite fancy feast is.

Guinness Certifies 27-Year-Old As World’s Oldest Cat

Bill Clinton was still in his first term as president of the United States, Oasis and Radiohead ruled the music charts, and millions of people were taking their tentative first steps onto the internet via noisy modems and a service called AOL.

That’s the world Flossie the cat was born into in 1995, and you can imagine her sitting by a fire with some wide-eyed kittens, telling them that back in her day humans didn’t stare at those silly little phone screens all day and the concept of gourmet cat food didn’t exist.

“You kittens today with your snobby grain-free wet food and your doting human parents,” Flossie might say. “Back in my day all we had was Fancy Feast, and if we didn’t eat it, we didn’t get dessert!”

At 26 years and 316 days old as of Thanksgiving Day, Flossie has been verified as the world’s oldest cat by Guinness World Records. That makes the tortoiseshell, at a little more than a month shy of her 27th birthday, the equivalent of 120 human years old.

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Flossie enjoys a snooze. Credit: Guinness World Records

Flossie is deaf and her vision is deteriorated, but veterinarians say she’s otherwise in good health. Her human, Vicki Green, said she’s surprisingly energetic for her age as well as “so affectionate and playful, [and] especially sweet when you remember how old she is.”

The super senior kitty hasn’t lost her appetite either.

“She never turns her nose up at the chance of a good meal,” Green told Guinness.

Flossie began her life as a stray and has outlived two owners. She lived in a cat colony on the grounds of the now-defunct Mercyside Hospital near Liverpool and was adopted some time in her first year of life. Her human died in 2005, and Flossie was taken in by her human’s sister, who cared for Flossie until her death in 2019. The woman’s son took Flossie and looked after her for a few years, but realized he wasn’t the caretaker she needed.

“It wasn’t an easy decision,” said Naomi Rosling of the UK’s Cats Protection, where Flossie was surrendered. “He sought our help when it was in Flossie’s best interests. Responsible cat ownership is when someone thinks about an animal’s needs above their feelings.”

Flossie the cat
Flossie with Green and their official Guinness World Records certificate. Credit: Guinness World Records

The staff at Cats Protection thought Flossie might not find a new home since many potential adopters don’t want an ancient cat, but Green has experience caring for older cats. Her previous cat, Honeybun, died at 21 years old.

“I’ve always wanted to give older cats a comfortable later life,” Green said.

The all-time record for longest-lived cat was Creme Puff, a Texas cat who was born on Aug. 3, 1967 and died on Aug. 6, 2005, just after her 38th birthday. Creme Puff was also certified by Guinness, which lists 18 other cats who lived to at least 30 years old. Domestic cats who live indoors, are fed healthy diets and are well taken care of live 16 years on average.

If My Cat Had His Own Comic Book Empire, This Is What It’d Look Like

Budster Comics™

TMT: Too Much Turkey chronicles Chubby Buddy as he eats his way out of Turkopolis, the City of Delicious Turkey.

Buddy the Tiger: Meowscular Hunter follows a fully grown Buddy as he takes his rightful place as king of the jungle and doesn’t have to wait for stupid humans to feed him.

Meowstar 2177 centers on the exploits of Space Admiral Pâtéstalker and the fabled starship UCN Nap Enforcer.

Join Bud on his very first dangerous mission in Turkopolis, back when he was just a tiny kitten.

I created all the artwork in this post using a natural language processing AI and pixlr.