pets – Page 15 – Pain In The Bud

When Cute Is Cruel: Breed Beloved By Celebrities Like Taylor Swift Suffers Painful Genetic Mutation

Scottish Folds are cute, but the genetic mutation responsible for their folded ears also causes lifelong pain, joint problems and misshapen bones.

In 1961, a shepherd named William Ross found a barn cat with a curious feature: instead of the upright, swiveling, satellite dish ears of a normal feline, this cat’s ears were floppy and shapeless, resting atop her head like a tiny knitted cap.

Ross took the cat home and named her Susie. Susie gave birth to a litter of kittens with the same floppy ears, and it all gets a bit murky from there, with a dozen variations of the story online claiming it was Ross himself or a neighbor who “created” the breed.

Regardless of who it was, the floppy ears were transformed from an abnormal feature into the unmistakable characteristic of a breed, and the Scottish Fold was born.

The cute cats quickly caught on and were officially recognized in competitions by 1971.

Now they’re more in vogue than ever. They’re the preferred pets of music superstars Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, who regularly feature photos and videos of their Scottish Folds in social media posts. People across the world are buying them, and they routinely appear in “best breed” lists online, lauded for being cuddly and docile in addition to adorable.

Ed Sheeran with his Scottish Fold cat. Credit: Ed Sheeran/Instagram

But they’ve also been banned by the same cat fancy groups that initially welcomed them, they’re prohibited outright in some countries, and animal welfare groups are begging people to stop emulating celebrities by buying them.

That’s because the same deformity that gives Scottish Folds their distinctive ears is also responsible for weak and brittle cartilage and bones elsewhere in the body, which results in lifelong pain and disability.

According to the RSPCA:

“The disease is evident on x-rays of cats from as young as seven weeks of age. Serious abnormalities in joints and bone growth lead to arthritis (painful, swollen joints), short, abnormally thick, and inflexible tails, spinal abnormalities and short, stiff legs. The welfare impacts of Scottish Fold Osteochondrodysplasia can be severe in terms of pain and inability to perform natural behaviours, as these cats can be lame, walk with an abnormal gait, can be reluctant to engage in normal movements such as walking or jumping, and can even become completely crippled.

There is no cure for this progressive condition.”

Sadly, the deformities and resulting pain may be the reason Scottish Folds are considered docile and cuddly: they may simply be in too much pain to move or protest when their humans hug them or pick them up.

Ross and Turner didn’t know it in 1961, but the folded ears and brittle cartilage were the result of a genetic mutation. It wasn’t until 2016 that a group of American and Australian scientists found a mutation in a single gene, TRPV4, was responsible for weak cartilage and bones, leading to the deformities highlighted by the RSPCA in the passage above, as well as “progressive joint destruction.” The condition is called osteochondrodysplasia.

Taylor Swift and Scottish Fold cat — Swift’s cats have appeared in her music videos, feature prominently in her online posts, and were photographed in her arms for her 2024 post announcing she was supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election.

Cats Protection, a UK charity, raised the issue in 2024, warning that Scottish Folds were becoming even more popular, with breeders struggling to meet high demand. The group issued a public statement asking cat lovers and Swift fans to avoid buying Scottish Folds. Scottish Folds are equally popular in the US, spurring resistance from stateside animal welfare groups as well.

The Governing Council of Cat Fancy, which registers breeds in the UK — and no longer recognizes Scottish Folds — was even more direct.

“We strongly advise members of the public not to try to acquire cats of this breed,” Steve Crow, chairman of Cat Fancy’s governing board, told The Guardian.

‘The Sexiest Beast Of Them All’: Buddy The Cat Joins OnlyFans!

Health authorities said thousands of female cats around the world fainted when they heard the news that Buddy the Cat is launching his very own OnlyFans.

After resisting calls from his admirers for years, Buddy the Cat has finally joined OnlyFans.

“It’s a dream come true,” said Nala, 5, a Burmese who describes herself as “Buddy’s biggest fan.”

Other felines posted celebratory messages online after the news broke, with most expressing an intent to subscribe to Buddy’s OnlyFans “no matter how much he charges.”

“A dollar a month, ten bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, it doesn’t matter. It’s worth it,” said Penny, a puma who said she has posters of Buddy in her enclosure at a wildlife sanctuary. “Buddy is the sexiest beast of them all.”

Buddy the Cat, a gray tabby cat, being handsome. — A sizzling snap of Buddy being sizzling for his new OnlyFans site.

Buddy’s new OnlyFans site promises “sizzling snaps of Buddy napping,” “hot photos of him yawning and stretching,” and regular videos of the mercurial tabby being handsome.

“Finally, my fans can get more Buddy without having to read that stupid blog my human writes,” Buddy wrote in his announcement. “It’s full of ridiculous slander, vile lies and claims that I’m wimpy when everyone knows I’m, like, brave and stuff.”

As of Friday, the new site featured a handful of clearly photoshopped images of the gray tabby with bulging muscles as he lifted weights, and a poorly produced video depicting the diminutive feline “ambushing” a stuffed alligator, with the sounds of a jaguar dubbed into the footage.

“Just catching me some lunch!” Buddy captioned the clip. “Us apex predators don’t eat from a can, we hunt our own meals.”

A gray tabby cat sits in a cardboard box. — Buddy the Cat poses in a box, striking a handsome pose as he gazes yonder.

There was no sign that questions about the veracity of the images bothered the egotistical feline’s admirers.

“OMG ADORBZ!” commenter princess2017 wrote.

“My handsome little prince!” wrote another poster, LioNeSS, who also added several heart and turkey emojis.

Soon after Buddy’s OnlyFans launch, it was announced that Smudge, his arch-nemesis, signed a deal to create a show about his life for Netflix. Titled “Smudge: New York’s Most Heroic Cat,” the series will “follow Smudge as he fights for truth and justice against the evil Dubby the Cat, a chubby gray tabby with an inflated ego.”

With Bird Flu Spreading, It’s Probably A Good Idea To Keep Your Cats Inside

So far there are no cases of cats infecting humans, but a new study published Tuesday warns the virus easily mutates in infected felines.

Health officials have identified at least five cases of domestic cats infected with H5 bird flu in California, and they’re warning of multiple vectors of transmission now that both outdoor and indoor cats have been infected.

Two cats were infected after drinking raw milk from a dairy farm in Fresno, California, according to the Los Angeles Department of Public Health. That’s also how a dozen barn cats died in April after drinking raw milk from infected cows on a Texas dairy farm, the CDC said.

But three other cats who tested positive for bird flu were indoor-only, lived in the same home, and did not consume raw milk, authorities said. They’re looking into the possibility that the felines were infected through raw meat or by hunting mice.

So now it’s not only confirmed that cats are vulnerable to highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI H5N1, but that they can be infected in different ways.

To be clear, it’s not a cause for panic and it doesn’t mean people should isolate from their cats, but it does mean we should be smart and considerate when it comes to protecting our pets and reducing the possibility that they can be infected.

Because millions of felines live with humans, the fear is that they can pass the virus onto us. So far there have been no confirmed cases, but a study published on Tuesday confirmed that the virus can easily mutate in cats. That means the more domestic cats are infected, the greater chance the virus mutates in a way that allows it to “bridge” to humans.

At least two people — one in Wisconsin and one in Louisiana — have tested positive for the virus and were hospitalized this week. One worked on a farm and the other may have consumed raw milk. In the meantime, health officials are monitoring the people whose three cats were infected, and they’re urging people to take precautions.

“To avoid the spread of disease, including H5 bird flu, we strongly encourage residents and their pets to avoid raw dairy and undercooked meat products, limit contact with sick or dead animals, report sick or dead birds, and keep pets or poultry away from wild animals and birds,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

FBI: Felines Behind Mysterious Drones Spotted In Night Sky

Some observers believe the drone sightings are merely the first stage in an all-out feline takeover of the US. So far, cats have remained mum on their motivations, preferring instead to sow panic among Americans.

WASHINGTON –The caller was breathing heavily and speaking in rapid-fire sentences as if he had only moments to get the words out over the air.

“I’m telling you, Art, it’s the cats — the cats are piloting these drones!” the caller told Coast to Coast AM radio host Art Bell shortly after 1 am ET on Friday.

“Hold on, hold on,” Bell said theatrically. “You’re saying this has nothing to do with aliens or the government?”

The caller sighed.

“The cats may very well be in league with aliens, but I’m telling you, felines are behind…oh God! They’re here!”

The radio broadcast crackled with distorted hissing and yowling, punctuated by the caller’s pleas for mercy.

“Caller? West of the Rockies, are you there?”

The caller screamed a final time and the line went dead.

“Wow,” Bell told his audience of several million overnight listeners. “There you have it, folks. You be the judge, but that sounded like the real deal to me. Cats are piloting the mysterious drones!”

For weeks, Americans have been asking for answers about swarms of suspicious drones operating above homes, businesses, military bases and government buildings at night.

After rampant speculation that the drones could belong to rogue states, or could be part of some secret government flight test, the FBI confirmed Friday that felines are behind the frequent sightings.

Drone at night — A drone flies above a farm and ranch as the sun fades. Drones have been spotted circling chicken and turkey coops, as well as fish markets.

Biden administration officials confirmed to several media outlets that intelligence supported the theory that cats — not Iranians, Russians or some secret Pentagon operation — are operating the drone swarms that have been lighting up the night sky in states like New Jersey and Maryland for several weeks, befuddling local and state officials.

“At first we thought the idea was absurd,” said a high-ranking official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Then we received reports of drone swarms circling several meat-packing plants, a Chewy distribution center in Trenton, and two PetSmarts in northern New Jersey.”

So far, the felines’ motivation remains shrouded in mystery, but experts on the small, furry animals ventured guesses on what may have motivated their sudden interest in aviation and airspace.

“No one’s claimed responsibility, so we’re left to speculate,” said Norah Grayer, a feline behaviorist with NYU’s Gummitch School of Veterinary Science. “But it may be that felines, as a whole, have decided the meow is insufficient for getting their demands across. Humans have become adept at tuning out those vocalizations, so this may be the next step in an attention arms race, so to speak.”

Noted cat expert Jefferson Nebula offered a different explanation.

“Cats are notoriously subject to FOMO, which is one reason why they can’t abide closed doors,” he said. “If someone managed to convince them that we humans were holding out on them, and there are entire worlds of yums we keep for ourselves, well, that would spark the wrath of these otherwise friendly little guys.”

Cat with drone — Felines have mastered control over aerial drones despite their lack of thumbs.

For his part, Bell consulted with Michio Kaku, the physicist and science communicator who has been a regular presence on Coast to Coast.

“We physicists have been saying for decades that cats are much more intelligent than we give them credit for,” Kaku said. “This could be retribution for the Schroedinger’s cat thought experiment, or felids may be looking to surpass humanity’s understanding of 11-dimensional hyperspace.”

“Professor, we’ve spoken quite a bit about the Kardashev scale [of civilization progress] in the past,” Bell said. “If we separated human and feline societies, where would we each fall on the scale? Humans are about a zero point seven, are we not?”

“That’s right,” Kaku said. “We physicists believe humanity is on the cusp of a Type I civilization, with things like the internet as a Type I telecommunications system and fusion power on the horizon. However, if you break it down and cats were separated into their own civilization, cats could plausibly already be a Type I civilization.”

“They’re ahead of us?”

“That’s right,” Kaku said. “We physicists believe cats can tap directly into primordial energies and have mastered quantum teleportation. In Star Trek, the Federation is a Type II civilization, and the Caitians — a species of alien cats — are part of the Federation. Yet it’s widely understood that the only reason the Caitians haven’t conquered entire swaths of the galaxy, like the Borg and the Klingons, is because of their strict adherence to their napping schedule and their inherent laziness. These drone swarms may be a signal that real-life cats are fed up enough to disturb their napping schedules, in which case we should all be terrified.”

Header image of drone light show credit Wikimedia Commons

Scientists Finally Figure Out Why Some Cats Are Orange, PLUS: Are Street Cats Really ‘Taking Over?’

More Americans say they can’t afford to keep their cats because of inflation, leading to an increase in surrendered and dumped cats in some places.

More than 110 years ago, American geneticist Clarence Cook Little developed a theory explaining why some cats have orange coloring and some don’t.

Now Little has been proven correct thanks to the work of separate teams in Japan and the US, which discovered the mechanism that leads to orange coloring, including fully ginger felines as well as calicos and tortoiseshells.

The explanation may be a bit too heavy on genetics for some readers, but essentially the researchers found the specific gene that leads to the growth or orange fur. They’ve known about the gene for a long time, but didn’t realize the totality of its function. Its official name is ARHGAP36, but for the sake of simplicity, scientists are calling it “the orange gene.”

“The orange gene has a known role in hair follicle development, but scientists didn’t previously know it is also involved in pigment production,” a team of geneticists and biotechnologists wrote in The Conversation, a science publication. “This means that a new pathway for pigment production has been discovered, opening the way for exciting and important research into a basic biological process.”

calico cat relaxing on wooden bench outdoors — In partially orange cats like calicos and tortoiseshells, the blotches of color are the result of imperfect gene copies and a secondary pigment-related gene switching “on and off.” Credit: Mehmet Guzel/Pexels

Ginger cats are usually male, but the pigmant can also appear in female cats due to an error in gene copying which deletes one segment of the orange pigment-producing genetic code.

That’s why calicos and tortoiseshells have orange blotches or mixed orange fur. “[T]he orange gene is persistently switched on in orange areas but is mostly switched off in non-orange areas of a cat’s coat,” the authors wrote.

Are there more strays in 2024?

Time magazine has a story examining the problem of stray cats in America’s urban and suburban population centers, why it’s happening, and what can be done about it.

First, might as well get this out of the way: We don’t know if there are “more” cats. The claim that there are more relies on anecdotes, and there’s no hard data to back that up. You have to be highly motivated to invest the time and money into a proper census like the D.C. Cat Count, and it’s an understatement to say most towns and cities are either not willing to do that, or don’t have the resources.

What we do know is there may be more cats in certain areas, with individual shelters in some places reporting record numbers of surrenders and cats scooped up by animal control.

close up of a stray cat on the metal railing — Rescuers say people who can’t afford food, supplies and veterinary care are surrendering or dumping their cats in larger numbers than in years past. Credit: Dou011fu Tunce/Pexels

The story quotes rescuers who say they’ve seen more surrendered pets, as well as data from Shelter Animals Count, which tallies self-reported information from shelters and rescues. The latter says 32 percent of cats taken in were owner surrenders in 2024, compared to 30.5 percent in 2019.

“It’s a combination of people surrendering their pets and people not adopting because they’re not sure they can take on the financial commitment,” Animal Care Centers of NYC’s Katy Hansen told Time.

Rescuers say that’s reflected in their experiences trapping the felines, who are friendly and acclimated to humans.

The people surrendering their pets cite inflation, not only impacting the cost of essentials like food and litter, but also more expensive veterinary care.

The story additionally includes this eye-popping detail:

“At Veterinary Care Group, a private equity-owned practice in Brooklyn, the cost of spaying or neutering a cat has soared to $850 per animal. By contrast, at the nonprofit veterinary clinic Zweigart recently founded in Brooklyn, the cost of spaying or neutering a cat is $225 and a mid-sized dog is $300.”

The lesson here: Steer well clear of veterinary clinics that aren’t vet-owned or are obtuse about their ownership. Private equity groups don’t buy clinics out of love for animals.

a close up shot of a tabby cat — The cost of spay/neuter procedures ranges dramatically at different veterinary practices. Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

As for solutions to local spikes in stray populations, the story doesn’t offer any. It mentions TNR (trap, neuter, return) but only in the context of a lawsuit against the San Diego Humane Society for its neuter/vaccination program.

That said, there probably isn’t a one-size-fits-all technique. What works for a small town won’t necessarily work in a city, and there are dozens of factors that could influence the prevalence of stray cats and colonies. Still, city councils and town boards don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Chances are if they look, they’ll find a municipality similar to their own where locals have successfully stabilized feline populations.

As for the Buddies, I’d live in my car before giving Bud up. He wouldn’t be thrilled about that situation, and we’d have to head south because the winters here are brutal, but as long as Bud has his servant, he’s good.

A previous version of this post incorrectly described cat chromosomes. The story has been updated to remove the error.