LAX Cat Fingerprinting: A Simple Hoax or Sign of the Times?

Cat airline travel, formerly a feline right of passage, may soon go the way of the Hindenberg, if what the lady from Southwest says is true.

In a recent phone conversation with my partner Hank, the Southwest lady said the airlines are “straying away” from companion animal travel on their passenger planes.  I swear, that’s what she said and that’s the words she used. 

This news comes as a major shock to me.  It just can’t be true.  How are Brody and Herman ever going to see Niagara Falls, the Big Apple, and the remnants of the Berlin Wall if they can’t fly?

Anyway, maybe it’s not true, because I just read another story about how incredibly misinformed some airline employees are about cats and travel.  In fact, as it turns, one new worker was actually telling folks they would have to get their cat fingerprinted if it traveled through Los Angeles International Airport.  Read about it here.

 Well, I obviously need to get to the bottom of this one.  How about you, do you find that the airlines are “straying away” from pet travel, or has your little kitten been wracking up the free flyer miles no problem visiting a hot little Persian they met in Miami?  

I’d love to hear what the real story is for jet-setting kitties, and the people who pack for them.

Got a License to Cat?

In East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, there’s a lot of cats.  How many cats? Well, this sentence from the local paper might illustrate:

According to [animal control], scenes of cats roaming around town are more than a usual occurrence in East Longmeadow.

Yes, those roaming-cat scenes, played out more than usually.  Wait, what?  More than usual, for what?  Who is to say what a usual occurrence of roaming-cat scenes is?  What does this tortured sentence mean, and is it going to lead to other tortured sentences, like kitty behind bars?

Okay, sure, this is a serious topic.  All kitties need to get their shots, I suppose, whether they be Tommy B. Homekitty or Felicity Free-Me-or-I’ll Freak Feral.  But if the Universe had meant for kitty to need a license, couldn’t it have furnished him with a neat little back pocket? 

Anyway, animal licenses are so dog.   If we start licensing cats, I think we need to find a way to felinize the entire process.  I’m not sure what that would look like, but the best minds of our generation should be able to come up with something.

Theater and Cats DO Mix!

Those serious Sioux City thespians are leading the way to a whole new vision in cat-theater futures.  The Sioux City Journal reports today that if you bring a can of cat food to the theater for the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, it’s as good as a ticket.  Proceeds go to the local humane society. 

You can bring other cat stuff as well to serve as your admission price, just don’t bring your cat — contemporary theater for now remains wholly unprepared for cat-inclusive audiences and will need to surmount obvious technological barriers before that dream is realized.

Blitzcat: The Cat Who Fought Hitler

 

“A black cat. A nation in danger. A world at war.”

That’s the back cover copy on my copy of Blitzcat, a book about one of the bravest and most loyal warrior cats in all of literature.  This cat didn’t just do her normal cat work of keeping people’s spirits propped up in war-ravaged England. No, little Lord Gort had to cross England looking for her person, changing lives and become a fighter-pilot cat on her way, among her many anti-fascist exploits. 

Although it seems unlikely that a war story based on a cat will end up well, Blitzcat pulls you in faster than a pawful of claws, and soon you will be fully behind the story’s main character, the black cat Lord Gort, who proves that a cat authentically-drawn can carry the central role in a novel narrative.  Bravo to author Robert Westall for giving the world a truly-great feline literary figure for the ages, and for all ages.  Don’t let the Young Adult sticker fool you, Blitzcat is plenty appreciated by young and old alike.

Got a favorite cat in literature?  Drop a comment below so all us cat-loving readers can check it out.