No Need to Panic!

Those big black cats wandering around outer Reno  – don’t worry, they are only Puma’s, although their black fur may lead you to think they are panthers.  It’s cool, we have everything under control.  Just go back inside and go into lock-down mode and everything will be fine.

Calendars Even Cats Must Love

Here’s a cat calendar that’s cool in myriad ways. First of all, it’s called “Cat Lovers Against the Bomb,” and if that weren’t already the bomb, then get ready for your dough to go to both cats and peace. That is, if you buy it at the Stray Cat Alliance. 

I like this calendar enough to pay full price.   My very favorite is January’s picture of a cat out walking in the snow.

>>This site offers more info about the calendar, which has been published now for 25 years.

Got Cat Blog? Catabloguing the Blogatosphere

They’re all over the Infobahn, if you’ve managed not to notice: Cats blogging their hearts out, and the people who type for them.  There’s even a whole uber blog all about the cat blogosphere called Cat Blogosphere, with the tag line: ”We cats are taking over the innernets.” Here you can check-in on the latest haps from cats blogging day and night around the planet, abridged and indexed in adorable kitty tawk.

Yes, clearly in the virtual world as in life, cats have made their beds and are doing their best to sleep uninterrupted in them.  I find it “personally” useful that someone is at least partially cataloguing the cat blogs, not to mention the other important stuff often reported on the site, like Bad Kitty’s Festival of Chaos, etc. 

Of course, nothing beats word of mouth, so naturally I want to know about any great cat blogs you know of, kitty tawk and awl. If you have one to share, you can leave it in comments, below, or send it to selfhelpforcats (at) gmail (dot) com. I’ll add any site to the blogroll if it’s, you know, something the discriminating Self Help for Cats reader might like. 

Kitty Toilet Training a Dream No More

Are you like me?  Do you dream of training your cat to use the toilet? Or is the subject of your salivation one of those fancy litter-flushing contraptions that promise to put an end to the great tootsie-roll treasure hunt? 

Well, the dream is off, everyone.  Apparently, of all the things you can put down a toilet, cat crap is where we as civilized people and cat lovers must draw the line.

That’s because of all the foul stuff that gets flushed down the crapper, cat crap is beyond even the beyond.  How is that possible, you ask?  By what cruel twist of fate could it be that little Foofie’s poops are so much worse than even our own?

Well, the marine biologists have spoken, and they think flushed cat crap is killing sea otters, or rather, the parasite it carries, Toxoplasma gondii, is.  In fact, even Governor Terminator is on cat poop’s case, signing a California law warning consumers that dumping cat litter into toilets or storm drains may harm otters.  

So while my dream of scolding the cat for leaving the seat up is all in vein, I am glad I didn’t already take the trouble to potty-train kitty, an activity I was neither looking forward to nor confident I could even accomplish.  Fortunately, I discovered before I tried that this cat toilet usage is, if not the incarnation of evil itself, at very minumum plainly and totally not okay. Especially when you consider how cats and otters are so closely related in the grand scheme of things. 

(Not that it would be okay if, for example, otters happened to be more closely-related to dogs. Even if at times I seem to suggest that dogs are spoiled media-darlings, I would never take that petty squabble out on a hapless and very cat-like otter. Also, some of my best frenz have been dogz.)

So for now, unfortunately, we’re stuck with litter-cleaning the old-fashioned way, which in my house pretty much means Hank is doing it.  That is, until one of them big cat-litter robot manufacturers gets a looksie at this here Website, then I figure me and Hank’ll have more litter-cleaning robots than we’ll know what to do with!  We may need to reprogram one of them to make the coffee, or something.

Teaching the Cat to Meow

The latest news here is that I’ve started to give my cat Herman Panther meowing lessons.  I realize that because his older “brother” Brody rarely utters a normal meow, Herman never learned how to properly talk Cat. Instead, he learned to squawk from the crows who sit on the phone line outside our second-story window. With them he shares a glossy-black exterior, a mucho-mysterioso stare, and unfortunately an extensive crowing vocabulary.

After years of listening to him speak his own brand of squawk-talk, a tongue that impresses demand even at a whisper, I realized that providing Herman with a more melodic meow model, a sweeter sound to copy, would be smart.  Unfortunately, Herman seems to have moved on from his “picking up noises” stage in life.  What with the cat pushing a whole ten years, it’s another case of horrible timing on my part.

I’m just getting started, though, and I have a plan: I plan to catch him when he’s half asleep and plant the seeds of cat song into his fertile serenader’s spirit by singing meows to him.  I will be relentless, and one day, if I’m lucky I will be rewarded with those two familiar feline syllables.  

Barring that, I might also be satisfied with at least a more melodious squawk.

My Cat’s Peeps Conquered My Peeps

I just located a lost bit of cat history that you will not want to miss.  I’m sure you’ll agree, this Viking Kitten footage pretty much clears up who the first cats in North America were.  Please, nobody show this to my Maine Coon, Brody.  He already has a wide stripe of blitzkrieg in him, and I’m not prepared for the gory consequences of outfitting him in the traditional garb of his peeps.  Not to mention how his hats will all stop fitting him after his head grows to overlord proportions.

The Continuous Improvement Process

I know, some of you may be saying, my cat is so freaking lazy and unproductive, he’ll never amount to anything. I want you to stop thinking like that right now. The truth is, no matter where your cat starts at today, things can only improve if you try. Change, real change, doesn’t happen overnight, (or during the day, in the case of cats). Real change is glacial, happening inside, unseen, little by little until one day, gush!, shit happens!

So have a little faith in your cat, and work on that attitude, man. And when things really seem to suck, borrow my mantra:

Life is one long continuous improvement process getting better everyday in everyway.