Recently in cats Category

Here's the update on Annie the Cat vs. The Collar (See my post from a couple days ago for the backstory).

The good news is I managed to collar her Thursday morning (here she is watching for birds last night in the living room window, her favorite perch).

When she bounced up onto my bed this morning to wake me up, however, her collar was gone. I found it unhooked and lying on her blanket on the bed in the spare room where she mostly sleeps. (She really should have thought to hide it from me in the closet.)

So I put it back on this morning -- I'm persistent -- but if she continues to get it off I'll let the issue drop. I don't want to make her miserable if she really does hate it. After all, one blog reader on the earlier post already has called me "mean."

My co-workers are teasing me about how cats now seem to dominate my posts -- ever since I got a cat of my own.

So when Doug Epperhart of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council sent me another shot of one of his cats in a weird spot (see our earlier post about Doug's cat Bojangles), I had to print it, of course (nice looking cat, too!).

Doug's wife Andrea was taking some recycling items out to the bin in their driveway the other day and found Tia, one of the couple's two calicos, resting in the yard clippings:

A Los Angeles City Council committee on Monday called for an ordinance that would outlaw the declawing of cats.

L.A. is one of several cities considering the move before a Jan. 1, 2010, deadline when a state law goes into effect forbidding cities and counties from regulating the practice of veterinary medicine.

"It is not like clipping nails -- it is an amputation," said Councilman Paul Koretz who has a cat and sponsors weekly feline adoptions at the council chambers.

The City Attorney will prepare a draft ordinance for consideration by the full council before the end of the year.

Read more in the Daily Breeze today. 

Given time, this could develop into an epic standoff -- getting a collar and ID tag (seen on the right end of the table) onto Annie Oakley, the new cat (seen on the left end of the table).

So far, cat = 3, human = 0. 

"Cats don't like collars," one friend explained to me. "You might as well try putting a bra on her," he said.

A colleague at the Breeze, however, tells me it's all quite do-able -- and necessary, she says (and I agree), for cats who will be venturing outdoors (which Annie will do once she figures out the doggie door the dogs are using all the time). 

My colleague's strategy for collaring the cat: "You just have to pin her down."

Easier said than done, I suspect.

I've failed at my first three attempts to put it on her so far. So the collar (a special and safe break- away cat collar) sits, ready and waiting, for the next go-around.

Until then, AnnieO remains (temporarily) victorious -- and smugly collarless.

Read more about Annie the Cat 

I confess that one of my worries about getting a cat was the whole scratching thing.

I've been through some destructive dogs in my time and the canines I have now are the easiest I've ever had when it comes to furniture. They have almost no interest in even lying on the sofa, let alone destroying it.

So after I dumped the last sofa -- which, through the years, had been meticulously destroyed by my crazy Austalian shepherd Pilgrim (now deceased) -- I bought a new sofa this past January. Not to sound too materialistic here, but I really do love this sofa. Really. It's the nicest sofa I've ever had.

So far, Annie Oakley the cat has stayed mostly on her scratching posts, although a couple times I've stopped her from clawing on the furniture. The color literally drains from my face when I catch her doing this. The sofa is now heavily covered in protective blankets, throws and more throws.

Too bad reporters don't make more money. If we did, I might be able to buy her some of this new cat-scratch furniture.

It comes from The Company of Pets. The pieces shown below were designed by Jeanne Byers and Rochelle Klein, partners in an advertising agency.

But for now, the cheap-o, ugly scratching posts will have to do around my place.

Since AnnieO has two of her own dogs, I suspect the "neo-pop" canine scratcher at the right might be her favorite style. If her owner could afford it. it costs a mere $1,200. The modernist French chair? $575. (This cat in the photos even looks a bit like my Annie Oakley. But clearly way more spoiled.)  

 HT: Paws 'n Claws

This comes from fellow pet blogger Laurel Babcock at Paws 'n' Claws  in N.Y.

I thought I'd seen almost everything ... but I've once again been proven wrong. ... Most of  us have seen photos of female animals who have taken on the care and feeding of babies who are not of their own kind. But this was surely a new one to me! ... Thanks to P&C friend and contributor Diane for the photo.

 

Really.

By Lisa Black of the Chicago Tribune:
     A Woodstock, Ill., chiropractor was initially miffed this month when he opened a box of supplies shipped from Texas and noticed tufts of fur. Then he spotted the cat, which had hitched a ride from Dallas.
    "My first reaction was, I didn't know what kind of animal he was, so I closed the box back up," said Brett St. Aubin, clinic director at Chiro One Wellness Center of Woodstock.
    The stowaway's collar identified him as Cody Bennett, 2, a black and white cat who had disappeared from the Chiro Design Group.
    Cody jumped unnoticed into the roughly 2-by-3-foot box as it was being packed, said Marie Webster, whose daughter owns the cat.
    "She taped it up, put the label on it and off he went" via UPS, said Webster.
    Making the best of it, the cat burrowed deeply into a bundle of foam products designed for the neck.
    When St. Aubin called Webster to report Cody's whereabouts, her first thought was that he had found him wandering nearby in Dallas.
    "I didn't know he was in a suburb of Chicago," she exclaimed.
    Cody spent the night at a veterinarian's office and made the trip home the next day, this time by crate.
    He arrived at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport about 3:30 p.m., looking a bit thin, Webster said.
    The cat won't be forgotten anytime soon at the Woodstock chiropractic clinic.
    "We made him patient of the month," St. Aubin said.

(Photo courtesy of April Neill)

Dr. Stacy Fuchino of the PV Village Pet Clinic has teamed up with Purrfect Partners to offer a free spay-and-neuter clinic Sunday (Oct. 25) morning at the clinic, 201 Palos Verdes Blvd., Redondo Beach.

The event is geared for free-roaming cats and provides not only the surgery but also flea treatments. It is free for all caregivers and trappers of feral colonies. Donations, however, are welcome.

Reservations are required: Call 310-373-1585. Drop off time is between 7 and 8 a.m., with pickup between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

Organizers hope to offer more of the clinics in the future. This is the first.