Recently in cats Category

I have a very vocal cat, Annie.

So I was interested in this article at Vetstreet about why some cats meow at us so much.


Often (we're not really shocked to learn) it's to get something from us. Dinner, a stroke, a scratch behind the ear.

Or sometimes they're letting us know it's just time to get up and out of bed already. Breakfast is late.

















Annie often meets me on the front steps as I drive up at night, meowing all the way down the steps and then coming back up onto the porch with me.







Do you have a vocal cat? (According to the article, they learn pretty quickly that meowing will get them fed or petted or something else that they want.)









Now that I think about it, my cat really is quite multi-talented.

She also does couch yoga.

That would be Jack the Cat, who has risen to semi-celebrity status since he escaped his

owner's travel kennel a week ago at JFK International in New York and is now on the run.

As airport officials and his frantic owner, Karen Pascoe, continue to search for the missing feline, Jack has set up his own Facebook and Twitter accounts. He has more than 9,000 Facebook fans.

According to a story in the Herald Sun, Pascoe last saw her long-haired tawny-colored cat when she dropped him off, along with Jack's "brother," Barry, on Aug. 25 at baggage services for an American Airlines cross-country flight to San Jose, where she was to start a new job:

But Ms Pascoe made it no further than the food court when she got a call from an airline employee saying Jack had taken a powder and they believed he was in the inbound baggage claim area, ABC News reported.

Then everything really got complicated with the approach of Hurricane Irene.

The airline has flown Jack's owner back to New York to help with the renewed search now that the storm has passed. It is believed that Jack may still be within the airport, but there have been no sightings.

Daily briefings are held for the airport staff.

Read more here.

And you can follow his escapades (he's "having the time of my lives," according to one of his recent tweets)  on Facebook ("like" Jack the Cat is Lost in AA Baggage at JFK) and Twitter (@findjackthecat).

My friend Dolly, who (brilliantly, as it all turned out) matched me with up Annie the cat a couple years ago, had invited me to stop by the Petco in the Crossroads Torrance center on Sunday to take a look at some of the babies available for adoption through A Cat's Tale.

So after church I went by and, yeah, my heart melted.

There are so many good kittens and cats needing homes right now. And they have some real beauties.


Among those up for adoption at A Cat's Tale are a couple Russian blues and kittens that are three days and three weeks old, rescued from what would have been a life as ferals. (The 3-week old kittens, shown below, had been abandoned and were covered in maggots. A litter mate died, but three of them survived. They're still on bottles, but will be ready for homes shortly. They're active scamps. They kept trying to climb out of their screened playpen):

A Cat's Tale rescue has lots (and LOTS) of kittens and cats this year.

Stop by the Petco at the Torrance Crossroads, 24413 Crenshaw Blvd. between noon and 4 p.m Sundays and check them out.

Some are so young they're still being bottle fed.
 


In addition to permanent homes for the cats, foster homes and volunteers always help a lot. And the group is always in need of donations, including pet food.

For information about adoptions, email info@acatstale.org

It's spring and apparently the lizards are again active in my neighborhood.

I've had to carry two of them out of my house this past week but a third has -- so far -- eluded capture and is still living in my bathroom.

All courtesy of Annie my cat who finds them and brings them home with her. Once inside, most of them manage an escape her clutches and find some hiding spot within the house (behind furniture, in a closet, inside a pair of shoes -- eeek -- which makes getting dressed always such an adventure).

They are all tail-less by the time I catch and release them, of course. Lizards, as you all probably know, can shed their (still twitching) tails as a defensive mechanism to distract and throw their predators off the track while they escape. Very clever -- and very effective, it still tricks Annie more often than not.

This lizard obsession of hers has been ongoing ever since I adopted Annie a year and a half ago. So I was amused Sunday morning when I walked out onto my porch on my way to church to find that someone had anonymously left two colorful "lizard tiles."

How cute! And how very, very appropriate.

PURRfect Partners, a cat rescue based in the South Bay, will hold a yard sale from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday and Saturday (April 8 and 9) at 4716 W. Bulova St., Torrance.

Proceeds will benefit spaying and neutering for cats. Items for sale also can be donated by dropping them off at the above address today or Thursday. Email cats@purrfectpartners4cats.com.

Items for sale include kitchenware, glassware, clothing, household furniture, office supplies, lounge chairs, Hello Kitty merchandise, books, DVDs/videos and gardening tools.

The group holds adoptions from noon to 4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday at Centinela Feed & Pet Supplies, 413 N. Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach.

There's a vaccine now being developed that "could" cure cat allergies, according to this article by Stephanie Pappas of LiveScience. From the article:

Sniffly-nosed kitten-lovers rejoice: A new vaccine could soon banish allergies to cats. The vaccine isn't ready for prime time yet, but a new study finds that the shots are safe, researchers reported March 31 in the journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. They're also effective at reducing allergic reactions, the researchers reported.

The article says about 10 percent of the population is allergic to cats.

The vaccine is being developed by Adiga Life Sciences, a company established at McMaster University, and British biotech firm Circassia Ltd. Clinical trials are continuing.
 

Mimi was the only cat not adopted at a Best Friends adoption event. From the post at Carson Cats:

Meet Sweet Mimi (A4241195). She was an owner surrender (no reason why) and they had named her Jack even though she is a girl!  

Mimi is a volunteer favorite at the Carson Shelter and as such she was selected to go to the Best Friends ACATAMY AWARDS adoption event this past weekend.  Well, Mimi did not get adopted (there was a lot of competition) and she had to go back to the shelter with 3 others that also were not adopted.  Those 3 were since rescued/adopted and that leaves poor Mimi.  To make things even worse, she got an Upper Respiratory after her spay for the adoption event so now she is on even more borrowed time.   

Mimi is friendly and likes other cats...She also has a Bombay like face.  She is approximately  5 years old. 

If you can help foster this sweet thing, please email me at cdzacko@gmail.com 

Carson Cats posted a notice today about a "friendly" feral tabby cat, Jeremy (1 year old), who needs to be placed.

Rescued from the Carson shelter where he was labeled a feral, the cat turned out to be a "total sweetheart ... SOOOO not feral!," according to Cyndi Zacko:

We need a rescue or foster to take this sweet guy ... If you can help foster, even temporarily, contact cdzacko@gmail.com (310-721-5802).

People and Cats Together, a South Bay rescue group, will hold its regular adoption from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday (Feb. 12) at the PetCo at 537 N. Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach.

The adoptions are held weekly. Cats and kittens are available.

The adoption fee of $90 includes spay and neutering.