Vancouver cat cafe runs out of cats

They were all adopted!
Talk about a great problem to have! Catfe, a cat cafe in Vancouver, British Colombia, ran out of cats. All of the cats for the cafe are sourced from the local SPCA. The cafe was only open for three weeks before all of the cats were adopted, and bad weather over the holiday season made it difficult for them to get more cats in.
 
The cafe has since been restocked with local adoptable cats. In fact, they are, in their own words, “brimming with cats.” The cafe has set aside Thursday as “new cat day,” so if you want to get your cats fresh, it sounds like Friday is the day to go!
 
Catfe only allows sixteen people at a time to visit the cafe, and reservations are recommended.

Please stop scaring cats with cucumbers!

It's not that funny

There is a new viral video trend that has cats terrified across the land. Yes, it's funny to us - mainly because the cats' reactions seem out of proportion to us. It's obviously not out of proportion to the cat, and experts are warning that scaring cats is (surprise!) not very good for them.

Apparently cats are easily scared by cucumbers. The trick is to set the cucumber on the ground beside the cat when the cat isn't looking. The cat turns around, sees the cucumber, and freaks out, usually jumping several feet straight up in the air.

Cucumbers are snake-like enough to trigger a cat's instinctive fear of snakes. The cat's reaction - leaping up into the air - is designed to avoid a potential snake bite.

To make it worse, a lot of people are doing this while their cats are eating. Talk about destroying a cat's sense of security! Poor kitties.

Family finds frozen kitten; nurses him back to health

Happy holidays for one little kitty!
On Thanksgiving morning, the Bingham family was having a relaxing time in their family cabin in Utah, surrounded by snowdrifts - and something else.
 
The family discovered a stray kitten, seemingly lifeless, who had been buried beneath a snowdrift. The kitten had no detectible heartbeat, but the Binghams didn't give up hope.
 
They brought the kitten inside, set him in a box beside the fireplace, and performed CPR. Incredibly, the tiny kitten was revived. 
 
Named "Lazarus" for obvious reasons, the kitten has since been adopted by one of the family members. An emergency vet visit gave little Lazarus a clean bill of health. Although presumably he only has eight lives left, after this little kitty escapade!

Cat nearly misses out on his Christmas gift

ID requirements nearly ruined Ted's Christmas
When Ted the cat's owner's mother sent Ted a kitty advent calendar for Christmas, she little knew what problems she would cause. She addressed the package to "Ted Mahrer-Kirk," but his owner Brittany wasn't home when the package arrived.
 
The Royal Mail left a claim slip, but when Brittany went to pick up Ted's package, she found a snag: the Royal Mail requires ID for package claim. And Ted, cute though he is, did not have any form of government ID issued. Evidently the Royal Mail will not take an engraved cat tag as a form of ID.
 
Next, the Royal Mail employees suggested that Brittany bring Ted to the office to sort out the confusion. However, Ted (who is otherwise quite healthy) has feline HIV, and is not allowed to leave the house, due to the high risk that he could get sick.
 
Eventually the Royal Mail waived the requirement, and Ted has been thoroughly enjoying his kitty advent calendar.

Vincent the cat gets two prosthetic legs

Kitty gets a new lease on life
A three year-old cat named Vincent is up and mobile now, thanks to two titanium prosthetic legs. Veterinary orthopedic surgeon Mary Sarah Bergh designed and implanted the titanium legs, and says that Vincent is doing quite well in post-op.
 
Vincent was born in rural Nevada without hind legs. He was abandoned as a kitten, found and taken to a local shelter which was planning to put the kitten to sleep, except that one of the volunteers fell in love with the cute little fellow. Her daughter, Bergh, was studying veterinary medicine. 
 
Vincent's current titanium legs are just short stubs. They will be periodically replaced with longer shafts, which will eventually lengthen them to the length of a normal cat's legs. The gradual replacement is designed to help Vincent acclimate to life with legs. 

Cats don't kill as many birds as we've been told

Don't believe the hype
A few years back, the Smithsonian released a study which claimed that cats (both feral and domestic) kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds, and between 6.9 and 20.7 billion mammals a year. These shocking statistics were passed along by the media without question, and have been used to affect public policy, including regulations put into place that affect feral cat populations.
 
 
First of all, one of the main contributors to the study is a woman who was recently convicted of attempted animal cruelty, for dumping rat poison on bowls of cat food that her neighbors left out for feral cats. Nico Dauphine was forced to resign from the Smithsonian after the incident, but she continues to remain a vocal critic of TNR (Trap Neuter Release) programs for feral cat populations.
 
Second of all, the overall estimates of the number of birds in North America is around 4.9 billion. The study adds that collisions with windows and towers kills 21% of birds annually. Take that in conjunction with the numbers the study gives for cat kills, and according to this study, 100% of the population of North American birds gets killed by cats or windows every year.
 
Hmm, really?
 
The study bases its estimates on the number of feral cats in the United States, which is not a known number. With some hand-waving, they arrived at a figure of 30-80 million feral cats. Even given that we don't know how many feral cats are out there, that's ridiculously high.
 
The study also fails to acknowledge the fact that predation is a known and valid pressure on a population. Remove the main predator from an ecosystem, and another predator will arise to take its place. In this case, we have removed almost every predator from the environment, and replaced it with cats. That's bad news for those original predators, but the overall level of predation remains constant.
 
Without any predation, a population runs rampant and becomes unhealthy. Predators take the very old, the very young, the sick, the weak, and the injured. It's nature's design.
 
Finally, cats, being creatures that live with humans, tend to live in urban and suburban areas. Most cat kills are "Least Concern" species like sparrows and robins. There are very few cats stalking high-risk wild birds in remote areas.
 
Other studies, studies which have actually observed feral cats for hundreds of hours, report that feral cats actually only kill 24-50 birds per year. Furthermore, feral cats which are fed (like those which are involved in a TNR program) basically quit hunting altogether. 

The world's largest cat painting

And the story behind it!
Clocking in at 227 pounds on a 6 foot by 8.5 foot canvas, the "World's Largest Cat Painting" recently sold at a Sotheby's auction for a staggering $826,000. The painting was so heavy that carpenters had to be called in to build a special wall just to display the painting for the auction.
 
The painting was originally commissioned in 1891 by a San Francisco millionaire and animal lover named Kate Birdsall Johnson. Johnson dedicated her 3,000 acre summer home to her animal friends, but the true stars were the 350 Persian and Angora cats who lived there, attended by a year-round staff of caretakers. After her death, Johnson left $500,000 in her will to her cats, so that they could live out their lives in comfort.
 
42 of Johnson's favorite cats are featured in the painting by Carl Kahler, who spent three years painting the feline masterpiece. 

Cats can see ultraviolet and taste bitter flavors

Life must be so vivid!
New research shows that cats can detect a far wider range of sensory information than we ever suspected. Not only can they see ultraviolet colors, they can also detect bitter flavors in food. 
 
The cat's ability to taste (and be put off by) bitter flavors may account for why they can be such picky eaters when it comes to manufactured cat food. Many processed cat foods have vitamins and minerals added in, which could taste bitter and put off cats who are sensitive to the taste.
 
The discovery about bitter flavors throws into question the standard evolutionary biology answer to why humans can taste bitter. It has always been said that we can taste bitter because it helps protect us against eating toxic plants. However, cats, which are obligate carnivores, have no need for this kind of protection. 
 
The cat's world is also a lot more colorful than ours. Research has determined that cats can see well into the ultraviolet spectrum, which means they can spot things which are hidden to us, including stripes on flowers, patterns on birds' wings, and splashes of urine - both from prey, and from other cats marking their territory.
 
No word yet on why cats are so fond of boxes, though.

Cat prevents man from committing suicide

Quick-thinking family saves the day
Last week in San Francisco, police chased down a man who was suspected of driving a stolen vehicle. The man leaped out of the car, ran into a nearby building, and ended up hanging out a third-floor window, threatening to kill himself.
 
The stand-off ended when the man's family arrived with his cat in hand. Police often call in family members to help talk a suicidal person out of killing themselves, and in this case, the family realized that the man's beloved cat would add even more persuasion to the mix.
 
The orange-and-white tabby was handed over to the negotiators, who showed the cat to the man. Upon seeing his cat, the man broke down and agreed to come down safely. Officers were even kind enough to let the man hold his cat for a few minutes after he had been handcuffed and taken into custody.
 

Veterinarian's shelter music project helps reduce stress in shelter cats

Rescue Animal MP3 to the rescue!
Animal caretakers have long known the benefits of playing calming music in animal's areas, whether it's a horse stable, a veterinarian's office, or an animal shelter. The problem is that not every shelter can afford to license a music service like Pandora, but local radio stations can be problematic, between bad reception and commercials that interrupt the music with LOTS OF YELLING.
 
Enter Pamela Fisher, an Ohio veterinarian who started the Rescue Animal MP3 project. Fisher solicited music donations from musicians around the world who submitted everything from nature-inspired instrumental pieces to classical works by Beethoven, Bach, and others.
 
Fisher gives shelters MP3 players loaded with 30 hours of soothing playlists, and the results have been remarkable. Her MP3 players are in shelters in all 50 states, and shelter staff report greatly reduced barking among dogs, and overall animal stress. 
 
Maybe she can team up with the Music for Cats project!

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