We continute to celebrate “Cats and Dogs Week” at The Cat’s Meow.

First up, the reader photos, starting with a shot of Tabby the Cat and a dog she met in a park. Says her mom, “This dog loves cats and used to live with one, so he kept on wanting to give Tabby kisses, even jumping in the stroller once to give her a full-body kiss! Tabby loves dogs, and befriends them wherever we are.”

Here’s Armani the Cat, sharing a secret with Gauis:

And now the rest:

Of course, a great perq to good interspecies relationships is being on the receiving end of the occasional massage:

In a reader? Click here.

Got a cute cat-n-dog photo of your own? Send it to me and I’ll post it. (Please, only send personal photos to which you own the rights.)

And thanks to those of you who sent cat-only photos - we won’t use them for this series, but may post them at a later time.

See related Cat's Meow entries:

• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 3
• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 2
• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 1

City Kitty, an arthritic cowcat who lives a the Naples, Florida, City Hall, has a new lease on life thanks to a concerned and caring citizen.

Last month, LaVeeda Krumm took the feral cat to Harborside Animal Clinic, after she noticed a problem with the cat’s overgrown nails. At the clinic, tests revealed that City Kitty had advanced arthritis and hyperthyroidism, a common affliction in older cats.

The vets at the clinic ministered to City Kitty, but the price tag was a steep $439.

Dr. Ruth Eisel, a vet at the clinic, said that when City Kitty was brought in, the clinic was told people would be pitching in to help cover the costs. Unfortunately, the funding didn’t materialize and the three doctors in the practice had to pay the expenses themselves.

“When it came to chip in, there was no one there except for LeVeeda Krumm,” said Eisel. “The doctors said to ourselves, (the cat) was promised help, so we put our own money toward the cat.”

Two weeks after the visit to the vet, Councilwoman Penny Taylor sent a memo to her colleagues asking city employees to pitch in to help offset the medical expenses.

“We love her,” Taylor wrote. “We need help with this bill and a collection station has been established at the volunteer desk in the downstairs lobby of City Hall.” Unfortunately, donations have been very slow in coming in.

Taylor said she was relieved to learn that Krumm took City Kitty to the doctor.

“I’ve been worried about her,” Taylor said. “She’s very wily.”

City Kitty is just one of several cats that lives near City Hall, said Naples Mayor Bill Barnett. Barnett estimates she’s been around City Hall for about 15 years.

“I’ll tell you it adds a personal touch,” Barnett said about having a city pet. “This is not a bleak gray drab atmosphere around here. We’re filled with good old normal people. It’s a warm fuzzy.”

An overactive thyroid means City Kitty needs to take medication twice a day, which is hard to do with an feral cat. But Krumm said she’s doing her best to make sure City Kitty gets it at least once a day.

Being the City Kitty has its perks: In 2006 city employees built her a cat house to keep her out of the elements during bad weather.

Donations for City Kitty’s medical expenses are being accepted at
Naples City Hall,
735 Eighth Street South
Naples, FL 34102

[LINK/PHOTOS: NaplesNews.com]

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The 365 Cat Ladies Blog is sponsoring a great giveway for July: THREE crazy cat ladies (or lads) will win the Peaceable Kingdom print shown above. All you have to do is drop by the blog and leave a comment in the giveaway entry post describing your cat’s favorite game. Winners have the option of a “with text” or “no text” version.

Entry Deadline: 31 JULY

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We continute to celebrate “Cats and Dogs Week” at The Cat’s Meow. First up, a video from Catster Lucy and Dogster Sophie. Their mom says, “7 year old Lucy and 14 1/2 year old Sophie are both terrified of wind, rain, and thunderstorms. They comfort each other by curling up together in Sophie’s doggie den every time it rains……”

In a reader? Click here.

Here’s Sophie with Sallie:

Next up, Catster Curly, who is purrforming a full body search of Dogster Pen while Lalo supervises.

And now the rest…

Got a cute cat-n-dog photo of your own? Send it to me and I’ll post it. (Please, only send personal photos to which you own the rights.)

And thanks to those of you who sent cat-only photos - we won’t use them for this series, but may post them at a later time.

See related Cat's Meow entries:

• The Truth about Cat and Dogs… Pt 4
• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 2
• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 1

We continute to celebrate “Cats and Dogs Week” at The Cat’s Meow. First up, a couple of photos from our readers:

Lyndi and Twinkie



Sadie and Raja

And now the rest…

Got a cute cat-n-dog photo of your own? Send it to me and I’ll post it. (Please, only send personal photos to which you own the rights.)

See related Cat's Meow entries:

• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 1
• The Truth about Cat and Dogs… Pt 4
• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 3
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• Oh. Excuse Me. Wuz dat YER fish?

I hope tax dollars weren’t spent on this “well, duh!” research project! Here’s the scoop:

If you’ve ever wondered who’s in control, you or your cat, a new study points to the obvious. It’s your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed. The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore.

“The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response,” said Karen McComb of the University of Sussex. “Solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing, which is likely to get cats ejected from the bedroom.”

They know us

Previous research has shown similarities between cat cries and human infant cries.

McComb suggests that the purr-cry may subtly take advantage of humans’ sensitivity to cries they associate with nurturing offspring. Also, including the cry within the purr could make the sound “less harmonic and thus more difficult to habituate to,” she said.

McComb got the idea for the study from her experience with her own cat, who would consistently wake her up in the mornings with a very insistent purr. After speaking with other cat owners, she learned that some of their cats also made the same type of call. As a scientist who studies vocal communication in mammals, she decided to investigate the manipulative meow.

Tough to test

Setting up the experiments wasn’t easy. While the felines used purr-cries around their familiar owners, they were not eager to make the same cries in front of strangers. So McComb and her team trained cat owners to record their pets’ cries — capturing the sounds made by cats when they were seeking food and when they were not. In all, the team collected recordings from 10 different cats.

The researchers then played the cries back for 50 human participants, not all of whom owned cats. They found that humans, even if they had never had a cat themselves, judged the purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food — the purrs with an embedded, high-pitched cry — as more urgent and less pleasant than those made in other contexts.

When the team re-synthesised the recorded purrs to remove the embedded cry, leaving all else unchanged, the human subjects’ urgency ratings for those calls decreased significantly.

McComb said she thinks this cry occurs at a low level in cats’ normal purring, “but we think that cats learn to dramatically exaggerate it when it proves effective in generating a response from humans.” In fact, not all cats use this form of purring at all, she said, noting that it seems to most often develop in cats that have a one-on-one relationship with their owners rather than those living in large households, where their purrs might be overlooked.

The results were published in the July 14 issue of the journal Current Biology.

[LINK: LiveScience.com ]

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Edward McIrvin has done his level best to win the “Cat Guy of the Year” title. This volunteer at the Rockingham animal shelter in Reidsville, NC is facing felony charges for catnapping 37 cats slated for euthanasia.

McIrvin, who plans to turn himself in to Reidsville police on Monday, is working to find homes for all the catnap-ees.

“If I go to jail, I hope the cats are saved before then,” he said.

After breaking into the shelter and stealing the cats, McIrvin paid a veterinary hospital $5,800 to spay/neuter and board the cats for one week. The $5800 also covers adoption fees.

As of late Friday, eight of the felines had been adopted, and veterinary staff said there was a line of others waiting to adopt.

Kathe Nagy, office manager at Reidsville Veterinary Hospital, said the hospital did not want to press charges against McIrvin, but had no choice. Rockingham County contracts with the hospital for shelter space, and the cats are county property. The director of the shelter–who assisted McIrvin–may lose her job over the incident.

Like many shelters, the Rockingham regularly takes in many more cats than it can adopt out. According to Nagy, as many as 40 cats are brought in each week, and most face euthanasia.

McIrvin said Thursday he took the cats because he feared they would be euthanized. He housed them temporarily in a Greensboro office and planned to foster them.

“He did the wrong thing but for a good reason,” Nagy said. “He has a very good heart. He’s a lot of people’s hero right now.”

Nagy said many of them had overstayed the 72-hour mandatory hold period and would have been euthanized Tuesday. A total of 23 cats and 14 dogs were euthanized that day, she said.

Let Reidsville know that Edward McIrvin is a hero, not a felon:
Reidsville NC police: (336) 349-1010

Rockingham County Animal Shelter
336-342-4022 or rjackson@reidsvillevet.com

[LINK: News-Record.com]

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In a reader? Click here.

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I hereby proclaim this “Cats and Dogs Week” at The Cat’s Meow. Someone sent me a bunch of way cute cat-n-dog photos this weekend in one of those ubiquitous Internet emails, and I’ll share a few each day this week. Enjoy!

Got a cute cat/dog photo of your own? Send it to me and I’ll post it. (Please, only send personal photos to which you own the rights.)

See related Cat's Meow entries:

• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 2
• The Truth about Cat and Dogs… Pt 4
• The Truth about Cats and Dogs… Pt 3
• Snuzzy is Seeking MJ Tribute Photos
• Oh. Excuse Me. Wuz dat YER fish?

Here are just a few of the freebies, deals, sales, coupons and contests this week over at the Pet Coupons & Deals site.

Don’t miss a deal! Click here to have all the cat freebies, coupons, deals and giveaways sent straight to your email.

• Giveaway: Catvantage Climbing Tree
• 40% Off Feline Greenies
• Save 15% on Feline Pill Pockets
• Save $59.40 on self-cleaning litter box
• Win a Year’s Supply of cat food
• FREE Fancy Feast Cat Food Dish
• Coupon: Iams Premium Cat Food
• $5 Off Adams Flea & Tick Control
• Coupon: $1 Off Country Pet Naturals Cat Food/Treats
• FREE month’s cat food when you adopt
• FREE Vet Health Exam
• GIVEAWAY: CatVantage Cat Tree
• FREE Gloss and Glide Detangler for Dogs/Cats
• CONTEST: Win a Year’s Supply of Purina One Cat or Dog Food

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