Cats and Kittens

I love cats and everything, but sleeping with one is out of the question. I don't want your toxoplasmosis, cutie, keep it to yourself :lol: Cuddling is okay though.


It's not like you get a say in it. Whenever I fall asleep, I wake up with mine curled up next to me.
 
I love cats and everything, but sleeping with one is out of the question. I don't want your toxoplasmosis, cutie, keep it to yourself :lol: Cuddling is okay though.

Honestly don't have much choice in the matter, every night our bigger lad climbs onto my chest, nuzzles me for a few minutes then curls up at our feet or wedges himself directly between my wife and me. It's also just incredibly gratifying and affirming to be wanted and trusted like that even after we accidentally squish or kick him.

That said, I think if your cat hasn't been outside eating vermin, reptiles, birds etc, they probably don't have toxoplasmosis unless they've got it from raw meat you've fed them, so yeah.
 
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I love cats and everything, but sleeping with one is out of the question. I don't want your toxoplasmosis, cutie, keep it to yourself :lol: Cuddling is okay though.
Do you handle cat feces with your bare hands? Stand over a litter box, inhaling deeply? Do you have a litter box near the food you intend to eat? (it makes me shudder to see litter boxes in kitchens or even near the cat's food/water)

Relax. With the exception of the 8 weeks or so in my life since October 8, 1977 that I wasn't home to be around my cats, there have been few nights when I didn't have at least one cat sleeping with me. Toxoplasmosis has never been a problem. You just need common sense (and hand washing). I wear gloves when I deal with litterbox issues.
 
If you're not immunosuppressed or pregnant, don't worry too much about toxoplasmosis.
 
BBC said:
Mountain lion in California tree 'rescued' by firefighters
A very large cat has been rescued from a tree near a property in California after the homeowner saw it while working in the garden, officials say.

US firefighters arrived at the property in San Bernardino after the mountain lion - or cougar - was spotted perched on a branch about 50ft (15m) high.

The area was then secured and the animal was tranquilised and lowered to the ground using a harness.

It was released back into the wild following an assessment by biologists.

"It is common for young mountain lions to wander outside what some would consider normal habitat in an attempt to establish their territory," said Kevin Brennan, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47274378
 
I've run into an issue.

Since I have two cats, I have two litterboxes. One of my cats only likes to use the litterbox in my bedroom. (Yes, I know. Small apartment.)

However, the other cat will use both litterboxes. When she goes into my bedroom litterbox, though, my first cat sometimes refuses to go in it until it's fully cleaned. I scoop out the poop every time and I sprinkle baking soda in it to mask the smell, but that doesn't seem to be enough.

Is there anything else I should be doing? I usually just scoop the boxes day and do a full clean once a week (litter's expensive). Closing the door won't work because the food and water is out in the kitchen.

I solved this one by accident. Had to change the cat's food for a few days as the store ran out of their regular. Poop was really stinky, so I gave the litterbox a spray of air freshener after scooping it out but before putting the baking soda in. My cat started using it again even though it'd been shared. I guess the baking soda didn't get rid of the smell enough.

I don't really like air freshener, but the cats do, so I'll have to get used to it.
 
I don't really like air freshener, but the cats do, so I'll have to get used to it.

They do for now, but subject to change at the drop of a hat. ;)

Good luck. Glad it's solved for now.
 
Maybe I should get several different types of air freshener, then!

I've seen that deodorizer stuff at the store, but thought it was just marked-up baking soda. I'll get one next time and see if it helps.
 
Because spoiling the little brats always works out well :lol: :lol: :lol:
 

BBC said:
'Fairytale ending' for fat cat Mitzi returned four times

A plump pussycat who was returned to an animal shelter four times has finally found a home.

Mitzi weighed almost 7.7kg (17lb) when she first arrived at Woodside Sanctuary in Plymouth, Devon, as a stray.

The tubby tabby, dubbed "Britain's fattest cat", has since slimmed to 5.3kg (11lbs) and has been rehomed by the family of one of her old owners.

"She's such a sweet cat," shelter manager Helen Lecointe said. "We really hope she's found her fairytale ending."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-47333694
 

Cats Have Actually Grown Larger Over Time—Unlike Most Domesticated Species
Between the Viking Age and modern times, felines increased in size by 16 percent



By Meilan Solly
smithsonian.com
December 13, 2018
During the Viking Age, domesticated cats were popular companions prized for their pest control abilities—and, in a dark turn of events, their pelts, which the Norse seafarers often donned as clothing. The idea of feline fur fashion may sound disturbing today, but as Emily Underwood reports for Science magazine, the practice yielded a bevy of ancient cat skeletons that have actually enabled modern scientists to better understand the long history of human-cat relations.


Perhaps the most surprising find detailed in a new Danish Journal of Archaeology study is the domesticated feline’s growth over time. Although most animals tend to shrink as they become domesticated (the average dog, for example, is around 25 percent smaller than its wild relative, the gray wolf), Julie Bitz-Thorsen of the Arctic University of Norway and Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen of the University of Copenhagen recorded a 16 percent jump in size between Viking Age and contemporary cats.

The reasons for this hefty increase remain unclear, but according to the study, plausible explanations include greater food availability—in the form of either human waste or a higher rate of deliberate feedings—and the shift in culture from treating cats as “fur providing and rodent catching” animals to “the present-day pet invited indoor, fed and cared for.”

To assess the differences between ancient cats and those of today, Bitz-Thorsen, then an undergraduate at the University of Copenhagen, extracted cat skulls, femurs, tibas and miscellaneous bones from dozens of bags filled with a mixture of dog, horse, cow and cat remains discovered at archaeological sites across Denmark. The samples dated from the late Bronze Age to the 1600s, with many originating in Viking era mass graves filled with the carcasses of hapless, de-furred cats.

“You can tell the cats were skinned,” Bitz-Thorsen tells Science’s Underwood. “They have cut marks, or the neck has been broken.”

Researchers have long puzzled over the exact timeline of cat domestication, but a 2017 study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution posited that the ancestors of today’s house cats arrived in two distinct waves. The first of these early felines likely spread from southwest Asia into Europe and the Middle East as early as 4400 B.C., Casey Smith writes for National Geographic. This lineage was based in the Fertile Crescent, otherwise known as the birthplace of agriculture, and includes a 9,500-year-old Cyprus cat buried alongside its human.

The second set of felines consisted of an Egyptian lineage that spread across Africa and Eurasia as early as 1700 B.C. but didn’t truly accelerate until the fifth through 13th centuries. According to Karin Brulliard of The Washington Post, Viking cats belonged to this lineage; remains found at a Viking trading port on the Baltic Sea support the idea that tabbies were employed as pest control on Middle Age ships.

Interestingly, Abigail Tucker, author of The Lion in the Living Room: How Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World, tells The Cut’s Alice Robb that felines are “uniquely ill-suited for domestication.” In addition to demanding a diet of “fancy food,” cats are solitary creatures lacking social hierarchies, making them difficult for humans to control. Still, cats have one advantage above ostensibly similarly unfriendly wild animals such as badgers and foxes: Their facial features remind us of human infants, enabling them to become “an intriguing and charming presence, rather than a straight-up nuisance, like a raccoon.”

Regardless of whether early felines won over humans with their cherubic charm or deadly hunting skills, Bitz-Thorsen tells Science that by the late Middle Ages, cats had become the treasured, well-fed house pets they remain to this day.

Domestication enabled cats to reduce the level of energy expended on finding food, but University of Oslo cat domestication expert Claudio Ottoni explains to Science that it’s unclear whether a change in diet or an actual genetic shift triggered the animals’ jump in size. To answer this question, Ottoni says researchers will need to search ancient cat DNA for chemical signatures of a changing diet.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...ve-actually-grown-larger-over-time-180971029/


Cats have domesticated us, not the other way around.
 
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This is Artemis

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That white one is Ashoka and yes he is about twice the size (and weight) of Artemis

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She still wins the fights though
 
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