Just a little plug…
savvycat is still on hiatus, but I am currently channelling my crazy cat lady energy into friendly miaows.
friendly miaows is a collection of photos of the cats in my neighbourhood. And an excuse for me to say hi to them ;)
If you’re interested, stop by and say hello :)
savvycat x
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Feb 02.10 /
news / by
savvycat / 
Thank you…
Jarod and Liz dot com is over this way.
3 Comments /
Nov 16.09 /
news / by
savvycat /
H1N1 (Swine Flu) confirmed in American cat.
Schaumburg, IL
A cat in Iowa has tested positive for the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, state officials confirmed this morning, marking the first time a cat has been diagnosed with this strain of influenza.The cat, which has recovered, is believed to have caught the virus from someone in the household who was sick with H1N1. There are no indications that the cat passed the virus on to any other animals or people.
Prior to this diagnosis, the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus had been found in humans, pigs, birds and ferrets.
The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) are reminding pet owners that some viruses can pass between people and animals, so this was not an altogether unexpected event. Pet owners should monitor their pets’ health very closely, no matter what type of animal, and visit a veterinarian if there are any signs of illness.
This is the first (and only) confirmed case so far. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
savvycat x
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Nov 05.09 /
cat care / by
savvycat /
Neighbourhood kitties.
Since I’ve started working later in the mornings, Train has had more ’sun time’ up on our enclosed top step. I’ve also come to realise that our neighbours kitties regularly (i.e. all morning!) do laps of our place. And from where Train sits, this is where she gets to see them:
Red lines indicate general kitty path
She watches and listens for their every movement – even tries to ’stalk’ them through the barriers on the top step. She’s not formally ‘met’ another cat before, but we’ve never encouraged her anxiety or aggression towards any of our neighbourhood cats – we just let them do their thing.
Even if we keep her indoors, she still has prime view of the action from our bedroom window and will spend hours watching them. So, my question is – what should we do? Just let her watch and figure things out for herself? Is there any way we can show her that other cats aren’t a terrible thing?
savvycat x
2 Comments /
Nov 03.09 /
cat care / by
savvycat /
Cat survives 19 hours in freezer.
From the NZ Herald:
A pet cat has stunned an animal expert by surviving 19 hours in his owners’ freezer.
Sarah Crombie, 27, discovered Krillen lying stiff and semi-conscious on a bag of dog food when she went to get a loaf of bread.
I was looking in there and I heard this funny noise,” said the Te Kuiti mother-of-two. “It was sort of a ‘miaow’ but he was so half-frozen he couldn’t get the noise out properly, poor thing. So I look down and I see this grey fluffy thing sitting on top of the bag of dog food under a rack.”
Her partner Sid Sisson had shut the top-loading freezer the night before, not realising Krillen was inside.
On discovering the 1-year-old Sarah feared the worst, as the freezer is kept on its coldest setting, about -18C. “I raced inside to get Sid and as I came out, Krillen rolled off the bag in an attempt to get out, but he was that frozen he just rolled to the bottom of the freezer on his back,” she said. “At first we thought his eyeballs were frozen. I’ve never seen a cat with such big eyes.”
Fortunately, Sid, 28, knew it was essential to raise the body temperature of hypothermia sufferers slowly. So he put the cat under his shirt and got into bed with him.
The dairy farmer kept Krillen under blankets and against his bare chest for three hours until he thawed out. “I was sitting on the other side of the bed and the whole bed was vibrating from this cat shaking,” said Sarah.
Amazingly, Krillen seems to have emerged from his ordeal unscathed. “But I tell you, he doesn’t go near the freezer any more,” said Sarah.
One good reason why we always make sure we know where Train is before we go to bed!
savvycat x
7 Comments /
Oct 18.09 /
news / by
savvycat /
Happy Tails Day: October 9
Don’t forget this Friday is the RSPCA Happy Tails Day.
You can buy merchandise from the RSPCA Australia online shop, your state or territory RSPCA or from one of the RSPCA’s retail partners: BigW, newsXpress, Hill’s Vets, Bendigo Bank and Peter Alexander.
savvycat x
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Oct 08.09 /
events / by
savvycat /
Melbourne wins again…
…this time in a survey that asked ‘How liveable is your city for your pet?’
According to the Australian Companion Animal Council’s survey of 1800 Australian pet owners, all Australian cities could be doing more to deliver liveability for people and pets. The survey looked into how liveable pet owners believe the city or area they live in is. Melbourne polled first as the most liveable place for people and pets in Australia, with an average ranking of over 7 out of 10.
It also confirmed that the most important thing for a cat owner is that they are permitted to keep their cat where they live (90.8% of respondents).
Here’s the full rankings (scores are out of 10):
1. Melbourne: 7.13
2. Adelaide: 7.09
3. Perth: 6.58
4. Canberra: 6.49
5. Brisbane: 6.24
6. Hobart: 6.07
6. Sydney: 6.07
7. Darwin: 5.82
Do these results surprise you? Do you think your city should have rated higher? I’m not at all surprised by Sydney’s result. Pet-friendly accommodation can be very hard to come by in this city.
savvycat x
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Oct 02.09 /
news / by
savvycat /
Happy Train Day!
We don’t actually know when Train was born, but we picked her up on 30 September, 2007. That makes today Annual Train Day – the day we celebrate all things Train!
From this…
To this…
To this…
(Giving me warning signs about interrupting her morning sun time!)
It’s been a busy 2 years. She’s *almost* stopped biting us. She’s getting better around strangers – people and cats alike. And she still has moments where all she wants to do is have her head and chin rubbed. But don’t go near the belly. Ever.
Happy Birthday Trainface! You can have some ‘alone time’ now.
savvycat x
3 Comments /
Sep 30.09 /
events / by
savvycat /
New Simon’s Cat: Hot Spot.
Celebrating the release of the new Simon’s Cat book.
savvycat x
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Sep 29.09 /
news / by
savvycat /
The Complete Cat.
Many cat blogs I read mention Vicky Halls as some kind of cat god. When her mailing list had a giveaway for her latest book – The Complete Cat, I decided to enter. Luckily I was one of the first people to reply and the book arrived in the mail this week.
While I haven’t read this book cover-to-cover (I see it more as a reference guide than anything), I have gone through (via the handy index) pages and chapters I’ve found interesting – and think I might have to source her previous books Cat Counsellor, Cat Detective and Cat Confidential as I’m sure they’d contain some interesting information too.
One thing I found particularly interesting was the breed profiles. Train is a British Shorthair x Burmese – I wasn’t searching out a particular breed, more that she was unwanted and I was ready for another cat in my life. Reading the profile for Burmese was particularly interesting – while Train doesn’t have all of these problems, she does have a few – mainly aggression related – which we are trying to work on. And her 2nd birthday is coming up this Wednesday. Lucky us!
Undesirable behaviour seen…
Where do I start? Wool-eating, cable-chewing, territorial aggression, urine-spraying and inter-cat aggression are probably the main issues for those Burmese that go wrong. They seem to be highly motivated to behave in a certain way and those that go around the neighbourhood beating up all the other cats rarely respond to behaviour therapy. I often remark ‘Beware the Burmese’s second birthday,’ as these are problems that arise after maturity.
Have you heard of Vicky Halls before – or read her previous books? Are they worth it?
savvycat x
2 Comments /
Sep 27.09 /
news / by
savvycat /