We have a very dear friend who lives in Tokyo and is not only a world-famous computer journalist but also a cat lover. She has two cat blogs — one in English and one in Japanese — and she recently sent us a link to a Japanese tuxedo cat video. It’s on the Japanese-language version of YouTube, so there are lots of tuxedo “related videos” on the right side of the page, just like the English version.
OK, not really friends, perhaps. But all the cats loved to watch them.
Today Susan unexpectedly lost one of her beautiful fish, a Gold Nugget Pleco, and Madame Houdini, a White Line Gecko. Dang, they were both fine yesterday.
Here’s a picture of Madame Houdini with two of her little gecko friends in happier days (like when she was alive):
She wasn’t called Madame Houdini for nothing. In her most famous escape (documented in the upcoming book Famous Geckos and Where They Hid, soon to be a major motion picture starring Stickon D. Wall and Leggo Mai Gecko), she not only got out of a completely sealed tank, but eluded six cats for three days by pretending to be a wall decoration, and then resisted capture by numerous experienced reptile wranglers. If you don’t believe me, check out these photos.
Madame Houdini could often be found on the back wall of her tank, where she teased the heck out of all the cats, but especially Jennifur, Auri, and Aurum. Jenni sometimes stood up on her hind legs like a meercat to look at her, while Aurum would come out in the middle of the night and stare at her for hours.
We will all miss them both.
When I went to the Animal Rescue Site to do my daily “click to donate”, and check the sales 
I noticed AnimalWork.org. I’ve written about the Animal Rescue site in Good Places to Shop While Helping Others, Too.
I already have a great (most of the time) job working with animals and helping people take the best care of their pets as possible. But for others who are job hunting — AnimalWork.org lists job openings for positions in the U.S. at zoos, grooming establishments, veterinary practices, retail, pet training, pet caretakers, service related organizations, and welfare and protection (i.e. what most of us would call shelters and animal control).
We have a guest blogger this evening: Steven, our youngest (a precocious 14-year-old) son. As soon as I heard what happened to him, I dragged him over so you could hear it too:
Hello, this is Steven. Just tonight, I fell asleep on our living room couch. I wake up about an hour later with Charger laying next to my chest, Agile under my head (he makes a very furry pillow), Yang in the crook of my leg, Yin on the other side of my legs, and Aurum (mind boggling!) sitting right on top of my side. It was quite a furry blanket as you can imagine
We are devastated!
Our dear little Auri…the sweet little tuxedo kitten that we just wrote about the other day…we now have evidence that she’s criminally inclined!
I guess it’s true what they say about Saturday night being reserved for wild behavior. I woke up early Sunday morning when I heard some odd scratching. I followed my ears to the closet. I opened the door. And what did I see?
Auri, Agile, and Charger, guiltily looking up at me with their beautiful eyes, imploring me not to turn them in to my wife Susan (“The Furminator”)! Together, they had broken into the locked closet and had been greedily wolfing down Panther’s special prescription diet food (40 bucks a bag, thank you very much!). Because it’s prescription food, this may be a federal offense!
But wait, there’s more! Google News reported that Auri was also identified as a member of the notorious Tuxedo Gang! They even have a known hideout!
We’ve tried to raise her right, but she just wants to raise hell (or maybe just raise heck, after all, she’s still a kitten!). Where did we go wrong?
Know anyone who doesn’t like to save money? On CentralPets.com the alphabetical listing of companies with current coupons, discounts, free with purchase, etc. offers is quite extensive. URL links to the seller’s site are included. The only catch is, you have to know which companies you want to check up on, or else scroll through the long list. Clicking on the box labeled “Pet Categories” doesn’t help — it just distracts by redirecting you to other parts of the site.
When we are paying almost $30.00 for insulin hypodermics and about $90.00 for a bottle of Lantus/Glargine insulin for Panther, I thought it best to comparison shop. So after searching for over an hour I realized that no on-line places sold Lantus, but lots of places sold the syringe sets. Strangely enough, our local Safeway pharmacy had the best prices! And no shipping fees!
While wading through the possible places to buy from I found VetAmerica
We bought a few none prescription items. Found some things I did not know existed for cats. Accurate descriptions, great service and reasonable prices. Check it out!
Found this not long ago — an online “gallery” with brief commentary about cats in art from antiquity to the present. I didn’t realize Rembrandt sketched cats. One image shows the more horrific side of human treatment of cats, other incorporate undressed humans, so parental guidance is suggested!
http://www.delmars.com/kitcats/catsart.htm
One of our readers gently reminded us that we haven’t written about Auri, our newest kitten, since we first got her way back in October. So here I am to correct this serious oversight.
Auri is such a joy to have around. Really, she’s so adorable and happy that every once in awhile I check her belly to see if maybe there’s a battery compartment in there!
When we first got her from the Folsom Carl’s Jr. (no, she wasn’t in a bun, she was begging outside) she was all fire and brimstone, hissing and growling at all our other cats — even Charger, who back then was easily five times her size! But a good dose of our patented Unconditional Love eventually solved that problem, and now she mostly just annoys Aurum for some reason.
Auri is still a kitten, although she’s grown quite quickly, and she can always be counted on to flip her little toy wolf in the air, or fly down the hall in pursuit of a laser dot. She is quite an expert at sleeping, and when sleeping next to one of us will stretch out, turn into a little black-and-white ball, or assume any other reasonable shape in order to stay asleep and stay next to us while we toss and turn.
Having grown to kittenhood on the kindness of Carl’s Jr. patrons, she is also one of the first to the feeding bowls, which is no doubt part of how she has grown so quickly! Here she is in her current sundae best, looking delectable enough to kiss and kiss and kiss some more:
She is a sweetness.
We have two Bengal cats, Charger and Aurum. All of our cats have distinctive voices, yet we have noticed that our Bengals tend to “sing” more often and with a wider range of notes.
Bengals were bred in part from the Asian Leopard Cat (ALC). So I was amazed to find this
1.4 Mb QuickTime movie of an ALC sounding off. Here’s the link from The International Bengal Society:
http://www.bengalcat.com/aboutbengals/animatedalc.aspx
Funny thing is, neither of our Bengals respond much to hearing this recording, but our mixed breed cats do look up and around to see who is making that noise.
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