Archive for the ‘News’ Category

11-year old Oscar Bowring from London has declared himself and his cats responsible for Jenson Button’s Formula One championship win in Brazil! According to the young man, he named his two kittens Jenson and Button in honour of the driver during the F1 off-season last year and he’s sure the cats helped in the victory.

“Jenson and Button sleep with me” Oscar went on to tell Geoff Cowart from H&F News, “sometimes they stop the cars on my Scalextric set”. I, for one, didn’t even know they still made Scalextric racing sets and I’m not sure whether pet insurance companies cover cat crashes of such a miniscule proportion!

Either way, I feel we should keep this fun little claim away from Jenson, who recently told The Times’ Matthew Syed, “It’s all about winning, all about me…nobody can take it away from me… I always knew I had it in me to win, which makes it very tough to read so often about my supposed defects and flaws”. Clearly nobody has told Mr. Button that he owes it all to his two furry lucky charms!

As autumn gives way to winter, many people will start bringing out the anti-freeze to deal with the colder weather. However, after two cats were found poisoned in Fife from consuming the useful household product, owners are being warned about the importance of keeping it out of reach from pets. Anti-freeze poisoning is one of the most common causes of poisoning in cats, especially in the winter months.

Due to the colourless, odourless nature of the substance, owners are being advised to keep alert to the symptoms of anti-freeze poisoning. There include lethargy and vomiting, as well as head shaking and even comas in the late stages.

It is not known whether the poisoning of the two cats in question was deliberate or accidental; what is known is that both dogs and cats will consume the substance if they find it. Since it’s common practise to change car coolant in winter months , which can result in spills that pets will investigate, extra care is required to protect both both our pets and ourpet insurance over this season.

I think most cat owners will agree with me when I say there is a pitiful range of interesting toys available for cats! Although a quick search on Ebay reveals a huge range of scratching posts, of a range of shapes and sizes, that’s about where the market stops. There is a huge gap in the market for more interactive toys; why won’t one of those Dragon’s Den type people invent some!

In an attempt to find something more interesting for my cats, I recently purchased a Panic Mouse for them at great expense. However, as excited as I was at this potentially intriguing toy, the same can’t be said for my cats, who took more interest in the noisy motor than in the mouse itself! After a few days of nothing interesting happening at all, apart from the wind-up mouse nearly taking my cat’s eye out (making me very glad I had pet insurance), I resorted back to laser pens and tin foil tied to string – they love it!

If you are after an interesting interactive toy, Zebedee mice are a classic, cheap and effective way to guarantee good results! Mice with catnip in them, cats go nuts for them, where they stare with blank disinterest at normal toy mice that smell of nothing!

So, this is an appeal to the market – will somebody please make some interesting cat toys!

A digital infrared camera set up in the jungles of Uganda has caught three photographs of the African Golden Cat; one of the most elusive of all wild cats in the world. The cat is so rare that few researchers have ever seen it and it is though that only one other picture of the species exists – taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Even Dr. Aronsen of Yale University (who set up the camera that took these pictures) saw his first and only wild African golden cat this summer.

Golden cats are medium-sized, compact and muscular felids, but the photographs have revealed that the individual in question actually has a dark coat! Dr. Aronsen explained that, despite its name, the cat’s coat varies over its lifetime; changing colour and even pattern (it can be spotted or not!) depending on age and location across the continent. Having set the camera up to take pictures of primates living the park, Dr. Aronsen is delighted to have caught the cat on film, but admits to being “disappointed that the cameras could not give me more data on [the cat's] colour”

I can’t even imagine the price of the cat insurance you’d have to take out on a cat you’d only see once in a lifetime!

Nobody should take on a cat without fully intending to look after it – no matter what the price. Sadly, with the price of pet health care ever rising, more cats and being put up for adoption and less owners say they are willing to pay up for emergency surgery and expensive treatment. Given the current economic climate, it’s understandable that people aren’t keen to see their finances thrown out of whack by a big vet bill, but surely this is all part of the responsibility of having a pet?

Either way, having to choose between the health of your pet and the stability of your bank account is something not cat owner wants to do. When it comes to life-saving surgery, a bill of hundreds if not thousands of pounds could be on the agenda – which 85% of cat owners said they wouldn’t pay if they exceeded £1500. By contrast, cat insurance that covers you pet for up to £1500 can be found from as little as £4.88 per month! At just over £1 per week, protecting your cat and your bank account doesn’t have to cost a fortune.