Furry avatars of doom

GPfeNebWwAA3QPd
 
Can't remember where I found it and it's too long to copy and paste, but it starts off like this:

HOW TO GIVE YOUR CAT A PILL:

1) Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2) Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3) Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away...
 

Attachments

  • HOW TO GIVE YOUR CAT A PILL.pdf
    58.6 KB · Views: 2
Last edited:
Rhinocrates said:
She's now given what animal behaviourists call an 'enriched' life.
Click to expand...
Panther Luna and Puma Messi seem to be living the life. But I fear that one day one or both of them will remember just what they are and there'll be People Shreds all over the place, and that'll be the end of them.
 
publiusr said:
Maybe, but I'd worry more about the dog biting someone.
Click to expand...
I'm an ailurophile myself, but I gather that dog breeds that are feared are really just very loyal to their owners and are OK if they're brought up well, socialised, and properly disciplined. There was a time when there was panic about Dobermans, but you don't hear about them anymore.

In this case, I'm glad that Luna can play outdoors. Imagine being indoors with a panther that has the zoomies. I wouldn't want to have any valuable antiques in the house.
 
That said, I'm not naive about big cats. I visited parks and one had warning signs saying 'Trespassers will be eaten' and another where one of the handlers was able to show us tiger cubs in his arms but he jogged to wherever he wanted to go and once when he did so, I saw that a leopard in its enclosure instantly, reflexively, leapt to the boundary of its cage. It stopped, but it kept watching. A predator needs its reflexes to be successful and won't think before attacking if it senses potential prey. I read a few years later that he had been killed by a tiger in the park and it was subsequently closed. Lesson: don't act like a threat or like prey.

Specimens of Felis catus are cute and loveable because they're small and we can physically dominate them. They're also admirable because they're clearly still wild animals and superb predators on their own terms and that both amuses and teaches us. I'm just amazed that certain people can make relationships with big cats, but then certain animals are smart enough to understand that some relationships are to their advantage without necessarily being bred over millennia into domestication.
 
Last edited:
Slimy avatar of, well, something. A different kind of puss.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYBFRu4gkdA


There's a great book by Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus (https://symontgomery.com/soul-of-an-octopus/), and a documentary, Secrets of the Octopus (
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxOHYy1w92c
), which she wrote the companion volume for.

David Scheel, a marine biologist, kept an octopus in his home and it turned out that she liked watching David Attenborough documentaries (
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABCg2oLB5wo&list=PLZmHYbKix5ARcmbnpIxgjvrfFyzaJDhVe
). His own recent book is Many Things Under a Rock (https://www.amazon.com.au/Many-Things-Under-Rock-Mysteries/dp/1324020695).

Tragically, octopuses have very short lifespans - usually a year or even less - and even the giants live only four years. If I was a mad scientist, that's the first thing I'd fix.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom