This is the fifth part in our Neko no Jikan Amemura series. For those that missed the others click on the respective post number for them: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.
Today we are focussing on a very interesting cat that we spotted in the cafe first of all hiding away on one of the top shelves!
Have to admit I had to think of the Gremlins movie when I first spotted him. 😉
Just like the other cats he too LOVED this box, not surprisingly as we all know how much they love boxes. 😀
But do you see the black cat mother with her kitten logo? This is the logo for one of the main delivery services in Japan. 🙂
And he sure was adorable!We think that he was a Cornish Rex mix of some kind.
If you look closely at his fur you can see that he has got very short almost curly fur.
Whatever breed he may be… We really just wanted to stick him in our bag and take him home. Not sure how their Royal Meowjesties would have thought about that though!
Below you can see a map for directions to get to this Cafe. 🙂
More details can be found on their website here. (In Japanese)
We hope you enjoyed the second part of the Osaka cat Cafe – Neko no Jikan and are looking forward to more photos of the resident kitties. 😀
COSPICUA, Malta, 19/02/2017 by Alexander Johnson. Sugar’s life started brutally. As a small kitten he was thrown from the roof of a high building on to a hard pavement, a violent act which severed a part of his young brain, causing paralysis from the head down. Somehow, the little tabby managed to drag himself into a dark doorway, where his squeals of pain attracted the attention of a kind passerby who fortunately called a friend, an animal lover, well known for taking care of sick and injured cats. This was the beginning of many years filled with a deep bond of love and commitment between «Sugar» and his human Doris Zarb.
Even though he could barely move, the traumatised kitten was hard to catch, and still had a lot of fight left in him. Beaming, and with a twinkle in her eyes, Doris recalled, “When I finally managed to pick Sugar up, out of fear he bit me, causing my hand to swell like a balloon”. The weeks that followed involved journeys from one vet to another, the final diagnosis was Sugar would remain paralysed for the rest of his life. Doris told us, “I was recommended to have Sugar put down. However, he wasn’t in pain, and he had life, therefore there was no reason to destroy him, so I ignored the advice.”
Affectionately, Doris continued, “Furthermore, as the days went by, he started to accept me as his friend, and warmly purred when I stroked him. After that I couldn’t let him go. He was so sweet and loving, so I named him Sugar, and decided to keep him with me.” Since then, for the last thirteen years, due to his disability Sugar has had to be hand fed and cleaned several times a day, a chore which Doris lovingly does, besides seeing to any other needs.
No matter where Doris goes Sugar is close by, snuggled in his soft layered basket. “I also have him by me at night”, said Doris. “When he sleeps he lies straight and stiff as a board, not curled up into a soft ball like most cats.” Doris asserted further, “Sometimes, when he’s dreaming, he has moments of spasms, which wake me up.” Extraordinarily, in all those years Sugar has not been sick once! “The fall broke all his teeth, and we had to take them out,” related Doris, “but in the course of the years his gums have become so hard that he can chew dry food. Other than that Sugar, besides his paralysis, has had a very healthy life!” Taking care of Sugar means that Doris has had to sacrifice some of life’s pleasures, such as a holiday. “How can I have a holiday, when I’m needed here with my cats!” She smilingly exclaimed.
Doris has dedicated her life to cats, especially to the most vulnerable of the feline family. Over the years she has worked hard to establish one of Malta’s leading cat sanctuary, CSAF (Carers for Stray and Abandoned Felines), which today is home to over 250 cats. It is at the sanctuary that Sugar and Doris spend most of the working day. Sugar lies in his basket, surrounded by an entourage of cats, who seem to be very happy and proud to be in his presence. “The cats here love him, play with him, and one can see he enjoys it”, said Doris. On hearing Doris’ voice Sugar lifted his head to see where his loving human was. “I love all cats,” said Doris looking down at Sugar, “but Sugar has his own space in my heart.”
It was not expected that Sugar would survive a week, never mind to live all these years, but he proved all the pessimists wrong. Today, he is happy and healthy, with a lot more life to live, a miracle of love and devotion.
You can read more about Doris and the fantastic work of the CSAF in the book dedicated to the humble work of the Maltese stray cat carers ‘Islands of Cats‘ on pages 79-85.
We are back with the second part of our visit to the cat cafe Kitty Café in Nottingham (Click for Part 1). In today’s post we would like to share photos of some of the adorable kittens that were up for adoption during our visit.
It certainly was A LOT of fun watching this little one chase his little yellow toy and try and carry it throughout the whole cafe. 😀
We were also pleased to see that the cafe had a Kerbl hammock as we used to have one of those for our two when they were little and know it was a lot of fun for them. 🙂
Of course there were many other cats in the cafe as well… Like this calico!
Notice the sisal in the background? Despite having used very sturdy furniture it’s obvious that their resident cats must be very happy and active cats as they’ve been making good use of the ropes around the furniture haha!
We hope you liked these two cuties and are looking forward to more photos from our trip.
Hi everyone. Today’s guest post comes from Paul who writes about his three favorite things – travel, food, and, of course, cats – in his blog paulseestheworld.com. This post is an excerpt from a series of posts about big cats and other animals in Botswana, Africa.
This post is video and photo highlights looking at male lions, female lions, leopards, and a caracal. I had the amazing opportunity to spend some time in Botswana tracking big cats for a period of time. As someone who has had “domestic” cats my whole life I noticed how many behaviors our domestic beauties have in common with the big cats.
Male Lions
Let’s start with a male lion “greeting ceremony” – perhaps you have seen your cats do the same.
The “greeting ceremony” is customary of male lions that work together as a team. This is a greeting when they are relaxed, happy, and well-fed. These two hunted and ate a younger elephant the previous day.
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Seeing a lion in nature is an adrenaline rush – these are beautiful, graceful, powerful, elegant, and confident animals. Their front arms ripped with muscle, their rear legs show extreme power, their face beautiful in its complexity. They clearly know they are the king.
One night one of the brothers appears to have “met” a female (based on tracks). The following morning his brother roared for him to come back. Turn up the volume in this video.
The video of course does not fully give the depth and effect of the roar. It is so loud, so deep in the earth, in the air, through the trees, so amazing a sound. He continues to search for his brother.
Male lions weighed maybe 400 or 500 lbs. Lions can run up to 50 mph and leap up to 30 feet (that is crazy to think about, but then again many domestic cat can jump from the floor to the top of a refrigerator). A typical pride of lions will be 2 or 3 males, perhaps a dozen females (including mothers and daughters) and their cubs. Males typically live to be maybe 10 or 15 years old.
Female Lions and Cubs
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We found a mother who recently had 5 cubs, along with the pregnant grandmother (pictured above), in a wooded area on a savanna in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. In the first video, the mother lion is cleaning up 4 of the playful cubs after they enjoyed some zebra meat. In the second video, the cubs greet their mother and lay with her.
In the video below, the runt comes to breast feed (watch the mama lion lick the zebra blood off of the cub around 33 seconds in – so cute).
The cubs needed cleaned up because they, along with their mother enjoyed a zebra for their meal.
The cubs also practiced play fighting which is good for when they are introduced to the rest of the pride.
Leopards
Leopards are nocturnal animals and solitary. During the day, they rest in thick brush or in trees. They were much more difficult to spot than lions.
We also saw an adorable leopard cub in a tree waiting for momma to come back.
I had asked how the lions and leopards interact and the basic answer was they avoid each other, primarily the leopard avoiding the lion. Made total sense.
Caracal
Though the caracal looks like a fox it is a really a wild cat, weighing in at maybe 25 lbs (11 kg). We were lucky to see this nocturnal secretive feline. This cat really was beautiful. I apologize for the photos as it was mostly dark outside (very wide aperture) and these cats really were not interested in letting us get too close, but perhaps they interest you enough to learn more.
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Bonus cat – Billysky
Clearly not a lion, leopard, or caracal, this is a domestic short-hair who shares a house with me – and occasionally shares a glass of water with me without even asking. Blah. She made me promise to put her in this post.
Brief serious closing thought
For a great many reasons, the population of all kinds of large cats throughout the world continues to shrink, some approaching extinction, as does the land they live in. If you are interested or concerned, a simple google search can help you learn more or give you a call to action. Thank you for reading.
Today we would like to start of our series of posts about the Nottingham (UK) based cat cafe Kitty Cafe.
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This cafe is quite special and different to the regular cat cafes around the UK and even some other countries. What is different you are asking? Most of the cats in this cafe are adoptable so visitors are able to take their favourite feline home to a forever home. 🙂
The other thing was the interior decoration, we were IN LOVE with all of those funky walkways and spaces on the walls for the cats to jump and climb through. 😀
Speaking of cats…
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… they of course are not allowed to be forgotten about in our first post about this cafe. 🙂
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While this fella might seem quite lazy in these initial shots he certainly wasn’t…. 😉
… as we turned around we found him on top of one of the walkways looking at us with a cheeky grin. 🙂
If you’d like to visit the cat cafe below is a map with it’s location:
The cat cafe is conveniently located in Nottingham and you can find out more details about them on their own website including current opening times.
More of the cats at the time of our visit will up soon!
The coastal hamlet of Westport is a well known destination for clammers, fishermen, kite flyers and… cat colony fanciers?! Well this one at least! For me, no trip to Westport is complete without a visit to the abandoned cat colony on the northern most tip of town to try and spy one of the few dozen felines dwelling within the vast seawall.
THE GREAT CATWALL
Crazy Cat Person Monument
Stretching from Lost Sailor’s Memorial at the east end of Neddie Rose Drive to the Observation Tower in the west, the north seawall is home to “The Jetty Cats”. The majority of the Jetty Cats seem to reside near the east end, closer to Lost Sailor’s memorial and the public fishing docks. There is ample parking here as well. Oh, and while you’re visitin’ the sea kittens… The sea wall can also be a productive place to do some fishing when the tide is nice and high. Rock crabs can be abundant as well, but it can be real easy to lose your gear in the rocks… PROTIP: The Jetty Cats can be pretty secretive, so a sighting isn’t always a guarantee, especially if you’re flailing around and yammering on. Be silent and be gentle and your chances to see one will improve.
CARING FOR THE JETTY CATS
Cat’s Cafe
Spaced along portions of the wall are feeding stations built and maintained by volunteer efforts. Basically they’re little cat cafés on poles, each with a metallic anti-raccoon cone keeping unwanted guests from the kitty vittles. Sadly, all of the colony inhabitants are abandoned pets, some of them will still even approach trusted people. A volunteer capture and spay/neuter program prevents unchecked breeding at the colony. If you are interested in learning more or about making donations, contact the Harbor Association of Volunteers for Animals at (360) 942-4716 or write: H.A.V.A, P.O.Box 243, Raymond, WA 98577 http://www.hava-heart.org
MOTORIN’
Looking down the Cat Wall
From the I-5: At Olympia head west on the US101. Bear left onto state Route 8, which becomes the HWY 12 as you continue towards Aberdeen. Once at Aberdeen, head south on the state route 105 which will take you all the way to Westport, follow it north through town to the Sea Kitten’s Lair.
Meow!
HAPPY TRAILS!
ABOUTTHEAUTHOR
Harry Biped is a life long northwesterner, outdoor adventure maven, cat lover, gardener, musician and antique store junky. He currently works as a garbageman in Seattle, WA and writes when he gets a few spare minutes.
There are a lot of cats living on the street all over the world. And, one of the European city, Riga is not an exception. There are hundreds of feral cats. One of the local cat care non-profit organization decided to show the world street cats who deserve our love, care and attention.
Cat Care Community has spent the last year making the photos and helping street cats find real loving home. Photographing cats has been the main key to bringing the world that each of the cat has a story to tell.
Many people argue about that street cats are not safe for humanity, but there are different Trap-Neuter-Return programs, that works great and helps to control population and health problems of street cats. What do you think about street cats?
