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News Briefs 03-10-2007

Warp speed, Number One… engage.

Quote of the Day:

October
And Kingdoms rise
And Kingdoms fall
But you go on…

U2, “October”

  1. Comparisons!
    Tell you what – my 6 lb Siamese cat could outdo a Smilodon any time!!! By gross accident she bit my hand 3 times (I think she mistook it for a snake’s head in the half-dark one night – either that or she was having a retro-dream of a past incarnation as a giga-cat). 3 courses of double-strength anti-biotics, multiple antiseptic dressings and 6 months of a swollen, aching hand finally undid the damage – plus the many apologies I received from her on a daily basis!! I’m pleased it was my hand she fanged onto and not my throat.

    Regards, Kathrinn

        1. Once bitten…
          Is biting some kind of cat behaviour that means something?

          Nevermind, it means the cat is annoyed. Which is odd, because the cat bites when she’s purring. After the bite, I stop playing and petting, and withdraw my hand — and the cat butts my hand with her head, still purring like a finely-tuned engine, wanting to be petted again. Geez, make up your mind cat!

          1. I knew a dog like that!
            It was the dog of my very first employer, a Siberian Husky named Bashi. The guy took her every day to the “office”, and she always entered the room I was working at with her ball on the mouth. She would sit completely still but I tried to ignore her, until she started barking demanding attention, and would not stop until I reluctanctly throw the ball a couple of times.

            But other times she would lie on her backside, waiting for a god tummy-rub, and I would comply since I really LOVE dogs; but the moment she perceived I was going to remove my hand, that’s when she bit me! to letting me know I wasn’t done yet!!

            What can I say? Some animals like it rough. 😉

            —–
            It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
            It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

            Red Pill Junkie

          2. Geez, make up your mind cat!
            Well, it is a well known fact that women prefer cats. Go guess why? (joke flag here)

            I have 2 cats (females).

            What I noticed, especially with one of the two, is that when she wants to play, she will bite. Not really bite, just tease with her teeth, and she really seems to love it.

            I can tease her by pulling at her paws, she will try to quickly grab my fingers with her teeth, but very subtly, then try and grab my hand with her paws and start licking it as soon as she has a chance.

            She just moves around following me, hoping for me to offer my hand in pasture and will even lay flat on her back, staring at me and meowing until she gets the tickle.

            The other cat is much less playful and usually, when she shows her teeth, she is annoyed. She won’t bite hard by her standards but I can guarantee you that she has pressure within her jaw!

          3. make up your mind cat!
            When you’re petting a cat, a cat’s bite is its equivalent of a kiss. The cat expects you to let it know if it’s biting too hard by you emiting a high-pitched ‘ouch’ or ‘ouwww’ the instant you feel pain. It will immediately respond by loosening its bite. If it’s biting really hard, and you want to get your point across more forcefully, emit a high-pitched ‘ouwww’ and simultaneously peck it on top of its head with your other index finger. A quick peck with her paw on the top of the head is how a mother-cat communicates displeasure to her kittens, so every cat knows that a head-peck means ‘cut that out right this instant!’

            >>the cat butts my hand with her head

            The cat’s apologizing for offending you, and asking you to resume petting. When you resume, at some point it will bite you again – to express its affection for you and its appreciation for the petting. If it bites hard enough to cause pain, as I said above, it expects you to immediately communicate that pain with a high-pitched ‘ooowww’. They’re really quite bright — it only takes a few times of doing this for them to learn how hard they can ‘kiss’ you without causing you pain.

            After they’ve learned your pain threshold, they’ll only bite you hard enough to cause pain when they’re expressing their annoyance that its come to this kind of bite to get your attention. Instead of complaining, I suggest you apologize for ignoring all the meows and head-butts that doubtlessly preceeded such a bite.

            If you want to really express your affection, try butting foreheads with the cat first thing in the morning. The correct method is to lean down presenting your forehead toward the cat, and as soon as the cat makes contact with its forehead, both of you twist your heads slightly to the side. It’s a once-a-day bonding ritual.

            Kat

          4. Meeeoww!
            [quote]When you’re petting a cat, a cat’s bite is its equivalent of a kiss [/quote]

            That explains why those little buggers make so much ruckus during their wild nights! 🙂

            Seriously, have you seen lions mating on the Discovery channel? The king of the animals has not courtship manners whatsoever (LOL).

            BTW my sister always gets angry with lions.

            “King of the Animals?” she says “All they do all day is sleep, eat, take a dump and f**k!”…

            “…And your point is…WHAT exactly???” I always reply 😉

            GROARRRRRRRRRRRR!!
            —–
            It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
            It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

            Red Pill Junkie

          5. News what news, here kitty kitty
            Hello,

            Why is it that when TDG editors make an effort to present a dozen and more news items, not a word is lost on those, instead people chat away on side issues like here on their pets. This really annoys me, do me a favor and start a blog on pets or whatever but dont pollute the TDGnews with your irrelevant chatter.

            A matter of choice;
            Intimidation, corruption and lies, or serenity, sharing and sincerity.

          6. Grrrrrr 🙂
            I understand your point Rho, but if people DO follow the thread, it might not be that irrelevant to them, right?

            Remember, God is in the little things of life.

            And besides, cats are really cool animals. There’s a reason why the egyptians chose to take their dearly pets with them on their immortal journey. Maybe it is because deep down inside we still carry the memories of our ancesters who had to watch themselves in order to NOT becoming the food of the big felines that preyed on them. Who knows?

            —–
            It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
            It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

            Red Pill Junkie

          7. I started it, Rho. 😉
            Hrmm,

            I started it, Rho. 😉

            Hrmm, maybe the biting is why the Egyptians mummified their cats.

          8. news – what news?
            Rho, I hope you realize that two of TDGs editors are participating in the pet discussion, including the editor of this day’s News Briefs. 😉

            Kat

          9. I like to put my paws worth in here to……
            being a cat lover……and been bitten very badly only 3 weeks ago…….

            Did you know that cats are the only living thing that shares a common gene with all other living things.

            Reading threads are a choice of the reader….no?

            “Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told.”
            LRF.

          10. I’ll send you a tamagotchi,
            I’ll send you a tamagotchi, Anthony.

            Another cat fact: domesticated adult cats are the only ones who meow. Only kittens meow in the wild. Hrmm, domestic cats are probably trying to talk back to their owners — or give them orders.

          11. yet another fact
            the resonance of a cats purrrrr is calming and healing to humans.

            “Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told.”
            LRF.

          12. It’s OK
            It’s OK Rick. As I only became computer literate in the last 18 months, I have enough trouble feeding my PC.

            I’m fanatical about ca … I mean, moderation

            Anthony North

          13. ga ga and bla bla
            Hi Kat,

            And that makes it alright Kat ? I dont think so, i think it detracts that which TDG is supposed to be about. Now i understand that people identify with their pets, that seem so trouble free, maybe they should incarnate into an animal next time.

            I do wonder why you do the news, if you prefer to chat about cats, there are sites geared to just that http://www.chatterhead.net/pet-chat.html or http://cats.about.com/mpchat.htm , so do me a favor and keep TDG to the points which do not include pets.

            A matter of choice;
            Intimidation, corruption and lies, or serenity, sharing and sincerity.

          14. Banter
            Hi Rho,
            As a regular commenter on TDG I hope we all offer some good debates. At times it gets heated, intense. We can go to these limits because we get to know each other’s ways. And the best way of doing that is to see all facets of each other, including humour, and, yes, pets if that’s the way it goes.
            It is otherwise light moments like this thread that allow us to get to the nitty-gritty of the harder issues.

            I’m fanatical about moderation

            Anthony North

          15. personal banter
            Thanks, Anthony.

            I was just about to say that posting and reading comments at TDG is, to paraphrase Luna Lovegood, ‘almost like having friends’. But I hesitated, wondering how I was going to explain what I meant.

            If nothing else, getting to know someone’s personal interests, sense of humor, etc., makes it easier to understand what they’re saying when they talk about TDG-related material.

            Kat

          16. traditional TDG subjects
            >>…that which TDG is supposed to be about.

            Just over the past 3+ years of this incarnation of the Daily Grail, we editors have posted articles about:

            Oscar the cat that seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are about to die.

            Tommy the Hero Cat that Called 911 to Help his Ill Owner.

            A new bred of anti-allergenic cats.

            Jack, the seven-kilogram, orange-and-white, clawless kitty that chased a black bear up a tree – twice.

            Macavity The Mystery Cat that catches the No 331 bus several mornings a week from the same stop, and always gets off two stops later.

            A cat and dog who saved their human companions from house fires.

            A cat stuck in wall that waved its paw through a hole in the wall for help.

            B flat Nora, the piano-playing cat.

            Psychic pets like the cat that disappears when her owners go on vacation each year, yet arrives back at home on the day they return; and a cat that curls up next to the phone just before a family member calls, but never any other time.

            The amazing Kuzya the cat , who journeyed 1,335 miles through the Taiga, Siberia’s enormous wilderness.

            Mr. Frisky, the cat that dragged in a new theory on ancient stone burial cairns – in Catness.

            World’s first cloned cat had kittens – the old-fashioned way.

            Forget the old boy meets girl story. How about cat starts fire , dog saves owner, dog dies while trying to save cat. Perhaps proving that there is no such thing as a just and compassionate god.

            Emily, the cat that flew all over the world – and made it back home.

            If your aging cat has bats in the belfry, it may be suffering from feline Alzheimer’s.

            Psychic searches for missing cats.

            And a British cat who was in the pink.

            Don’t even get me started on the bear stories (or worse, the drop-bear stories), the giant pet pythons-in-the-Everglades stories, the stampeding buffalo, the parrot stories, or the numerous large mystery-cat sightings in the UK and US. We’ve even posted an article about a robot mouse with real, if cybernetic, whiskers.

            Greg’s talked about his moggie who regularly knocks over the kitchen trash can. Rick’s talked about how hard it is to type when you have a cat insisting she sit in front of your monitor. He’s even thanked a cat at the end of his News Briefs – for pointing out an article he posted.

            We’ve heard numerous stories about Archdake’s cat, Hairball – who aspires to be either an astronaut or emperor of the world, I forget which. Floppy’s mentioned the growing cat population at Talgai. Xibalba’s told us about Max. Somebody has a cat named Stinky. Pam told us about losing her cat due to the melamine-tainted cat food. We’ve even had deep discussions about the nature of cat’s souls, and the possibility that they reincarnate.

            >>… so do me a favor and keep TDG to the points which do not include pets.

            In light of the list of articles above, and the fact that I’ve volunteered 12-20 hours a week at TDG for approximately the last 5 years, my short but sweet answer to that is, ‘I don’t think so.’

            Kat

          17. BRAVO!
            Wow, that is the most amazing post I have ever seen here at TDG. Our conversation about cats may prove we’re all reincarnations of Ancient Egyptians (or Thai royalty, they do love their Korats). Even more amazing is the plethora of animal stories we’ve posted here. I think there were some elephant stories, and my post about polars bears caused Anonymous to choke on his coffee. There might even be an aardvark story somewhere. TDG — it’s a wilderness out there. 😉

      1. that would be claws.
        Unless you’re taking about VAMPIRE lions (Panthera Nosferatu) 🙂

        —–
        It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
        It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

        Red Pill Junkie

      2. Very interesting, Richard
        I didn’t know that about lion’s claws. Siamese have a problem retracting their claws also – they never really vanish like an other-breed cat’s claws.

        But – it would be totally fascinating if lions really were dogs. The reason I say this is because I don’t understand why everyone always assumes that the Sphinx is representative of a lion – it could just as easily be a statue of a dog (except for the redesigned head, of course). This might be particularly apt as the Egyptians were so hung up over the heliacal rising of Sirius the Dog Star. If you have a good look at the tail on the Sphinx, it bears no resemblance to that of a lion. Check it out sometime.

        Regards, Kathrinn

        1. Sphinx tail
          Very observent, Kathrinn.

          I did check it out and you are quite right. Both the male and the female African lion have a tuft at the end of the tail; the tail of the Sphinx is rounded. However, dogs’ tails are usually tapered and not Sphinx-like. The tail of the Sphinx appears to me as that of a leopard or a cheetah or even a domestic cat.

          BTW, I detest domestic cats. They torture and kill other animals for the joy of it rather than for food. I choose not to keep company with anything so murderous and bloodthirsty. I perfer the chicken snakes in the hay barn to control the rats over a cat. The snakes don’t bite me.

          Bill

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