Pandas are cute, but they've never been known for their grace. If you give them an enrichment activity or a toy to play with, they will get so excited they forget how to stand up. So enjoy a supercut of adorable but clumsy giant pandas falling down, from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.
It's a good thing these critters are round and fluffy. And they seem to bounce fairly well. -via Tastefully Offensive
Boston Terrier's are little bundles of energy who will literally run themselves in circles to expend that energy so they don't explode like a little doggy grenade.
Their boundless energy also cause them to act in strange and unpredictable ways, as demonstrated by Riley the Boston Terrier who sometimes likes to pretend she's a shark.
Riley asked the other dogs on Instagram if they liked to pretend to be a shark too, to which they replied they'd rather pretend to be a waste disposal unit, a royal food taster or a squirrel but never a shark. I guess Riley swims to the beat of her own drum!
-Via Laughing Squid
In 1895, Marvin R. Clark published the essential cat dictionary, called Pussy and Her Language. The 150-page guide is full of cat facts, stories, and fanciful prose about felines, in an era when cats didn't get all that much respect. You can learn a lot from this book, about cats or, more precisely, about how Clark felt about cats.
11. There are 17 vital cat vocabulary words
12. Cats have French accents
“The word ‘purrieu’… is a note of self-satisfaction and content… give attention to the number of vowels and the Frenchman’s roll of the liquid ‘r,’ so that it comes to the ear like ‘pur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rieu,’ with a gradually ascending inflection.”
13. Cats can get very mad
“The word ‘yew,’ when uttered as an explosive, is the Cat’s strongest expression of hatred, and a declaration of war… The word ‘yow’ means extermination from the face of the earth.”
Atlas Obscura selected the twenty most interesting lessons about cat communication from Pussy and Her Language. You can also read the entire book online.
Chris Pool made a maze for his cats Cole and Marmalade. Lucky cats! This is a project so simple anyone can do it. And if you have more than one cat, the floor show that ensues will be worth the effort.
What's great about this idea is that it's modular. If you have the room, you can set up all 50 boxes, or 25, or ten, and put them in a different order each time. If the boxes are all square, like these, rearranging them would be very simple. -via Tastefully Offensive
A. Stiffler and K. Copeland have adopted a new cat. Nix was an adult feral cat with cerebellar hypoplasia that was taken in by a shelter. He has adjusted to domestic life quite well. See more of Nix, both in comic form and in photographs, at Chaos Life.
See also: Previous posts about cats with cerebellar hypoplasia.
The cat sneezed for 15 minutes straight, according to redditor withagecomesnerdines. Then he finally found a clue as to her troubles. A tiny patch of green in her nose. It was a blade of grass! So he pulled it out.
My goodness. That had to be a relief for the poor cat. The joke, of course, is that you're not supposed to snort grass, you're supposed to smoke it. Others have speculated that the cat was probably eating the grass, but instead of going down to her stomach, the blade went up into her nasal cavity. She's all better now. If your cat won't stop sneezing, you might want to look in its nose.
Rescue a wild animal once and you're an animal lovin' hero, but when you have to rescue the same wild animal over and over again it's time to wonder whether natural selection is trying to take its course.
Because there must be something wrong with a wild critter who keeps landing in a heap of trouble only a human can rescue them from, right?
Well, maybe the raccoon Dmitry Tkachenko keeps rescuing, the one he calls Sneaky Pete, is like one of those hapless characters you see in the cartoons- a well-meaning goofball who can't seem to take ten steps without falling flat on their face.
Dmitry says he has been rescuing Sneaky Pete from the trash bin approximately 5 times a week since July 2016, when Pete was but a wee trash panda:
This silly trash panda needs rescuing approximately 5 times a week. Hopefully he’ll remember my kindness and take care of me when I get old.
-Via Laughing Squid
Tom Otto and Shaun Sears are professional arborists (tree guys) and cat lovers. The brothers-in-law volunteer to rescue cats that are stuck in trees. See, in Washington state, the trees can be very tall, and cats can be very scared once they get too high. Firefighters aren't equipped for that kind of height, even if they had the time to rescue cats.
Their project is called Canopy Cat Rescue. Since they don't charge owners for rescuing their cats, the organization relies on donors. -via Tastefully Offensive
You don't have to be a die-hard cat lover to adopt a shelter cat and give them a new home, but you have to be a mega-fan of felines to put in the time and effort necessary to befriend a feral cat.
This is especially true if you're an avid bird watcher like Backyard Birder and the feral cat you're befriending has been killing the fine feathered friends in your area:
A beautiful feral cat starts hunting backyard wildlife – a dilemma for animal lovers! I decide to watch, film and try to get to know this wild creature and see if a win-win solution is possible.
Stopping a feral cat's killing spree by befriending it is truly compassionate, and as you can see in this video by Backyard Birder he is a very compassionate man, and his efforts helped save the lives of cat and birds and squirrels alike.
Backyard Birder's first feral cat encounter took place in 2014, and the feral cat in the video was later caught by the city and adopted.
A year later another feral cat came strolling into his backyard but this smooth operator only worked at night, so Backyard Birder simply observed and documented the night prowler's actions.
-Via Laughing Squid
Film maker Pei Yan Heng was at the beach in Cyrene Reef, Singapore in 2013 when he stumbled upon an octopus stranded far above the water line. Pei filled up a cup of water and scooped up the octopus before releasing him back into the sea. After taking a moment to recover, the octopus went to his rescuer's shoe and hugged it with his tentacle in a sincere thank you gesture.
Via Laughing Squid
A litter of eight baby hedgehogs (hoglets) became orphans when their mother was killed in a lawnmower accident. The hoglets were found and taken to a lactating cat named Musya.
Musya nurtures and feeds the hoglets like they were her own. She might have a little difficulty in grooming them. She probably feels sorry for these ugly kittens. -via Laughing Squid
Is your cat a style maven? Well then he or she is probably having a hissy fit that you didn't bring him or her to the annual Algonquin Hotel Cat Fashion Show in New York. As always, the fashions were top notch and the kittens cute as possible.
The fun event isn't just to celebrate kitty couture, it's also a fundraiser to support the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals. Over $12,000 was raised between ticket sales and a silent auction and three kitties were adopted from the group's adoption van stationed outside.
See more pictures from the event at Gothamist.
Look at the smile on this little dog! Eurosaurus is a white Jack Russell with an "unusual bite pattern." That's a euphemism for what we once called "snaggle teeth." But Euro looks like she's smiling even when her teeth don't show at all. She lives a dog's life in Thailand with her owner Sumitra Jiawiphat and three other Jack Russell terriers. That smile has made Eurosaurus an Instagram star. See a selection of her best photos at Buzzfeed and follow her Instagram feed. -via Metafilter
Everybody knows bears have insatiable appetites, and they put in hours of work every day just to keep their bellies full, but did you know they'll resort to breaking and entering just to score a free meal?
That's why people in bear country keep their doors locked tight and stay on alert for furry home invaders, like the hungry guy in these photos who smelled brownies cooking and tried to invite himself in.
The Connecticut woman who was accosted by this uninvited ursine guest says he was a persistent little bastard, trying every which way to get in and get at those delicious brownies:
“He actually left the kitchen area and went to the second set of doors off the deck,” Belfiore told WFSB. “And tried those and then went to the third set of doors into the living room and attempted to get into those.”
-Via design you trust
Seeing amazing wild animals can be a highlight of any vacation -especially if you actually get to interact with the creatures in a meaningful way. But some animal encounters benefit the local wildlife while others harm it. That's why you should do your research before participating in such an activity. Fortunately, Travel and Leisure rounded up some of the most popular animal encounters from around the world so you know what's good for the animals and what's not. For exmaple, while visiting Kenya's Giraffe Manor is a great idea, swimming with dolphins isn't.
So check out the full list at Travel and Leisure
