Chris Poole has a tutorial on keeping your cats happy, with the help of the world’s luckiest cats, Cole and Marmalade.
Cats can’t help but be happy when they’ve got an outdoor enclosure, rooms full of toys, good food, fresh catnip, each other to play with, and loving owners to snuggle with. I’ll never have that much infrastructure, but I will think about planting some catnip next year. -via Tastefully Offensive
Squirrels are chatty little critters, but they don't talk much around humans because they're afraid of being captured or killed, that is, until a human becomes their best friend by giving them food.
Then that human gets to hear the funny way a squirrel expresses its gratitude- in a strange, nasal kind of voice that almost sounds like words we can understand.
K. John Stewart provided the voice over squirrel translation in this video, but Ramon the squirrel would like everyone to know that K.'s translation is correct. Here's the transcript:
Hello there, I am a fat little squirrel sitting on your porch. Thank you very much for giving me these delicious walnuts. I like them very much. You are a nice person. I will be sure to come back tomorrow to get some more walnuts. You are my favorite person in the neighborhood. I like you like you love you…
-Via Laughing Squid
Jun Yoshizuki of Jun's Kitchen charmed us last year by showing us how to make Fluffy Omurice. Everyone noticed his beautiful and well-behaved cat. Now he prepares a special meal for his cat Kohaku.
From the YouTube page:
I normally cook a meal like this for Kohaku once a year on his birthday, but since I got a lot of requests to make a food for him, I decided to make this video. I’m going to make meals for human from next time. If you want to make a meal for your cats, please do research on which ingredients are okay to use. Also, make sure not to feed too much nor too often since it’s difficult to make a meal that are nutritious enough for cats.
And then he posts the recipes, in case you want to treat your cat, too! -via Tastefully Offensive
This poor little mud-covered puppy was discovered by workers at a construction site in London. He was quickly sent to the nearest vet -the South Essex Wildlife Hospital to be cleaned up and saved, but after a little shampoo, his rescuers were shocked by what they found underneath.
That's right, the poor little muddy, debris-covered pup was actually an adorable little fox kit. Puppy or not, I'm sure this little cutie was happy to be rescued from his filthy cocoon.
Via PetsLady
Birds of prey are the ultimate predators, but they're also incredibly intelligent birds with extremely keen eyesight and legs so strong they can carry off small animals close to their same weight.
But nothing in the raptor's reportoire is quite as impressive as their acrobatic flying skills, which falconers like Sjors Van de Wiel love to show off at bird shows like the Topvogel falconry show in Diessen, Netherlands.
Here Sjors demonstrates that hawks are such precision flyers they can zip through tight spaces, like the space between two people, without ruffling a feather.
-Via Laughing Squid
Scrattie, like most dogs, doesn’t know where the destination will be when they get in the car. Often it’s just errands. Every once in a great while, they go to the dreaded veterinarian. But as soon as they make that left turn, Scrattie realizes they are going to the dog park!
Oh, joyous day! Oh, what a happy dog! This is even better than when Navin Johnson got his name in the phone book. -via Viral Viral Videos
Snakes get a bad rap what with being slithery and some of them being deadly and all, but that doesn't mean they can't be cute. If you aren't quite sure you can accept this as fact, you won't want to miss this precious video of a baby boa playing in his sandbox. Don't turn it off before the very end or you might miss the cutest part.
Warning: this footage is disturbing, on its way to a happy ending. It’s pretty nerve-wracking to see how many vehicles passed so close to a kitten that had fallen out of a vehicle, or even drove over it. Luckily none of them actually squashed the poor thing before a good Samaritan stopped to save it. Even he’s not sure at first whether the kitten is alive. It was obviously terrified stiff.
This sequence of CCTV footage is from the town of Kaliningrad, Russia. The guy is our hero, even though he might not even know about the video. -via Uproxx
Ragdoll cats are all the rage in the last few years. They are big and fluffy and go limp when you pick them up. Artist and animator Simon Tofield tells us more about the breed, because he’s been drawing ragdolls.
I had a cat once that everyone insisted was a ragdoll, but I think she may have been a breeder’s reject because while she had all the other specifications, she wasn’t large. But she went limp just like the best of them.
They don't call them cat burglars for nothing, and a cat's thievery skills are an inspiration to crooks who want to commit crimes quietly and slink away scot-free.
But cats know nothing about the human legal system so they don't care if they get caught, and they can't help but show off all the stuff they've been boosting to their humans, which is how they get caught.
A shifty little kitty named Dory, aka Ninja Kitty or the Bad Kitty Bandit, has been prowling around a neighborhood in Washington stealing anything she can get her paws on, including two whole pairs of shoes.
Dory has the whole neighborhood scared to leave anything on their porch at night, but some of the residents must think it's an honor to have their stuff stolen by such a crafty little cat, right?
-Via NBC4
Mastiffs could pretty much have their breed's name changed to massive and never miss a beat, because they're one of the largest dog breeds both in terms of height and weight.
Baron the English mastiff is at the far end of the size spectrum- he's officially the biggest dog in Australia, measuring 6 foot 6 inches long and weighing in at 250 lbs.
And yet dogs are dogs no matter the size, so of course old Baron thinks he wants to be a lap dog, crushing his owner Mark York like a big, boneheaded lover.
It costs Mark over $200 a week to feed Baron, and believe it or not Baron is only 2 years old so he may end up eating poor Mark out of house and home!
-Via Bored Panda
What’s the most popular hobby among house cats? It has to be birdwatching. These three cats are mesmerized by the bird outside their window. It’s better than any TV show!
And what’s a popular hobby among dogs? Annoying the cats, of course. -via Arbroath
Wildlife conservationists have to be compassionate, patient and creative, because many of the problems they run into aren't easy to solve.
But ingenuity is one of our greatest assets, so we're often able to find solutions and save animals that would otherwise die a needless death.
The veterinary staff at the California Wildlife Center recently rescued a mockingbird with feet that were knuckling bad, leaving the poor bird unable to perch or walk without damaging its feet.
So they came up with a creative solution to this mockingbird's bad foot problem- little snowshoes to help retrain the bird's feet to open and allow the broken bones to heal.
And now the shoes are off and that lucky little mockingbird is on the mend!
You have to be pretty special to get a real swing inside your home. Maru is a world-famous celebrity cat, and he got one! But cats aren’t normally swingers, so this new contraption presented quite a puzzle to him. He doesn’t know what it is, but he knows he wants to get on it. Is he up to the challenge? You bet he is!
Lesser cats would have given up after a few failures, but lesser cats are not Maru. After many attempts, over who-knows-how-long, he masters the art of climbing onto the swing. That’s our Maru! -via Tastefully Offensive
Blossom (pictured on the left) came into the care of the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, New York. Her eyes were so infected that they were ultimately removed. Blossom was taken in by Howard Stern and his wife Beth, who regularly foster cats until an adoptive home is found for them. Susan Smith and her family heard about Blossom and decided to adopt her, because they knew what they were getting into. They already had four blind cats! Now Blossom is right at home after a year with the Smiths and their other blind cats Ray, Cookie, Sabrina, and Donovan (Donovan also has cerebellar hypoplasia). The family has a seeing cat and a dog as well. Blossom and her cat colony are able to do pretty much anything sighted cats do. You can follow their lives at Instagram. -via Fark
