Sunday Censure

Mowzers, Mommy, you're in trouble now!

Caturday PhotoHunt: Flamboyant

Allie's taste in neckwear can verge on the flamboyant:

"noticeable because of brightly colored or unusual style" (Webster's)

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We're also participating in the Weekend Cat Blogging blog hop...

...and the Saturday Pet Blogger Hop, hosted by Baby Patches, Life with Dogs and Two Little Cavaliers.

Flirty Friday - and a WINNER!

Maxie's best Joey Tribbiani: "How you doin'?"

And in case you're not familiar with the reference, perhaps this will help:
;-)

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We have a winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered last Friday's giveaway for The Honest Kitchen's Quiet Tea.
We used random.org to select the winner, and that would be:

Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, 

Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo - 

the kitties at The Cat On My Head. Concatulations!

And we promised to report back on how Quiet Tea worked for both Sushi and Yaz.

Sushi seems to like it (which his owner thinks is a great bonus) and he does seem to positively respond to it. All the forecasted storms seemed to fade away this week, so we have only had the 4th of July experience as a test. But it yielded positive results, with a much calmer Sushi than they feared they would have on their hands that evening. For a pup who panics easily, this is great news!

Yaz, on the other hand, is one tightly wound doggy. And fireworks simply scare him to death. To help take the edge off, his owner served him Quiet Tea three times that day. Yet the fireworks so terrorized him that he had to be wrapped in his thundershirt and held in his mom's lap, just to keep him from jumping out of his skin.

Bottom line, your mileage may vary based on how excitable your pet is in stressful situations. But since Quiet Tea is made of the same great ingredients that people have been recommending for years to help humans lower their stress levels, we feel pretty sure that it can help many a pet.

So, Kitties Blue, please report back to us and tell us how it works for you. And congratulations again on winning!

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Many thanks again to The Honest Kitchen for graciously offering readers this opportunity. We were not compensated in any way for this post, other than the free sample of Quiet Tea that we were given. We passed it on to friends who evaluated it for us and reported back, as you see in the post above.

Thursday Trivia: When the Cat's Away

"When the cat's away, the mice will play."

In other words, when the boss isn’t around, the workers will play hooky!

Now there's a concept a cat would have a hard time understanding. No cat ever altered his behavior around a supervisor, that's for sure!

So where does this phrase originate?

Mouse, meet cat!

In the book, “Proverbs Speak Louder Than Words,” author Wolfgang Mieder states the phrase can be traced back to medieval Latin – Dum felis dormit, mus gaudet et exsi litantro, 'When the cat falls asleep, the mouse rejoices and leaps from the hole'.

From there, it was translated into the vernacular language of most European countries. Its earliest written form dates back to the early 14th century with this French iteration: Ou chat na rat regne, 'Where there is no cat, the rat is king'.

But its most famous historical usage is by the Bard himself, in the play Henry the Fifth:

Westmoreland, speaking with King Henry V, 
Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter and Warwick

"But there's a saying very old and true,
'If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin:'

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
To tear and havoc more than she can eat. "

What we found most fun about this particular phrase was to see how its exact translation varies from country to country:

French: Quand le chat n'est pas là, les souris dansent.
(word for word: When the cat isn't there, the mice dance)

Finnish: Kun kissa on poissa, hiiret hyppivät pöydällä
(When the cat is away, the mice are jumping on the table)

Russian: Без кота мышам раздолье. [bez kata mysham razdolje]
(Without a cat there is freedom/spaciousness for mice)

Portuguese: quando o gato sai, os ratos fazem a festa
(literally, when the cat goes out, the mice/rats make a party

Turkish:  Kedi olmayınca fareler cirit atar
(literally, when the cat doesn't exist, the mice throw javelins)


We like the Turkish version best, how about you?

Allie: "I never met a mouse I didn't like." (of course, pink ones are even better!)

No matter what language you use, one thing is abundantly clear.
Without the cat, chaos reigns!

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Sources:

“Proverbs Speak Louder Than Words,” Wolfgang Mieder, Jul 23, 2008, page 125. Phrases.org
Word Reference Forums 
Bookbrowse.com

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

We present: Pussycat Privations

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'Toon Tuesdays

Ah the joys of pet ownership. Pooper scoopers and litterboxes!

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Toon Tuesdays feature cat & dog cartoons made by the peeps over at Shoebox Greetings (a tiny little division of Hallmark) - where our mom works, too!

Still too cool for paws? No!

We've enjoyed a very wet and mild spring so far, and our summer's not been too bad, either. Because of that, it becomes easy to forget how quickly paved surfaces can become hot. It happens far more rapidly than you may realize.

We researched this through the US National Library of Medicine, and found three studies at the National Institutes of Health that prompted us to create this graphic. Please feel free to share this - if it saves even one dog from injury, it's worth it!
 

Please click the infographic to see a larger version.

35 seconds - thirty five! - and you have a second degree burn. 

And while a wooden deck may not be a 'perfect black body' like asphalt is, (the scientific term for a surface that absorbs heat most efficiently) even wood can be too hot for the paws of a dog or cat to handle. So when our cats go walkabout in their harnesses on a hot summer day, I'm careful to set them down in shady spots, or in the grass. 

When in doubt, invoke the 7 Second Rule: if the back of your hand can't take the heat, your pet's paws can't either.