Important PSA on Catnip Dangers!

This public service announcement should be seen by every cat and cat parent. Stop the cycle of abuse!

CATNIP: EGRESS TO OBLIVION

Seriously, the CrazyKittyDad stumbled across this short film and said, "You have to see this." I laughed out loud several times. I recognized many of the good trip/bad trip reactions from seeing them in my own cats!

This short film really captures the feel of the old warning educational films made in the '60s and '70s. Filmmaker Jason Willis debuted it at the Sundance Film Festival this week. I'm looking forward to checking out some of his other work.

CrazyKittyChick has a new Dyson vacuum!

I love my new Dyson vacuum cleaner. It's a DC24 multi-floor, and I bought on Black Friday.

I have used it at least four times since then. Now, you have to understand, CrazyKittyChick is not crazy about housework, so plugging in the vacuum four times in 10 days is probably a record for me.

Dyson, how do I love thee?

The DC24 is not just a vacuum cleaner. It's a transformer. The view you see at left is when the vacuum is at rest. The handle extends a couple of feet to make it easy to maneuver. You can also unplug the handle, flip it around, and hook it onto a flexi-tube that allows you to get under furniture, and behind things. It also allows you to reach the ceiling to clean the corners and the ceiling fans. It has a brushy attachment, that is also a sort of "scoop" attachment on its other setting.

It doesn't use bags; you just empty the canister. It's a small canister, so I have to empty it quite frequently, but that's just because up to now, I haven't vacuumed very often. I think that if and when I ever get caught up, like the entire house is finally clean, the maintenance wouldn't be so bad.

Also, it has two filters that can be washed and reused over and over again. Amazing!

"Years ago," eh?

My husband looked at the Dyson display in one of the stores over the weekend, and he spotted a Dyson DC33, which has a canister probably three times the size of the DC24, and the retail price on both is the same.

"Why didn't you get the one with the bigger canister?" he asked.

"A couple of stores did have the DC33 on sale Black Friday," I said, "But I went to the Dyson website and asked which vacuums are recommended for pets and allergies. The DC24 came up; the DC33 did not."

Now, upon review, the DC24 has two models - the Animal, which comes with special attachments for getting pet hair out of upholstery; and the Multi-Floor, which is the same vacuum, but without the special attachment. I have the latter.

Still, the DC24 being smaller is really easy to maneuver, and it's not too big a pain to empty the canister every few minutes.

If you hate vacuuming, try a Dyson. It may change your mind.

Poor Remy is a Frankenkitty

Last Friday morning, I was giving Remy and Trickster their pills and morning snack when I noticed two wounds on Remy's back foot. Tim said he'd been fine the night before; Remy always sits on the arm of the couch next to Tim while he watches a DVD. I hadn't noticed anything on Thursday night either; I got in from work about 11:30pm and gave everyone some dry food. We have storage tubs stair-stepped around their room, and Remy had jumped up to the top level - pretty much my eye level, so I'm sure I would have noticed a bloody wound.

Conveniently, I was on the night shift again Friday, so I bundled Remy into a carrier and took him to the vet. He confirmed that Remy appeared to have caught his foot on something sharp, and he said it was bad enough that he needed stitches. When I got home, I looked everywhere I could think of, around all his favorite spots, thinking I would see a bit of skin or hair, or spots of blood, or something to indicate how he'd hurt himself.

Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Tim picked him up when he got off work at 5pm, and he looked around some more. Then we both moved things around and looked on Saturday. Now it's Monday, and we still haven't figured it out. ::sigh:: We'd both feel better if we knew the hazard was taken care of.

"Great. Now she's taking pictures, too."

On Friday, as soon as Tim got home, he dressed Remy in the Bloody Wound Hat. You know, the plastic cone that's supposed to keep a cat or dog from picking at stitches or over-cleaning wounds. On Saturday morning, I saw that our cone was too short, and indeed Remy was able to reach his foot. Darn it! So, while I kept an eye on Remy and stopped him every time he reached for his foot, Tim went to at least four stores looking for a bigger E-collar.

Aside: Do you know why those plastic cones are called E-collars? It's short for Elizabethan collar, because it calls to mind the wide, stiff lace ruffs worn around the neck in the time of the first Queen Elizabeth.

Tim said the raw area looked larger on Saturday evening than he remembered from Friday. If Remy was licking it all night, then he probably took off some of the hair around it, which was short anyway, because they shaved the area before stitching him up.

Saturday night it looked very raw.

We talked about me taking him back to the vet this morning, just to have it checked out, but I think we have done this every time someone has had to have stitches for something, and it's always fine. Even when Mah-mah started sloughing off skin after her cancer surgery, it wasn't in the first couple of days and it was pretty obvious something was wrong.

I took new photos today, and asked Tim to come look at them side by side on the computer, but he declined. He said if it looked better to me, that's fine. I'm just concerned about dragging Remy into the vet for nothing.

How it looks on Monday.

He's been resting all morning, which is best. At least he'll only have to be alone for three or four hours today. Tomorrow, I'm back to my normal shift, but at least I can come home at lunch and check on him for a few minutes.

The stitches should be able to come out in about two weeks, so he may not have to be a Frankenkitty or an Elizabethan noble for Halloween, just the sweet kitty he is.

Book Review: The Big Kitty (Mystery)

I haven't read many mysteries, but I had the chance to review The Big Kitty by Claire Donally, and how could I resist? It has a clever cat, a winning lottery ticket, a crazy cat lady, and a journalist.

A former journalist agrees to help an elderly woman find her lost lottery ticket, but her mission changes when she finds the woman dead. With one of the woman's many cats as a sidekick, Sunny sets out to solve the murder.

I really enjoyed this book. It's serious, but it's not dark. I especially liked the way Donally captured Shadow the cat's personality.

My full review is posted at Fresh Fiction. I'm thrilled to be one of their newest reviewers. They work with the publishers and send me free books to read, and all I have to do is tell people what I think of them. Sweet!

I have another cat mystery on my bedside table and a couple of others are in the mail. I'll continue to post mini-reviews here with links to the full reviews on FreshFiction.com.

Adorable Big-Eared Kittens!

Look at these babies!

They are sand cats, born at a zoo in Tel Aviv.

They've been extinct in Israel for years; the kittens are the result of a European breeding program.




The sand cats' big ears help them dispense heat, and they can live on very little water.

Aren't they adorable?

You can see more photos and watch a video about the Sand Cats at Mother Nature Network.