This and other incredible critter pics at: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/incredible-photos-of-animals-from-2011

Finally, a book shelf for cats who aren’t tall enough to read past the bottom shelf. This piece of furniture is very close to perfect, but alas is impossible to find for sale. Learn about this up and coming cat furniture designer by clicking the picture.

Soft and sweet

You have sharp things

On your feet.

Kitty Kitty

Oh so snuggely

Slash my face

And things get ugly.

It was a long hard move, but for the cats it was definately worth it. 

Pictures and mores posts coming soon, dear readers….

Even back in the day, Jack London’s dog had to leave town to get a convincing earful.  But what can you expect of a big slobbering dog?  Housecats are by nature more attuned to the summoning sounds of unleashed freedom.  They can hear it in virtually anything, from the door creaking open to the littlest cry of the smallest nuthatch or chickadee.

What is freedom? Oh the college papers I wrote, the class debates I had to try to answer that one, and yet, am I any closer to an answer? Of course not. If I wanted to ask a question that I could actually answer, much less actually experience, I would have asked:  What is freedom to a cat?

Freedom to a cat is quite simply whatever lies on the other side of the closed door.  Isn’t that simple?

Cats seem to inherently understand that unanswerable ponderings of the nature of freedom isn’t making anyone any more free.  They also seem to deeply grok that a closed door is a far better obstruction to said freedom than what most people have to work against.  For how can you possibly expect to experience freedom if you hardly define it, whereas all a cat has to do is sneak outside between your legs at the right moment as you are coming or leaving.  Really, cats are pretty smart about this whole freedom subject.

Speaking of freedom, there was a time in my life when I did not feel like a feline prison guard.  Initially, the house I live in was not referred to as Kitty San Quentin but was called seriously and with no trace of irony “The Cat Palace.”  In other words, my cats idea of freedom has seriously impinged on my freedom.  But at least I can still open the door myself – take that, my little thumbless inmates.

The Kitty Camping Season is officially off and running! The Association of Camping Kitties (ACK) has formally declared July as Cat Camping month.

ACK veterans like Brody and Herman need not be told.  They know it will soon be time, time to hide (aka “pack”) the leashes and break out the kitty barbeque set.

Send your humans to the outdoor store for the squeeter juice and cat GORP and get ready for the wildest, craziest camping trip of your cats’ lives.  It’s been a long, cold, hard winter, and we need some serious sleeping under the stars to try and forget it.

Ahh, the midnight meadow-mouse nature walks, the mornings blending into evenings lazing about in the tent, the visit from the campground peacock…

These camping expeditions really revive kittys’ batteries for another relentless year of cat 9-to-5.

What’s this hare stuff? It’s the year of the Cat, and here at Self Help for Cats, we plan to celebrate it 365 days straight.  But what does it mean to celebrate cats to people who already worship them? Well, we’re going to find out this year! So bring on the cat champagne and the human catnip!  We’ll be eating wet food from champagne flukes and reading our fortune cookies in meowish.  Bring the kitties to the Chinese New Years Parade in San Francisco, and let them ride on our shoulders and be adored.  It is trully the year of the cat!

These cat fashionistas know when to work and when to party — and it’s time to party if you can’t tell!  The latest catreprenuerial concept to hit the big time has a lot to celebrate headed into the new year looking sexy and feeling on top of the world.  With top role models like these. watch out Victoria’s Cat’s Secrets!

Sure enough, I had awoken to the horrible sounds of another battle-supreme between the two cats who otherwise can’t get enough (sleep on top) of each other.  The “brothers” who are not related, the boys who fill our days with joys have lately become a troubled duo.  Call them Paul and John, they ain’t getting along, at least not all the time like they used to.

As a result of this recent conflict, Brody has developed a cat scream so ludicrously pained and tortured that you are sure he’s being subjected to the kitty equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition or similarly perverse torment event.  But instead of on the rack, I always find him after one of his cacophonous battle screeches locked in a mere stalemate with Panther, and I wonder: how much of my work in the performing arts have really effected my cats?  Is he really getting hurt or is he acting the drama kitty queen to send us running?  Or, possibly, have my interludes into aria singing led to the beginning of a new art form altogether — the cat opera!?

Well, it all has me and Hank singing the battling-cat blues, and wondering what to do with a spoiled little fat cat named Panther who has turned into a raging bitch over his new need-to-slim-down-or-get-sick diet.  Damn cat doesn’t know a pecking order if it came and nailed him on the nose, which it has, ala Brody, more than once.  Panther is a good case for kitty prozac, possibly, but first we’re gonna try every holistic approach we can find.  The problem is serious, and humor only helps so much.

So, we’re going to seek some professional help with all the loads of cash we have lying around over here, what with the economy being so good. In the meantime, I found this list of “holistic approaches” to cat aggression.  I’m going to try some of them, although holding a magnet to Panther’s head for 20 minutes a day also seems fairly extreme as far as home remedies are concerned.